Hunting for a Job?

Searching for a job is much like a hunter looking for his next kill. You have to gather and hone in all of your skills to be a success. A job much like an animal you may be hunting will not simply fall into your lap. You have to have a plan of attack and you have to stay vigilant until it is in your sights.

I am a lone hunter not of animals but of prospective positions where I can start where I left off with my last full time employment almost a year ago. I used to make a great salary for a 25 year old male fresh out of graduate school. To me sixety thousand dollars was acceptable. My friends in the same field with less previous work experience were making seventy or more down in Washington, D.C.

There are many tools at my disposal for the search I use a multitude of job search engines such as Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, Indeed, SimplyHired and many others. Sometimes I think this does more harm than it does good. I get a lot of misleading phone calls for jobs that I do not even qualify for. At times I feel as though I am just a quota filler. That they need a particular number of applicants for a reason ill never fully understand. I am hunting for a job that will put me in a similar position to the one I once held.

A hunter cannot be stubborn and I fight with this idea daily. A true hunter is one who hunts for food for a meal and one cannot wait for the porter house steak if all you can find is a rabbit stew. One will satisfy you for a few days while the other will suffice for the time being. I wish for me this was the case. I am told I am over qualified or that my past salary was too high for me to accept a job that pays only forty thousand dollars a year. What they do not understand is that I am living off of my savings and it is running out and I will accept any job. How can I share that while at the same time being told they do not want to hire me?

It is a very confusing time for a job hunter. You find what you would accept and you become humble only to be shot down and rejected? They wont hire me for a forty thousand a year job but I could most likely get an hourly job at the mall? I do not understand how this make sense. However one thing that does help is following up. I make sure that I call back people I have not heard from in a week. Typically common courtesy gets thrown out the window they do not care about you or your feelings. They say sorry the position has been filled and more often then not I want to say why the hell didnt you tell me, send a letter, an email anything?

Common courtesy has become a very uncommon practice in modern society especially during a job hunt. They only care about the bottom line and their own paycheck. Courtesy costs them time and their time is more important than your time. So I say I am not going to be shy I will call them and have closure at the very least I can continue my hunt another day. So stay vigilant and do not give up, I know I wont.

People are Strange

People are strange this is a fact. It is also a song by The Doors. It is true though to the outsider when observing other people you do not know they come off as strange. The funny thing to me is that even people I do know and have known for years especially family are strange to me.

I was raised by my aunt and uncle. Sadly my uncle passed away tragically on vacation in Colorado. He suffered a heart attack and died. After a long day of skiing in the Rockies he decided to go for a job on the treadmill. He was a runner, participating in multiple marathons in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. to name a few. My aunt was a bit on the crazy side then but when she came back from that vacation was never the same.

The strange part is that she never showed any emotion. We never talked about what had transpired or how each other felt. She didnt ask me and I tried to ask her and she would become violently angry and try to move on. I grew behaviors to scream out "I NEED HELP" such as drinking rapid weight loss and never being home. When relatives asked she said that I was fine. The replies would always be fine? How could he be fine?

Instead of asking me however this is why in my opinion people are strange. Even family members can be strange. They took about 4 years later to ask me if I was ok, I still was not ok. I moved out started to live on my own and obtained a job as an Instructional Designer for a Housing developer. After six months I was let go and have not had a full time job in about a year. My family knows I am living off of my savings but do not offer any help.

I have sent them my resumes they are all business people and I have not yet had one phone call. However my cousin needed an internship she has a full ride to Rutgers University and they were very quick to come to her aid. Is it because I am adopted in a sense by my aunt and uncle and not a true member of the family. Sometimes they make me feel like a ghost. To me this is why people are strange, when you're a stranger.