While I am grateful for the job application invites to become a pizza delivery or Lyft driver, call center representative, warehouse associate, insurance agent, receptionist, dog walker or pet sitter, day care worker, financial advisor, sales representative, machinist, and more, I remain fixated on my dream to return to a career that puts my background and education to best use. And after experiencing an extremely low emotional start this week, these words of inspiration received from Arnold Schwarzenegger (by way of Alexa's Inspire Me skill) helped remind me to stay focused on my vision, give 100%, and never stop believing that my dream will happen.
Thanks, Arnie. I'll be back - most definitely.
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When Phil, Job Seeker Advocate from ZipRecruiter.com, suggested I was a "great fit!" for a local Pizza Hut Delivery Driver opportunity, I lost all faith in his ability to match job skill-strengths with actual employment openings. So either I need to be a little more vigilant about my online food ordering activities or perhaps an online recruiter break-up is in the cards.
Research definitely needed here. As of today, I can safely report that 12 employers are thoughtfully considering hiring me for 19 vacant job positions. And with another phone interview and an online assessment scheduled to happen this week, things are still moving forward, albeit slower than freaking molasses as my dear Grandma would so eloquently state, but without the 'freaking' part. So I'm feeling super-dee-dooper excited about all of the activity and haven't developed an inferiority complex after all, thank goodness. On a completely non-related track, my youngest is pulling in mega-bucks with his first job ever working as a lifeguard, all while enjoying the accolades of his own personal fan club who have voted him to be one of the top Mr. King of the Pool candidates (stay tuned - he could win!) and proclaimed him to be their Zac Efron look-a-like, an observation with which I shockingly agree after seeing Baywatch images of Zac sporting similar red lifeguard trunks. This summer just got incredibly REAL.
After applying to my first job via the ZipRecruiter app, I received this encouraging email from my new online job seeker advocate:
Hi, I wanted to reach out to let you know that we received your application for the position at Infotech Technologies. I'll let you know as soon as the hiring manager views it. In the meantime, I found a few similar jobs that I wanted to run by you. If you like any of them, just click the "1-Click Apply" link and I'll go ahead and submit your application using the resume that we already have on file. Last thing - if my matches aren’t quite right, you can easily update your preferred job title and/or location for me here: Improve My Matches Beware of job scams: Requests to cash checks, wire money, and share credit card information are all red flags. Never provide employers with personal or financial information without due diligence. Read more here. Regards, Phil - Job Seeker Advocate 604 Arizona Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90401 So what's a displaced professional web designer to do in the 3 months after her job has been eliminated besides Job-Search-with-a-Vengeance? Pick up another mad web design & development skill, that's what. And what you see in the above image is a screen shot of my first user experience design and interactive prototype using Adobe XD, an all-in-one UX/UI tool for designing websites, mobile apps, and other applications super easily - at least in more of a streamlined process than back in caveman days. The best part? It's completely FREE.
...thus adding Geeking-Out-Like-a-Beast to my current list of spare-time activities. Scary. My dreams have been taking me to strange, unknown places since the recent loss of my job, and last night's experience was no exception. As background, I once worked as an MCI long distance telephone operator while in college and would spend long hours directing phone calls for random callers throughout the USA and beyond. The work was tedious and boring, except perhaps when the caller originated from one of the many penitentiaries that contracted MCI to handle collect calls for inmates - then things got a little messed up.
Flashback to a typical inmate-related phone call: Me: MCI, this is operator 328. May I help you? Inmate: Collect call to ###-###-#### Me: May I have your name? Inmate: Joe. Me: One moment please. (dials number) Callee (feminine voice): Hello? Me: This is the MCI operator and I have a collect call from Joe. Do you accept the charges? Inmate (using a feminine voice): Yes, I accept. Callee: Wait, what? Who's calling me? Inmate (still using that fake feminine voice): I said YES - put the *&^^%! call through! Me: One moment while I connect you with my manager. *arrrrgghh* So after my dream took me back to being employed at that same call center as a long distance operator all over again, I am left with this big huge booming voice screaming in my head: OH HELL NO. So where was I? Right. Job seeking with a vengeance, sans long distance call centers, THANKS VERY MUCH. Feeling feisty to the extreme after submitting 34 job applications to 25 different employers. Also soon to be unrecognizable if this goes on too much longer.
Sensing a tail and fur coat coming on. While this week I was able to 1) collect another unemployment check and 2) score some consulting web design work for a client, the fact that my web work involved updating an online employment board with new job postings screamed: HOW IRONIC in big capital letters. So while feeling fortunate to have the extra side income by posting said web content, I am also wishing one of those job postings would have been relevant to my current job search. *ergh*
Oh well - Onward and Upward! my dear Mom would say... and more time to focus on my tan. Less than 12 hours after I published that last blog post, I received contact from the most recent job search lead with whom I had a couple of interviews last week.
SO. This blog could get really interesting, really fast. *fingers crossed* ... but nothing new to report on the job front at this point. *sigh*
Age discrimination appears to be a real thing. Just sayin'. |
AuthorI am Brenda Swenson and sometimes I blog. Archives
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