My Search for a Job

The unemployment rate has dropped and the economy seems to be on an upswing however, there are still many people who are jobless. I have been looking for a job since June and still have not found one. It boggles my mind that I’ve only had one interview in the last nine months. I have applied to hundreds if not thousands of jobs.

Some days I spend up to six hours applying to jobs. I have rewritten my cover letter ten times and I often times send a personalized cover letter. I do my research and include things in my cover letter about the company I’m applying to. I don’t understand how it is that I can’t get hired at Target, Home Depot, Old Navy or Best Buy. Its retail, I have 10 years experience in customer service and I include that on my resume and cover letter. My best guess is that employers are not reading the applications or I’m overqualified.

Overqualified or not, I still need a job and obviously if I received a bachelor’s degree I am capable of learning, working hard and meeting deadlines. Those qualities used to count for something. I am tempted to stop putting my bachelor’s degree on applications for retail, just to see if that makes a difference.

The only reason I’m looking into retail is because I can’t find a job in journalism. I have been looking for a writing job for about six years. I tried to get an internship at our local paper every semester I was in college but, it never worked out. I had one interview at a newspaper in La Grange and yesterday the position I applied for and interviewed for is back online. It’s so frustrating, I’m a good writer, and I can conduct research, interview, and produce excellent writing on deadline. The problem is I do not have any recent clips. I do have a portfolio from my time at the Express; however it’s not digitized and the editor I met with had no desire to look at it.

I looked into internships while I was at Georgia State, however I was already commuting 90 miles a day and most internship’s were unpaid and highly competitive. As a non-traditional student trying to raise a family while going to school full-time, an unpaid internship was not feasible. However, I should have made that sacrifice that would have at least provided me with a reference and some current clips. Hence the reason for the blog, I’m hoping to showcase my writing.

All I need if for one person to give me a chance. The fact is I’m at point were McDonald's and Wal-Mart are looking like viable options for employment. If in fact that does happen, why did I spend 40k on school? I never thought I would get a great job right out of school but, I did expect to get to get something.  The boredom is killing me, doing dishes and laundry all day is not what I had planned to do with my degree.