It’s amazing the things that can help you find a job. Skills learned in hobbies can be immensely beneficial. For example, I play games with my friends. Without going into too many irrelevant details, I use Microsoft Excel in planning and playing the games. This has is increased my knowledge and experience of Excel, as I constantly push its limits. That got me a promotion at a previous job, and it allows me to put Excel as a proficiency.

Speaking of social groups, organizing and running a social group can show leadership and communication abilities. It can also give you something to do and keep up your network of friends and job informants. While it may not fit well on a resume, it could translate well once work is found.

I also make sure to use the other Office products so that I can become more familiar with them. For example, although this isn’t what it’s designed for, I use OneNote as my layout program when I need to do a special layout for a class assignment. It actually requires some manipulating to get things to fit to a page, but I can eventually get what I’m looking for, and I am developing a usable skill in the process.

Communications is an excellent skill to develop and keep. It is a primary skill that employers search for (according to my communications class). I have been a very introverted person most of my life, and I certainly like more alone time than most people. But I have made sure to reach out and communicate with more people. I’m trying to listen more, and to keep pace with the flow of the conversation. This task is, admittedly, made easier by the sheer number of people I meet at college, and the topics readily available to discuss.

Internet use is a common skill that jobs I’ve been applying for are looking for. I’m going to be working on using Firefox, just so that I can be sure to be familiar with multiple internet platforms. Not all employers use Internet Explorer.

Speaking of computers, I’ve got to find me a Mac. I’ve used only PCs since high school, and the Macs I used then were… probably a little outdated. Most people can use either PC or Mac without a problem, but I’m studying graphic design, and will be expected to be familiar with Mac.

A key point for me is to enjoy developing the skill. Yes, I still take these skill developments seriously. Yes, I am working to learn as much as I can. But I enjoy learning them, and I’m not hiding from learning skills that take more time or effort.

There are so many pieces of technology that can make the job search easier – a cell phone, a car, a computer. I have each of these, but none are that great. The cell phone, while greatly appreciated, can barely send text messages. My car is not in working condition, and my computer is old.

I’m just lucky I was able to get a free cell phone from a friend. Since she was able to add me to her family plan, I’m able to list the cell phone as contact information, allowing me to answer calls any time of day, instead of routing employers to my home phone and answering machine. That’s right, I said answering machine, not voice mail. I can be a little old-school, sometimes.

My car hasn’t been on the road for many months. I’ve been taking the bus, which worked fine for me back when it was one bus ride to my job and back. Not much more time out of my day than a car ride.
Now, though, things have changed. I have to plan far in advance to get to job interviews, sometimes taking hours on the bus. Once I get a paycheck, I’ll be able to start fixing my car. It’s not too horribly damaged, certainly not beyond a hefty but manageable cost, if I had the steady income of a job.

For some reason, potential employers have started asking me if I have a car. Of course I answer that I do, but that I’ll need to get a paycheck or two before I fix it. I don’t think they like hearing that I’m going to be taking the bus for the first couple of weeks, but what can I do? Are they not hiring me because they’re afraid I’ll be unreliable, because I can’t afford to get my car fixed?

I’ve never been an early adopter. But I am starting to long for technological conveniences: a smart phone with good reception; a laptop so that I can do homework and job searching on the bus – a Macintosh, since that’s the standard for the field I’m going into; a functioning car so that the physical area in which I can search is larger, and my available time widens. Things that were luxuries a decade or two ago seem so much like essentials now.

Interviews. We work for them. We spend our time networking, emailing in resumes, filling out applications so we can get them. And they can terrify us.

Bait-and-switch

I have had one phone interview. It was for a data entry position, and I wasn’t expecting the call. I didn’t have a chance to mentally prepare. When I’m ready, I can be charming enough for the office, quick thinking and caffeinated. Instead, I used a lot of filler– um, like, and long pauses. I didn’t get that job, but I learned to prepare each morning as though I were going into an office – including shaving. This way, I’m always ready.

Another time, I went in to interview for what was billed as a customer service position. They were vague about details of the position before I got there – which I suppose I should have seen as a warning sign.

Looking for work is a full-time job. If you’re not getting unemployment benefits, it’s more like an unpaid internship. The way I job hunt is pretty much online – anytime I ask at a store, they tell me their jobs are all listed online. Door-to-door job hunting, as I call it, is not as effective as it was in the twentieth century.

I’m searching for something in Data Entry, Administrative Assisting, or Customer Service, including inbound phone calls. I could do some outbound, such as survey taking, but wouldn’t want to do outbound sales. I therefore have three template resumes – one for each category, emphasizing different things.

For Data Entry, I emphasize my work with computers, my skills with programs, and my attention to detail. For Administrative Assisting, I emphasize computer skills, my experience doing general office duties, and my communication skills. For Customer Service, I emphasize my phone experience, my interactions with others and, again, my communication skills.

With every company looking for different qualities in their employees, I have to craft my resume for the specific position that I am applying for. Are they looking for Microsoft Office experience? I separate out my skills with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Are organizational skills important? I emphasize my to-do lists and the volume of tasks I accomplished at previous jobs. Then, of course, there’s proofreading, grammar checking, and presentation of the newly crafted resume.

Leo Reynolds /Free Photos

I treat the email attaching the resume as a cover letter. If there’s something specific I want to call their attention to, such as my history using a specific skill over a range of previous positions, I do that in the email/cover letter.

All this adds up to time. It can take 2 hours to craft the resume so that it looks like what they’re looking for while remaining accurate and honest and get the email sent out. This is after I find jobs which I both want and qualify for, which requires searching through all the online job sites – monster.com, craigslist, etc.

Some weeks are quite full – I actually have to make tough decisions about where I’ll spend my time applying. Others are lean – there are few new job openings available, and I have to relax my standards a little. Those are the toughest, because I might end up with a job that doesn’t suit me.

At the end of the week, I’ve spent as much time and energy looking for work as I would actually in a job. What always gets me, though, is that it always feels like I spent more time accomplishing less than I would at an office.

I lost my job towards the end of December. I found out at that time that there was a Digital Arts grant available for displaced workers-heck yeah, sign me up! I’ve never attended college because I could never afford it. But with the opportunity to get a degree in a field that I enjoy, have some experience in, and find myself using surprisingly often, there’s no way I couldn’t jump at this chance.

I went in to get information late in the third week of December, and met with the woman handling my case the following week. With the deadline to sign up on the fifth, I was rushed trying to a) sign up and b) get any classes, especially ones I need. As you might be able to imagine, the classes I got were a little scattered. With an 8am class to a couple of classes that end just after 8pm, from late morning to all afternoon, my schedule looks, well, weird.

Michael Loke /Free Photos

Unfortunately for me, they are at two different campuses of the college. There are for more in my city, as many as half a dozen, but I was able to keep my classes down to just two relatively close campuses. The unfortunate news is that, since my car isn’t working and I’m bus-bound, I’m spending more time travelling than actually in classes!

So, how to fix that? Simple. Get a job so I can afford to fix and fuel my car. One that will actually pay me more than it costs to actually operate the vehicle. One that won’t force me to drop more than one class, since my grant requires me to be a full-time student. Also, one that will work around a crazy schedule for a semester would be just perfect. It’s a bit of a trick to get all that in one job. Most likely, I will simply have to change my school schedule to be available for work.

I guess the tough part wasn’t getting into classes at the last minute; it’s finding a job that won’t make me choose between working and going to school.

I was recently called into an unexpected meeting at work and given a two week notice; that is, it was my last day in the office, but they paid me for another two weeks. My supervisor took me back to my desk to retrieve my coat and backpack. Compared to my previous position, it was generous and dignified. Afterwards, I decided I wanted to be a more valuable employee—more organized, more skilled, more personable. More determined and energetic.

The first thing to do was decide exactly which skills to work on. I loved my last job—a combination of testing, designing and handling some of the business side of video games. (That sounds like I had a bit more power than I actually had—I was about as low on the totem pole as a person in video games could be.) My favorite part of the job was the actual designing. So, right now I am job searching and building my design skills.

CasaDeQueso /Free Photos

First, as for job searching, it’s largely an online issue, these days. Refine my resume, find positions I’m interested in, and then revise my resume to resemble the employee they want to hire. It’s a careful balance: the resume has to fit the job and sell me as a good employee, without overselling. I suspect that was the problem with my last position; perhaps they were just expecting… more.

I’ve asked my friends and family if they know of any available jobs, of course, but that doesn’t seem likely to produce much. They mostly seem unaware of positions anything like what I’m looking for.

As for design skills, there are a variety of things I’m working on. One is studying the issue—reading books and websites about design. I’m also working on my own games with a free game making program that is fairly simple to use, but allows more complex programming.

I also discovered, at the last possible minute, that the Department of Labor has a grant for the digital Arts. I was just barely able to get into college this semester, and I’m working on a degree in Graphic Arts. This will give me skills, and further my self-discipline and organizational skills.

Job searching while in school…goodbye sleep, goodbye personal life, hello future. That’s right, the next couple of years may be awful, but learning how to handle them is going to be a grand adventure that will prepare me for an amazing future.