The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it*

Hello, dear readers. Since so much of this blog's creation was centered around the general job searching process, I decided to give an update with how that's going...or not really going. This has been a long, tedious process. I've spent the majority of the last year and a half job searching, so I pretty much know what to expect. Unfortunately, that doesn't really make it any less frustrating.

The biggest and most nerve-wracking catch-22 on the face of this planet is that no one wants to hire someone without any job experience, but no one will freaking hire you to give you that experience. How the hell am I supposed to get any experience if no one will take a chance to hire me? It's a vicious circle that hopefully someday I may break. Now, I understand a loophole is internships. Employers, professors, everyone rams the notion of getting an internship down your throat. This is the perfect way to get experience in your field without actually getting hired on, i.e. the company forking out tons of money to pay your salary. Well, I had an internship (and a pretty good one, might I add, through my university's PR department) and it's still not getting me very far. I also took a practicum course in which my classmates and I put together a nationally recognized literary magazine.

The job market right now is awful, but not inexistent. There's hardly anything being posted, especially in fields as specific as mine. I acknowledge it's a narrow window, but I did not anticipate it being this narrow. I've found maybe one job every or every other week worth me applying to. The moral of this story: not only do I have slim pickins, the jobs I do apply to won't hire a recent graduate without experience to back her up. Fantastic.

Anyway, the job I really wanted has yet to return any of my four or five phone calls. Sadly, I've given up on them, even though it crushes me a little. Another job, also close to home, gave me the dreaded "due to your lack of experience, we won't be moving forward with an interview." A third specificly asked for applicants not to call following up, due to the large volume of applications. If I can't even follow those directions, why would they even want to hire me? So I listened, but didn't hear back. The first job I applied to since starting at the call center didn't even have their name listed on the ad, so follow-up is impossible.

Over the weekend I applied for a job that I'm actually really excited about. It's the first one that would be in my women's studies field. It would be teaching youth about sexual and reproductive health. Keep your fingers crossed :)

*Quote from Mother Theresa