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Jobslogging Week 1
I thought I might start doing a weekly entry on what I've been up to, especially because I'll be finally filing for unemployment benefits Monday. Not that I've run out of severance yet (that's in August) but since I'm Actively Looking for Work, in my ethical heart it's time to start collecting -- what with it taking a couple weeks to get the paperwork in order and all that.
Yes, in MA you can collect severance and unemployment at the same time. Since I wasn't actually looking, just preparing to look (and having some time to sit around and enjoy myself) and also because there's a set time limit/total amount on how long you can collect benefits, I thought I'd better hang back from the queue.
The last time I went for unemployment, you had to go in person and hand over printed forms where you'd hand-wrote all your qualifying activity and data, and I remember the clerks being quite amazed that I'd printed out several rows from an Appleworks spreadsheet and pasted them into the grid for companies and contacts. NOW, you can just go to the web and enter them that way. How times have changed!
This week I went to three events at Right Management -- a Candidate Open Forum which was eh because only one guy and me showed up to talk to a counselor, but the other two were actually useful, with a really terrific presenter, about Networking and Interviewing -- the latter for going over the most common questions on interviews and ways to deal with them. Both of them left me much more hopeful than I'd been.
I'm realizing that to a great extent, my problem with job seeking is that I still feel like I'm an impostor, and so I look at the hiring process as me having to reluctantly 'put one over' on a prospective employer, when in fact, I'm not only highly qualified on what I've done, I'd be able to take on almost any new system or job, and I don't say that lightly, either. But I think I have to convince myself of that because my interview anxiety is going to be saying one thing while my work record says entirely another.
One of the job counselors quoted a famous baseball player saying "It's not bragging if it's the truth." I so have to remember that.
The counselors have all been pushing LinkedIn as a method of networking and jobseeking, so I've signed up. They describe it as 'Facebook for professionals' which seems pretty accurate so far. If any of my Flisters are already on it and would like to link to me, or if they would like to get onto it, just let me know, okay?
This week, I:
* prototyped a business card for networking/interviews
* got Avery blank cardsheets to print them out (cost, about $16)
* signed up for LinkedIn, started figuring out who I know on there, and linking to them
* put my electronic resume up on the Right job bank
* applied for jobs at GE Energy, IBM, several other places
* sent a letter to WinterWyman.com to ask about their recruiting -- they in fact got me my Houghton Mifflin job
* worked out the answers to ten popular interview questions
* found out how to apply for unemployment
* finalized my resume and made an electronic copy of it
Yes, in MA you can collect severance and unemployment at the same time. Since I wasn't actually looking, just preparing to look (and having some time to sit around and enjoy myself) and also because there's a set time limit/total amount on how long you can collect benefits, I thought I'd better hang back from the queue.
The last time I went for unemployment, you had to go in person and hand over printed forms where you'd hand-wrote all your qualifying activity and data, and I remember the clerks being quite amazed that I'd printed out several rows from an Appleworks spreadsheet and pasted them into the grid for companies and contacts. NOW, you can just go to the web and enter them that way. How times have changed!
This week I went to three events at Right Management -- a Candidate Open Forum which was eh because only one guy and me showed up to talk to a counselor, but the other two were actually useful, with a really terrific presenter, about Networking and Interviewing -- the latter for going over the most common questions on interviews and ways to deal with them. Both of them left me much more hopeful than I'd been.
I'm realizing that to a great extent, my problem with job seeking is that I still feel like I'm an impostor, and so I look at the hiring process as me having to reluctantly 'put one over' on a prospective employer, when in fact, I'm not only highly qualified on what I've done, I'd be able to take on almost any new system or job, and I don't say that lightly, either. But I think I have to convince myself of that because my interview anxiety is going to be saying one thing while my work record says entirely another.
One of the job counselors quoted a famous baseball player saying "It's not bragging if it's the truth." I so have to remember that.
The counselors have all been pushing LinkedIn as a method of networking and jobseeking, so I've signed up. They describe it as 'Facebook for professionals' which seems pretty accurate so far. If any of my Flisters are already on it and would like to link to me, or if they would like to get onto it, just let me know, okay?
This week, I:
* prototyped a business card for networking/interviews
* got Avery blank cardsheets to print them out (cost, about $16)
* signed up for LinkedIn, started figuring out who I know on there, and linking to them
* put my electronic resume up on the Right job bank
* applied for jobs at GE Energy, IBM, several other places
* sent a letter to WinterWyman.com to ask about their recruiting -- they in fact got me my Houghton Mifflin job
* worked out the answers to ten popular interview questions
* found out how to apply for unemployment
* finalized my resume and made an electronic copy of it
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A mutual friend just got a new job and she told me she left off of her resume all kinds of information, stuff that might indicate how old she is, for instance. Silicon Valley is quite a different kettle tho. You are, indeed, extremely skilled. Hold the thought.
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The only problem is that "selling" those things is hard, because I'm not good at selling myself and because so many people claim these capabilities who really don't have them that I fear I come off as "just another" yeah, whatever. *g*
So I urge you to sell yourself and to realise that your capabilities are indeed unique. SO there.
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