The Real Postgrad Life: Waiting Isn’t Easy

Good things come to those who wait. Isn’t that how the old adage goes? Well in a culture of high unemployment, waiting can be just about the most frustrating thing imaginable. You know your worth. You know you’re qualified for any number of the positions you’ve applied for. You’ve even applied for jobs that you deem below you. If you’re like me, you even applied to internships because frankly, you’re just bored of sitting around applying to jobs all day and your resume sure could use a little boost. I sure as heck know my self-confidence needed one.

So there you have it. That was me. Just last week, I was spending my days scouring the internet for suitable positions. I was constantly reevaluating my resume and cover letters, polishing them to perfection. Over the last six months or so, I’ve probably sent out over 100 resumes to prospective jobs, hoping that the stars would align and I would be able to put the sad and demoralizing days on the job hunt behind me.

I’m here to bring you some semblance of hope. You see, back towards the beginning half of my job search, I was still a happy-go-lucky postgraduate kid, whistling my merry tune along as I sent out my resume selectively and infrequently. I knew that most people getting hired nowadays were getting hooked up through their network and I could have just as easily settled for a job like that but I sort of wanted to prove my worth by digging in my heels and getting a job by my own merit.

And it was actually going okay. In the first week, I sent out five resumes and got an interview set up. In retrospect, that was a statistically successful week. Anyways, the position I was interviewing for was perfect. It was in a field I wanted to get into, there was a lot of room for growth, it came with a competitive salary/benefits and best of all, it was only 0.5 miles away from my house. Yes, you read that right. Half a freakin’ mile. So I was pretty stoked about that job. I interviewed well and pretty soon they had me go through a second round of interviews. For the position, this meant I had to submit a writing sample, which I carefully worked on and submitted ASAP. I felt good coming out of the whole ordeal. Everything was up to the HR department now. So I started waiting…

And waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. I emailed the guy I interviewed after a week, checking on the status of the hire. No news. Every week for two months straight, I emailed him. Still no news. It went from no news to “Wait a month” to “We regretfully inform you that we lost some clients due to the economic downturn and can’t hire at this moment. Please check back in January”.

By this time, I was over it. I couldn’t just wait around for this job to open up so I went on a resume frenzy. I continued sending out resumes, setting up interviews – going through the motions but I was never able to follow through. Nobody was hiring and my confidence in myself dipped to an all-time low. Bummer.

But I would still email my contact at the original interview every month, hoping for some good news. He assured me that if they could allocate the funds to justify a new hire, I would be first on the list. I was persistent in maintaining an amicable relationship with him but in the back of my head, I suspected that he was just stringing me on. They must’ve already hired somebody and he was just unwilling to dash my hopes. I even convinced myself that I would be willing to work as an intern there just to get my foot in the door, so I shot my contact an email saying I would like to start working there for free. I never got a response. Clearly, I needed to move on. I was acting like the job-search equivalent of a creepy stalker.

And then, last week, I checked my email in the morning while still groggy from sleep and saw that my contact had emailed to notify me that there is a part-time position open that could turn into a full-time position in a month and if I was available, the position was mine. I couldn’t believe it. But it really happened. And I really did start working this week.

So what I’m trying to say is don’t lose hope. Sometimes good things do come out of the blue. And be sure to be persistent in your job application/followup process. I know I was and I’m pretty sure that’s the reason why I’m waking up early tomorrow morning to commute 0.5 miles to work. God it feels good to say that. It’s about darn time.