Job Hunt Fears

This entry was originally posted at Roaming Seattlite. For more information see Uh, the other blog..

I fear the job hunt.

I’m insanely underemployed at the moment, but its a stable job that I don’t mind with consistent pay with consistent hours. (e.g. its not Starbucks.)

Last time I did the job hunt thing I remember spending an insane amount of time writing out cover letters, sending in resumes, fielding calls from recruiters, and going to interviews for nothing.

The one job that I finally got and settled on I hated so much I left after two weeks. Then I went to Starbucks, something that I knew I’d be underemployed at, but I figured I could find my way to something else within the company. That was until I got fired.

I hate fruitless work. (or to be more specific work with a really low ratio of success.) I think the best example of this is from when I worked for Citigroup. Initially I was working on gas card accounts that were 4-6 months past due. I was working on predictive dialer, where the computer made all the telephone calls for us. In an average eight hour day I’d go through something like 500-600 telephone calls. From that I’d leave a whole bunch of messages, talk to a bunch of people who weren’t the account holder, talk to a few account holders who wouldn’t pay, and talk to between 2 and 8 card holders who paid. So overall its a really low ratio of success (just over 1%) but the mere fact that in a day I’d have success eight times was pretty good.

I need success to drive me.

I was listening to an episode of The Conversation on KUOW about "the most-praised generation", and I had to and still am taking a hard look at if I fall into that situation. I know I like to hear a a simple “thank you” at times from my supervisors, and I already need success, but do I require praise? I want to say no, but I am not willing to say one way or the other for myself.

I’m having trouble psyching myself up to put in the effort given how fruitless my search was last time. That sheet of paper I just got from Northern Kentucky University doesn’t ease my mind one way or the other about the prospect.

I know I need to do this, but convincing myself is another matter….