It’s been almost a month since I last posted anything here. The last time I wrote anything I was preparing for a job interview, which I then proceeded to bomb so badly that even though I’d been told at the actual interview that they wouldn’t be making a decision for a few more weeks, I received a computer generated rejection notice less than 24 hours later informing me that they were going with someone else.
“Yeah … we’ve got a ton of applicants … and a few more weeks of interviews … so we don’t know who we’re going to hire yet … BUT WE KNOW IT WON’T BE YOU.”
Ouch.
Now that I’m another month into my job search, I can tell you that the automatically generated rejections have been the highlights of the whole experience. spending several hours each day for two months tweaking resumes, agonizing over cover letters, respecting the wishes of the hiring manager not to be contacted by phone (or often at all), I got some sort of response! OK, not from a human being, but still, a response! So now I know for sure I’ve been rejected! Yay!
To make things worse, I’ve felt like if I’m not spending every waking minutes combing jobs boards, I am somehow slacking off on my job search — in short, I’m “not trying hard enough” (gee, nobody with ADHD has ever heard THAT one before!). And if I’m “not trying hard enough” on my job search, how can I justify taking time away from it to do something I enjoy, like blogging?
I dug myself into a pretty deep emotional hole with the whole experience. Now I’m trying to dig myself out of it. I’ve realized that a major problem with my job search is that it hasn’t been … well, organized. I’ve been applying for things from job listings, in several different fields, for several different kinds of work, and regardless of whether it’s actually the kind of work I really want. I haven’t asked anyone for much in the way of help, and I haven’t drawn on my network of friends and colleagues.
I realized a few days ago that this is going at it the wrong way. I need to be organized, deliberate, and thoughtful about this. Therefore, in this space, I will be documenting my new, improved ADHD/dsycalculia/dysgraphia job hunt. I know I’m not the only one out there; unemployment is higher than its been in 70 or 80 years, and folks with learning disabilities face employment challenges to begin with. At a time like this, we can really help each other by sharing what we learn from the job search trenches.
Stay tuned for my next installment!