employed

I start my new job tomorrow.  As of tomorrow I will be employed.  Employed.  Is this not the most beautiful word in the English language?  :-)  I haven't really written all that much about the past five months, but I'd like to remember what it was like and how it felt to be a newly minted MBA desperately seeking employment. 

I graduated in May and have been searching for a job since.  Unlike my friends who went into finance and accounting, I couldn't really start my job search until I was ready to start working.  My industries hired to fill immediate needs, not to bring in new MBA graduates to grow through the ranks.  The past five months have been challenging. 

If you tell people that you are post-graduation and looking for work, the usual response is "I wish I had all that time off!"  At first, I admit, the time off was wonderful.  My MBA program was so intense and so stressful and exhausting that as soon as classes were over during the first week of May, I was on a strict daily napping regimen.  I loved being about to have the freedom to read, take walks, sew and do whatever else I wanted, when I wanted.  I could go to the grocery store on a Tuesday morning instead of during the packed bedlam of a Saturday morning.  I got back into volunteering at the Food Bank.  I had the time to spend lots and lots of time with D.  However, for someone as driven and practical as I am, all the extra time was challenging.  Every single morning I spent several hours looking for jobs and sending out resumes.  I felt like a loser that I wasn't working; like I had no value to society.  No job also means no paycheck so with no money coming in, I felt like I shouldn't be gallivanting all over town, spending freely.  And my dormant feelings of loneliness had to be kept in check all the time since everyone else I know works during the day.  It was great not to work but there were times I would weep and feel so frustrated that my life was so stagnant. 

The job search itself was frustrating and it's clear that job hunting outside of libraries is very different.  I didn't enter business school with a specific career goal other than to not return to traditional libraries.  I wanted to try something new, but I had no idea what that new thing was.  My classes taught me that I have a mind for business and big picture thinking but I didn't know how to turn that into job search keywords.  I knew that the "L-word" (librarian) on my resume was going to be a barrier to getting hired and I knew that it would take a special kind of company to see past my previous job titles and see all the things I could bring to their company.  The first resumes I sent out were in cause marketing (building relationships between nonprofits and corporations) because this is what I did at one of my internships and I really liked it.  Then I decided that colleges and universities might be a better approach as they tend to be more forgiving and flexible in terms of a candidate's experience and it seems in higher education, the more degrees, the better.  I ended my search by going after jobs in prospect research (identifying potential donors to nonprofits and strategizes the approach with the relationship manager).  I also applied for some library jobs that I didn't really want.  I got good response to my resume but since I conducted a focus search, there were weeks where I didn't even find one job to apply to, which prolonged the agony of waiting for the next interview.

In some ways, I am envious of those who know what they want to be when they grow up.  My brother has been at the same job out of college (he's 40) and it's been clear since he was very young that computers and engineering were things he liked and was good at.  It's a lot harder to look for a job when you are interested in a lot of things and have a lot of skills.  During my search I began to adopt the mindset that I needed a job that got me out of libraries and that could prove that I could do something else besides sit at a reference desk all day. 

The job I got is a great one.  I am so excited and proud to be working where I'll be working.  Oddly enough, when I met with a recruiter at a temp agency at in June I mentioned this company as being my "dream job" because of the work that it does and it's laser-like mission focus.  And voila!  Four months later I'll be working at my dream job :-)  I am sure one day I will laugh about how I go the job, but for the time being, I think it's safe to say that the job market and how companies hire ain't like it used to be.  I had interviewed at a local college for a similar position to the one I got.  I had gone through a phone interview and an in person interview and all signs were pointing to getting a third interview and getting the job when the job fell through.  There were some sudden staffing changes (including one of my interviewers leaving for a new position) that caused the department to put things on hold until they knew exactly what they wanted to do.  I cried long and hard over this loss.  I was so close but it didn't happen.  Once I recovered, I threw myself back into my search with a vengeance and found the open position at my dream company.  After sending in my resume I discovered that a friend of the family worked at the same company and same division.  She flagged my resume and I got a phone interview with a recruiter.  I then had a 3 hour interview (on my birthday!) that was really like three different interviews.  Later that afternoon I got an email requesting a phone interview the following morning with someone else.  And just before I went out of town for Canadian Thanksgiving, I got an email with a small project to work on over the weekend that I think was used to gauge my work.  I spend a couple of hours of Friday, a few hours in Canada over the weekend and then three more hours on Tuesday when I returned working on that project.  It was fun but stressful.  I felt like so much was riding on the project that I really wanted to kick ass and show them what I could do.  I had limited resources but I was very pleased with what I came up with.  A few days later the recruiter asked for 5 references (5!!!) and a few days after that I got the job :-)

As I told a friend recently, I am happy, relieved and nervous about my new job.  I have been out of the work force for a little over two years so it feels good to start working again.  New jobs always bring that weird mix of excitement and trepidation.  On one hand, I'm anxious to make my mark and prove that they made a good decision in hiring me; on the other hand, there will be a steep learning curve and I don't even know what on floor of my building I'll be working. Tomorrow is an all-day orientation (in Hurricane Sandy!) and then I officially start my position on Tuesday.  A friend of mine is throwing herself a "goin' back to work" party and I am proud and happy that I'll be able to join all my friends from school with the news that I have a job too.  My life will change - no more wearing jeans every day and my free time will be a lot more limited than it was - but I am just so happy about my new job!!!