Job Hunt: Infinity

I haven't written here in a while, but I have been doing some writing. I'm working on a piece to be published in August in a new journal through University of North Carolina Charlotte. My paper will describe a new model to better understand the support systems student veterans have. It also gave me a wonderful opportunity to be surrounded by brilliant people during a writing retreat. I really can't say enough about the retreat. I felt like I was the dumbest one there. Half of the brilliant conversations I couldn't contribute to. I just soaked it all in. I met some amazing people doing even more amazing work. I learned about new best practices, tools, theories, data, and other work being done for student veterans. I love learning and it was like being in grad school again. I also decided on my next degree and even had a few programs suggested. The retreat was early June. Two days after I returned home, after spending one day at work, I had surgery on my left arm. Act...

Job Searching Job searching is such a pain. It’s a long, lengthy process with very little transparency. You apply, spend at least an hour on an application, and the worst that can happen isn’t a “no”, it’s nothing. It’s never hearing from a person again. My biggest advice is to not compromise. Apply for jobs you want, not just ones that will build your resume, not just ones you qualify for, not just ones you could do for a few years. Apply for jobs you want to do. I repeat: do not compromise. Don’t take a job to get your foot in the door (hint: it probably won’t work). Don’t take a support staff position so you can “gain skills” (hint: no one cares about your support skills). Just don’t. My story is real, it’s frustrating, it’s not linear, it doesn’t have a happy ending (yet). Trailing and Leading Spouse On top of just job searching for myself, I also need to consider my spouse. Most of my searches were regionally bound due to my husband’s stable job. He carried the benefits and most o...