Job Hunt: Infinity

I don’t have a lot of regrets. My choices have made me who I am today. However, knowing some of the things I know now would have helped me earlier in life. If I could get a letter to myself at any point, it would be as I was applying and going to grad school. So, if a time machine is ever invented, I would request that the inventor take the letter below to me during my Junior year of college. Dear Pre-Grad School Me: Get a real assistantship. You can find assistantships on job search sites for the local universities (I know you don’t know this yet). If you don’t know what something is ask a faculty member. Try at least two assistantships. Ask questions, gain diverse experiences, talk to as many people as possible. Don’t rush through the program. Yes, grad school is expensive, but learning takes time. Find a balance. It’s so important to find a balance between classes and life. The habits you pick up during grad school will continue in your work and life, regardless of ...

As October comes to a close I think it's time I write my thoughts about Careers in Student Affairs month. As a (hopeful) professional, I'm always surprised when this month comes around with all of the blog posts and tweets reminding me about the "awareness". I'm not aware of this month of awareness for my profession until it is upon me, and that is probably a problem. I don't think we should have an "awareness month". There. I said it. I think an awareness month for a career is stupid. Who do we do it for? We do it for ourselves and no one else; the students we work with are aware of us as professionals, and if they aren't then we should reevaluate how we work with them. The university, at least most of it, should be aware of us. They might not like us or agree with the work we do, but they know we exist. Our parents might think we're professors or babysitters or whatever else, but if they don't understand then, again, we should reev...

My name is Chelsea, and I am a trailing spouse. But you haven’t moved! Well, no, but we did buy a house. We made a conscious decision to be in a place. But you have access to two job markets! Yeah, and? The market is so saturated with Master’s degrees and people with experience. I’ve been looking on-and-off for three years, applied to over 100 positions, had less than 10 interviews, and 2 job offers. So, you could move, right? Your husband has skills and can be employed elsewhere, right? Yes, but then we’re both unemployed. I need to make enough as an entry-level professional to support us as we move. But you have experience! Yes, but no. I have experience serving tables, which means customer service. I have experience working with students, but not in a one-on-one capacity, and many positions require that in the job description. I have no staff supervisory experience, as I only supervise student workers. So where would you move? Well, I could make decent money in Fl...

The past few months have put me in some new positions to observe different leaders in different situations. Some of these leaders, are supervisors or managers, but all are put in positions of leadership, regardless of if they uphold the ideal traits of a Leader. We all have our ideal Leaders, people we think are great at not only managing people, but leading people professionally and personally. They are the people we want managing us. Forbes has a list of the 100 Best Quotes on Leadership Here are some of my thoughts on what makes a “good” leader and some downfalls that can happen to “bad” leaders. Be Confident Good : A good leader is not only confident in themselves but also in the people he or she leads. It’s ok to make mistakes, it’s ok to fail, and it’s ok to succeed, but a leader needs to be confident that the outcome will be ok, regardless of the process. Fake it til you make it. Bad : If the leader doesn’t believe in his or her people, decisions, and company how ...

This isn't going to be one of my polished posts with structure and proper opening sentences for paragraphs. Because, well, because it's my blog and therefore should be a reflection of me and today I am not structured or polished. I smell bad and I'm sore and all I really want to do is go on vacation and sleep in in the sun. Today started well, I bought two bagels (toasted with butter, please) and walked into work. Ate my bagels while checking my email, and remembered I RSVP'd to a free breakfast. So I bought breakfast even though I didn't need to, no big deal. I talked to someone important about something important to me, and he said he was going to take it to someone even more important. So, that's two wins, right? I also had (free) lunch during a meeting. I guess that makes today +3. Then we had a rather large event, which I can't go to because our overtime has been (significantly) reduced. I rely on some really awesome student workers, but I feel so h...

In my last post I talked about the frustration of a broken social contract, and it seemed to be a continued theme with other articles about the same thing. Many other people are lost in this world and many are worse off than me in many ways. This past week we lost a great dog. Daisy was the center of our home life for years, we made decisions around her and structured our lives based on her needs. Even my morning routine had several stops along the way to take care of Daisy. Our evening routine typically consisted of “bedtime potty” and encouraging her to go, and if it was raining we had to decide who was going to let her out in the middle of the night. So we’ve lost many of our routines and are finding new ones. My husband lost his job this week as well. While it does make things more financially difficult, it’s more about another routine broken, minutes and hours are lost in trying to find new routines. We’re looking to lose less money on things, cutting back on spending, makin...

While I enjoy learning from working as a staff assistant in an academic department, I still look for professional positions. The nice thing about where I live is that it gives me access to two different job regions, all within an hour commute. My current position gives me access to a lot of professional development training along with the ability to sit on committees with a wide variety of professionals across campus and the school. I really enjoy working at my current university, it’s very student-centric with student success as the most important goal. I truly believe that almost all student can succeed in the right program with the right support, so I think I fit into the culture well and I’d love to stay here. I’m usually a fairly positive person, I can (usually) find the silver lining and keep a good attitude when all else seems lost. Lately, however, I’ve taken job rejections really hard, almost personally. I’ve been applying for jobs now since 2010, sometimes more actively th...