Changing Careers Is Difficult

I heard back from a user-oriented design and engineering firm that I applied to a few weeks ago. Here's the email I got from the contact person in its entirety:

"Your resume does not seem to be a good fit. Just wondering why you want to change careers and do a 180?"

This is the exact sentiment that I fear many HR people experience while looking at my application materials. Because of that fear, I address the sentiment in my cover letter. Which I sent to this guy.

Whatever. Cover letter aside, my fear is that people see I don't have a degree in Industrial Design and don't give my application a chance. Or that people get stuck in the most conservative possible view of careers: that we must do what we picked to do at the age of 18 or 20 or whatever and we are allowed to change our path only if we can do it without any dead spots on our resumes.

I had feared these things without any evidence that I should fear them. But now I have this email, so I know I'm not completely crazy.

And I know changing careers is hard. It's not that I didn't expect this. I think my problem is more with the seemingly-simplistic nature of his thoughts: "Y U wan 2 change careers?!?!"

Also, his firm does engineering. I am an engineer. It's not a 180. It's maybe a 50.

I could also just be a little sensitive about everything.

The Experience of Clocking Out

Not too much has been changing for me, so there isn't much to update on. I'm still waiting for interested companies to get back to me about interviews. Realistically, I think only two companies will actually be getting back to me.

And I don't know if that's a sign of the times or what, but it's been a little draining living in uncertainty for so long. So, this week I've been focusing on/embracing the part-time jobs I've begun: tutoring and programming.

I experienced something at my programming job that I haven't felt in a long time: the day was over and I clocked out. I could stop being the focused programmer and go home and relax. This is the result of structure. And boy did I miss structure; I didn't know that was even possible.

Some good news I can take to the bank

On Monday (2/9), I interviewed for a part-time programming job with a lab at Northwestern. Tuesday evening, I found out that I got it! It's ideal in many ways: it's somewhere I already know, it's flexible, it's permanent, and it could actually go on my resume. I start next week. It's only 10 hours per week, but it's better than nothing.

I'll also be doing some tutoring. I'm meeting with my first client today.

All in all, even with the potential money made from programming and tutoring, my wife and I are still in the red on a monthly basis. But the extra money will definitely help to keep us afloat until I find a full-time job. And it's more comforting than I could have guessed to finally be making some money.

Oh, and I found the flyer for the programming job on February 3rd. I think I mentioned how February 3rds always offer me something unique and useful.

Temporary work

I'm still in a state of waiting on a number of opportunities. As a quick summary, I'm waiting on

-One final interview
-One post-testing-but-maybe-not-"final" interview
-One response from an interview
-Two first interviews
-Four responses to directed-strike style job applications that I sent in last week or the week before (I have no reason to believe that these four companies will ever get back to me beyond by own belief that I'm a very good fit and I wrote really good cover letters).

To alleviate the financial stress I'm feeling due to unemployment, I've started looking at temporary technical work, which I'd never really given much thought to. I've posted ads on a few sites as a tutor/freelance programmer. It felt really good to do that, and I realized that if I were getting money in any fashion right now it would really change the mood of the times.

So far, nothing has come of these ads, but I have found possible temporary work as a scientific paper editor for a Japanese company and a part-time programmer for a lab at Northwestern. I interviewed for the programming position today and did pretty well. The Japanese paper-editing people are supposed to send me a sample to edit soon.

Cushion of Free Money

My wife and I were talking last week about how I can make some sort of money while searching for a job. I'm now hesitant to search for temporary employment for two reasons: 1) Even though I feel like it will be a long time until I'm permanently employed, I'm afraid of starting up work somewhere and immediately having to quit 2) I'm also afraid because of what happened with GE in October; they wanted to fly me to their location for an interview, but I had another interview that day and asked to reschedule, and they then told me they weren't interested. If I have a job, this sort of thing could happen again, and it's scary.

Anyway, another solution we came up with was unemployment money from the government. I was hesitant because, like many others, I didn't want to be taking money from hard-working people to feed myself while I did nothing. I looked into it and it isn't exactly like that. It doesn't pay a lot, there's a time limit, you have to verify every week that you are jobless, they force you into this job-finding program, and so on.

I tried to register for unemployment benefits Thursday, but the website was telling me I needed to call. The lady I talked to said that I wasn't in her system, as if I had not had a job in the past 15 months. If I wanted to correct this, she told me, I'd have to come down to the office.

I just got back from the office. I guess I was only there for two hours, but it sure seemed to take longer than that, most likely because of how uncomfortable I was there. There was that nagging feeling about the kinds of people who are on unemployment, that I was surrounded by them and that I was soon to be one. I waited in the one, slow line, was told to fill out different forms, filled out the forms, got back in line.

I was denied benefits because I was a student. They don't give benefits to people who were students, I guess. I'm not sure whether the lady understood that I went to classes AND worked full-time, or if she just heard the word "student" and wanted me gone. I should've called myself a "graduate researcher" or something.

It was sad. I had high hopes that that money would see me through to finding a job. As it is, I have high hopes for tomorrow; February 3rds have always been interesting days for me on which many strange and great things have happened.