As you all probably know, the economy has seen better days. Of course me, being as brilliant as I am, decided that in the midst of this, would be the perfect time to search for a new job. A year and half later I realized I hadn't thought things through. In my younger days (not that I am really old) I never really had a problem getting a job, but this time my sights were set higher. I wanted more than just a job, I wanted a real "career". At first, I searched for my dream job. After about 9 months I thought I'd landed it - until a month and half later when the guy hadn't paid me. I had a number of odd jobs and jobs that didn't pay much. It helps that I have connections in the entertainment world so I was able to do dance gigs and still perform in shows that I am trained in, so at least I wasn't completely destitute. Of course this caused problems in many aspects of my life but we won't get into that because it would veer me too far from my subject. You see, I really enjoyed performing. Which is why after college when I had a great career in finance for a very large company practically handed to me, I turned it down to go get performing out of my system. My thoughts being, "might as well do it while I'm young and I can." Mind, I don't regret that decision but after 5 years performing, I began to wonder what I could put on my resume that would be relevant and current. Turns out, not much of anything.
Of course I had credits to put on for the entertainment positions I applied for but as far as office work was concerned, forget it! Still, I made do with what I had. I had a number of job interviews which brought about a new experience for me; interviewing and not being offered the position. That hadn't really happened to me before. A few weeks ago I finally marched into a temp agency and said, "Who do I need to get my resume to to be considered to work for your company?" The woman behind the desk said, "We really don't see anyone unless they have an appointment." I mentioned to her how I was done submitting my resume to the abyss that was the Internet and I wanted to make sure that someone had a copy of my resume in their hands. She just kept telling me how they don't see people without an appointment and then the receptionist came back to the desk and the two of them (seeming reluctant) set me up an interview for the next day and said they would send me the information for me to take my qualification tests.
The next day I found out I was interviewing with the "we don't see people without an appointment" lady, who that day was very polite. She looked at my test scores and was very impressed. Her only concern as she said was that my experience was "all expired". She wasn't sure they would be able to find a company that would want to take someone with 6 year old experience. Of course, that had been my problem for the last year and half! I hated to believe it, but I knew it the whole time. I had used no "real" job skills in the 6 1/2 years! She helped me to feel slightly optimistic when I left, but I was worried. If a large temp service didn't think they could find me work, I was screwed.
Two days later (Friday) they called with a job for me to start the following Monday. That next Friday, they called to say the company wanted to offer me a full time position. Is the job amazing? No. Is it terrible? No, but either way I will certainly do it for a year or so so that I will no longer have the problem of my experience being "expired."
