Hire me! A Diary Series
I find it hilarious when speaking to my grandpa (who is 94 years old and, as you can expect from a man of his age, is spending his days at home with no mayor occupations) and asking him to do me a favor he replies – ‘mmm I’ll see I don’t know if I can find the time to do that’. Ahh!? How is it possible that he comes up with this when we both know he spends his days doing ‘nothing’? I’m used to tease him by replying ‘ahh well, off course, doing nothing takes to much time’ and then we would laugh.
And this somehow reminds me of myself. Just because I have been looking for a job for many months it doesn’t mean that I’m spending all my days in front of the computer writing a 10th version of my CV, waiting to receive some good news (by the way last week I got two more rejection emails: 1- the position was already filled the previous week; 2- we don’t have any position that matches your profile. Both organizations promised to keep my CV in case something suitable for me comes up… will they really do that?
I have always wondered!) or just staring at the wall. I have always tried to keep myself busy, otherwise I would go crazy and also because I feel it is important to keep doing things that can help building my career (such as networking, keep researching my areas of interest, etc).
Currently I’m volunteering one day a week for a very interesting art institution in Rotterdam, collaborating in the set up of a network of fellow compatriot professionals living in The Netherlands, entering data in the computer for my neighbor in exchange of some Dutch lessons, researching the physicality of reading with a study group as part of an art project I’m involved with, and now doing a internship for 2 days a week. Occasionally I also give talks about art (thank god I do get paid for this) and when I find time I try to do some art pieces. So, as you might see, I have many activities, most of them which I love! The problem seems to be making a living out of it. But the point that I want to make here is that having all these occupations makes difficult to find the time and energy to persistently continue the job search.
A friend says finding a job is a full time job in itself. We all know that organizing a CV, writing motivation letters and exploring job boards takes lots of time, attention and patience. I push myself to at least apply for 3 jobs every week but the last two weeks I’ve been very busy and I was not very proactive in the job searching area.
I feel guilty but I cheer myself up reminding me that there are many other things that I’m doing that are building up and might eventually turn into getting my dream job.