I’ve got the shakes.

No guys, I’m not withdrawing from an illicit drug. It’s the nervous shakes.

Recently I wrote a post about hunting for jobs and it’s finally coming to fruition as I receive various forms of polite rejections and one shortlisting that required me to be tortured through phone interview. Here’s the kicker though: I’ve never been given the job after a phone interview. Why? Because word vomit.

I am truly the worst when it comes to interviewing on the phone. I’m not sure I even form whole sentences and I end every answer with, ‘well, yeah that’s about it…so…’ Embarrassing stuff. Especially when you’re going for a job that involves a lot of talking on the phone and focuses on phone manner. Let’s just say the interviewer didn’t sound impressed.

I had that interview three hours ago and I’m still sitting at a high level on the anxiety scale. Not a good sign when I need to get back to work. How am I supposed to work there if a little interview caused me such stress? I’m hoping it’s just myself knowing that I am hopeless at phone interviews and I really need a job. I can’t afford to have word vomit excreting from all openings. Enjoy that mental image.

It would be nice if they did email interviews for once. I would nail it. Or is that considered the initial application? Damn I’m confusing myself.

Anyone else get overly nervous for interviews? Nervousness that goes beyond the normal butterflies doing a dance in your stomach?

On the job hunt

Today is a job-hunting day. So why am I on WordPress? Well because you can’t tell me what to do! I need an outlet from the boring cover letters that I am being forced to rewrite over and over and over again.

I have applied for four jobs already, varying from retail to administration, a far cry from the profession I spent five years studying for. But I need to get an income before I can start being a bit more picky with my jobs.

I couldn’t quite figure out whether I should take off my qualifications on my resume, in the case where people read it and say, ‘Why on Earth is she going for this job then?’ It’s because I can’t get a job anywhere else people! Just hire me already! Come on, I’m good at pretending I’m happy, surely that’s enough to hire me. Also, according to the creepy old men I used to check in at the hotel, I have a nice smile. That has got to be a credit towards me surely.

Anyway, better get back to it. Anyone else in the same job-hunting boat? It’s the most mind-numbingly boring and stressful boat to be on.

Made my mark

I graduated from TAFE with a Dual Diploma in Conservation and Land Management/Sustainability and university with a Bachelor in Environmental Science with Distinction. I graduated into a world where there are no jobs in my field unless you have at least two years working experience or know someone.

I volunteer, I gain the experience I need in order to be a competitor for jobs, but I still don’t get jobs. Why? Because I’m hopeless at making contacts.

Throughout university, I watched people walk up to the lecturers and researchers and have good old chats with them. How do they do that? I would wonder, and try to come up with any plausible reason to talk to the lecturers. I never quite got the courage to try and engage with them in my three years of study.

When it came time to look at doing an Honours project I found a couple of lecturers whose projects I was interested in. I went and had a meeting with them, they were very friendly but I never heard back from them about participating in their projects. Then I saw who got into the Honours projects. All the people who had had the guts to go up and talk to the lecturers. The people who could talk about anything and everything.  They got in because they made the connections early on. To the lecturers, I was someone who had just appeared out of the blue.

This is my fault, of course. If I had of sucked it up, I could be doing an Honours project right now. Instead, I’m scanning through listings of jobs that require everything that I don’t have and can’t get unless I make contacts.

If you put me in front of these lecturers now, they probably would have no idea who I was, just another face that didn’t stand out amongst the thousands of students they get through their doors. Except for one small thing.

The other day, The Partner went into my university and sent me a picture. It was of me, during one of my research projects. It was framed and placed up in the Science building. So I may not have been able to connect with the denizens of the university, but I’m going to haunt them for as long as that picture is up. And I hope one of them stops and sees that picture and thinks, ‘I remember that girl.’

I’m even giving a thumbs up. Who would ever forget the thumbs up girl?