Hitting the Books

Last week I had to file for an extension on my unemployment. Yep, that’s right, I have now been unemployed for seven months. I have literally applied to almost 200 jobs, both in Oregon and California. I have applied to full-time and part-time online teaching positions, administrative positions, and even a few retail positions. And from all of this I have netted all of two responses of interest. Both times I interviewed at least three different times between email correspondence, phone interviews, and in person interviews. Neither ended up with a job offer.

I have an excellent job history, my last two jobs lasted over 2 1/2 years each, both ending due to lay offs, in fact, my last three jobs ended this way. Most jobs to which I apply I am am point-by-point qualified for the position, and yet when I do actually get a “brake up letter” it always reads, “while we were impressed by your skills and qualifications, we have gone with a candidate that more closely meets the needs of our organization.”

I am beginning to wonder if my education is making potential employers look at me as overqualified? I have a bachelors in human resource management, a masters in spirituality and ethics and am currently pursuing a doctorate in gender and sexuality. All of these are listed on my resume. Today, I decided to take off the Ph.D program, as several people have advised me this may be a hindrance. Now I don’t know about you, but I was raised with the “Get an education. College is the key to your future. You can’t get a good job without college” speech. While this has never been my motivating force behind going to college, I nevertheless believed it to be true. I am a hard worker. I have held down a full-time job the entire time I have been in school.

And yet here I am, about to go into my 8th month of unemployment and completely boggled as to why I am getting only a 1% response on my resume. To say I am frustrated is an understatement. I recognize the economy is still precarious and that unemployment is slowly showing signs of improvement, so I continue to revamp my resume and cover letter hoping to happen upon that mystery ticket to getting a new position. It am disappointed that my education may be a contributing factor to my lack of return on my resume. If so, what does this say about our culture. Achieve, but not to much.

I continue to trust the looneyverse that everything will work out exactly as it is supposed to, but sometimes, just sometimes, I get frustrated, scared, and impatient. And then tomorrow, I start the search all over again.