An interview (maybe?!)

I was standing in the dairy section of our local super market last Thursday when my phone rang.... I didn't recognize the number and decided to answer anyway. (Would you have answered or let it go to the message box when you're not in a situation that allows you to have a conversation professionally?) It was a company I had applied to for that sales position back at the beginning of March... they had some questions for me and would it be a good time to talk? um, no. Not in a crowded supermarket with my nearly 18 month old grabbing at my phone from the shopping cart. So I was honest and said no, and could I call them back in the afternoon. We set a time and hung up.

A job call - someone actually was interested enough in my application to CALL ME. Albeit after more than a month, but hey, just when you've assumed you didn't get a job.... I did a happy dance, called Husband and raced home to feed LittleOne and put him to bed (praying he would still be asleep during the planned phone call) and I went to work researching some background info about the company and its suppliers. Turns out it could be interesting. Among other things, they sell very cool live cell imaging equipment (right up my scientific alley...). I was glad I took the time because when I called back, though the conversation lasted a whole 3.5 minutes, I was able to anticipate their questions, already have knowledge about how my experience fits with their company's goals, and fill that time with interesting things to say.

And the next day - I got invited for an interview - in another 6 weeks. This is a LOOOOONG hiring process. Nearly 3 months between date of application and date of interview. Problem being: Friend is visiting from out of country for just 3.5 days and is leaving the day of the interview. I would have to abadon Friend and Friend'sKid early morning to drop LittleOne off with the InLaws and make it to the interview location (we're talking 3+ hours of travel one way...). Plus, when would I have time to get ready? Prepare and practice my interview question answers? Freak out last minute? I wrote to see if it was possible to move the interview to another date, but haven't heard back in more than 24 hours. I'm hoping it's a case of part time workers, holidays around Easter, or something similar that accounts for the delay and not that they were pissed I asked for another appointment (I just said I had a conflict that day and was it possible to set another date). I could make it work (I could make Husband take the day off work...), but I'd really like to be at my best for my so far one and only shot at a job in this crazy place. And I can't tell Friend to cancel her trip. Why, when I have no plans for MONTHS on end, do 2 things have to happen at exactly the same time?

Anyway, it's a chance. Is it my dream job? No, not by a long shot (at least, I don't think so, there can always be pleasant surprises in life...) But, it's the one and only thing I've had a chance at in nearly 6 months. Now, to find something to wear... :)

Fresh applications....

Sent out a few more in the last 2 days, including one for a sales position I never would have considered, but found somehow strangely attractive yesterday...

Also contacted a life science recruiting firm to try to make an appointment to meet with one of their recruiters so they can get to know me personally.

Also signed up with another recruiting agency that I found out hires for a big pharma in the region.

Will anything actually work out? Probably not, but at least I did more than sit on my butt. I really hope the recruiting firm is willing to set up a meeting with me. Maybe they can shine some light on the black hole that has become my job search in this place.

A side note - reading lots of blog posts these days through google reader, but therefore not often commenting. Thanks to everyone who still pops in here every once in a while and gives me their encouragement. It helps!

quick check in

Hey
Been sick, nasty stuff (nothing too serious, and improving daily), also been very lazy.

FINALLY re-did my CV (again!), modeled after a former co-worker (we finished our PhDs in the same building about a year apart, her a year AFTER me) who just got her first pharma-related job (sales manager)... It's now much closer to my academic CV, much more detailed (and hopefully not too crowded with excess info to be attractive?!). I feel like it better represents me to future employers, but I'm not so sure if they're going to like this version of "me". Then again, they obviously didn't like the more recent versions of "me" either since I haven't had a job interview since last Fall and NONE in NewCountry. So... it's a gamble. Meh, at least I feel like I tried something different.

My new cover letters are also more detailed, and tell more about ME and my past rather than generic future employee they are looking for. We'll see

I sent out 4 (I think?!) different sets of applications today.

OK, a more positive post

OK, so with the last post, I got a second (third? thirtieth?) wind (and a nice swift kick in the pants) to DO something about this not working thing again. No more waiting around. Be proactive dammit! So I finally sent an email to my former colleague's contact in industry, and wrote to volunteer my services to a cool company I found locally that runs camps and parties for kids to discover science. It's something small, but at least it's SOMETHING. There's also the nature reserve we visited a few weeks ago that apparently looks for biologist volunteers from time to time... I think I'll look up their website and see if I can find an address to write to. I guess sciencey-type Volunteer activities are better than a gaping hole in a CV right?

Not even the right kind of immigrant...

...yup, finally heard back from the mentoring program to help immigrants integrate into the work force in NewCountry. And I'm not the right kind of immigrant, so they can't help me. What's one more?

I haven't posted in a while cause I've been under the weather. Have this strange headache and dizzy all the time thing going on. Guess this is my initiation point into NewCountry's medical system? Some days I really just want to go home...

Having a down day...

Actually, until a few hours ago it was a pretty great day. Husband, LittleOne and I went for a long walk to a nearby nature reserve that I hadn't yet found the time to visit. It will be so pretty in the spring/summer/fall... right now, it was mostly wet, muddy and bare, but was still a nice change from the same 3 streets of our small town that I see on a daily basis.

Right now I'm super tired and should be in bed (though it's not even 10pm yet, nice huh?), but somehow I can't get myself to turn off the computer and go. I hate that feeling when you're exhausted but you know it's useless to go to bed cause you won't sleep anyway. At least that's what I've been doing for the past few nights. Husband was feeling crappy and went to bed a while ago so I also don't want to disturb him tossing and turning.

A friend from the lab in PhDLand just defended her PhD and is starting to apply for postdocs. She asked me if I still had copies of the emails I sent to apply to labs so I just fired up the old computer, dug them up and read the whole series... damn it, I was good once. People wanted to pay for me to come visit. They used words like "impressed" and "excited" when talking about when we had met at conferences and about me coming to visit their labs. Did I make a huge mistake canceling my visits to all of them? They were all a very long way away... and my doctor asked me not to go because they were planned for the same time frame when I miscarried before. Her logic was that if something happened again while I was away, I would blame myself and that trip forever. I think she was right. Fortunately, nothing did go wrong and LittleOne was born about 6 months after my scheduled postdoc interviews. I could have rescheduled once it became clear that the pregnancy was progressing, but I had a hard time imagining interviewing with a belly, and trying to come up with starting dates and the thought of making a huge international move while apartment hunting, insurance obtaining, daycare searching, and writing funding applications with a newborn made my head spin. I chose to withdraw my applications until further notice and take advantage of the maternity leave I had available to me in PhDLand, while waiting for Husband's job search to come up with something in the mean time... and ended up here in NewCountry (incidentally, NOT home to a single one of the labs I had applied to). Unemployed with with a career break of 16 months and counting on my CV, and no prospects of a job (or a daycare spot) anytime remotely soon.

I don't regret having LittleOne for an instant, and I'm so fortunate that I was able to spend the time in his early life focused solely on him, but I'm pretty pissed about my life some days. I feel like such a loser. I'm almost 31 and have zero years of professional work experience. 31. And nobody wants to hire me now, not even the academic lab job I applied for. Even the grocery stores in town wouldn't hire me because I don't speak NewLanguage well enough to interact with customers. How the hell did my life end up like this? What did I do wrong? Was wanting to be a mom so bad it hurt really such an awful thing? I used to be "impressive". Now, I'm just feeling pathetic.

OK, this was definitely not the most positive, uplifting post ever, but it does feel better to write it out somehow. I feel like I can't talk to Husband about these feelings very easily, because, let's face it, he's 36 and in the same position (except that he found academic postdoc #2 after 16 or so months of unemployment) so whenever I complain about me, he takes it as I'm bashing him. And the stupid thing is, I'm not, in any way. I think he's amazing. I love that he likes the work he's doing now. Sure, we both realize that our finances haven't been in this much peril since our double grad student days nearly a decade ago (and even then it wasn't so bad...) and the future alternates between being a big black hole sucking us closer and closer in and that heady feeling of approaching the end of a long long climb up a mountain where you don't know what's on the other side, but you know for sure there will be some kind of an awesome view that was worth the effort to get there. But in those moments when I can get past that and just enjoy the day, today, for what it is, give LittleOne an extra big squeeze or a energetic tickle and drink up that laugh for all it's worth, stop to listen to the wind in the tree tops or see the birds bobbing in the water at the lake shore, then Life as I know it doesn't look so bad after all...

Aaaaaaannnnnnndddd...........

...........REJECTED again. This is getting hard on the ego.

Update: Pulled up my socks and re-formatted my CV again, including references so it's now up to 3 pages (I liked it much better at 2 pages). Then I re-wrote (again) a cover letter for spontaneous applications and sent to a promising company I applied to back in December with no response. Maybe the revised version of me will be more interesting?

No response from the mentoring program yet.

I seriously considered applying for a lab technician position this morning with a recruiter for an unknown employer. But damn, if I'm going back to the bench, I could do it as a postdoc at least. *sigh* They'd never hire me anyway with a stupid PhD when they're looking for a technical school graduate. I've had 3 different people tell me in the last 48 hours that they think I should just give up on finding a "real job" do an academic postdoc. I'm starting to think they're right.

And on a totally unrelated note, I got a massive bill from the postal service in NewCountry for import fees on a package I received a few weeks ago.
Value of the package: about 25 PiecesOfLocalCurrency
Amount of taxes I need to pay for that (based on weight of the package! Not even on the value!): 0.45 PiecesOfLocalCurrency
Total bill: 59.55 PiecesOfLocalCurrency

WTF?!?!?!?! I have to pay more than twice the value of the package just to get the package into the country?! Thank you Customs Clearance Service, Import Administration and Commission fees. Fuckwads. Remind me why I moved to this place again? Oh yeah... Husband dearest. He can pay the bill.