My coworker who just got back from vacation was telling me about how he used to work in another department in this school, which offers new jobs fairly often and I've looked but not applied. Apparently the turnover rate there is enormous, and he got canned the day before his probation period was up. I guess they do that deliberately. Note to self: don't apply there unless I get desperate and "need the experience" (which is, I guess, why he went there).

I told my fellow clerk today about the job I found yesterday, and she actually recognized who the job would be for (I confess that I don't know what everyone does beyond the people who are in my section. I've been introduced around, but couldn't remember it all) in this area. It'd be for someone I recognize but don't really know. She was all "You should go talk to her." True, but then my latent shyness came in and I felt all invasive at the idea. I don't know. Then later on, since she'd asked where I saw it, I forwarded the e-mail I got the description in on to her. She read it and was all "You're going for 50 percent time? You want full time, don't you?" Well, yeah, but this is the first job I've seen in a couple months that I can actually do. No demands that I have a driver's license, or know how to do payroll, or have had three years' experience answering multi-line telephones, or lists a bunch of programs I have to know first. And it's still a large amount of pay for a girl like me.

As others have done before, she started telling me about how she used to work in hiring and that all of the stuff people put in job listings really doesn't mean a whole lot. Which pretty much flabbergasts me. I figure they put this stuff into the job listing because you will actually USE A-P programs listed and will generally have to use everything they mention in the ad. And if you're missing one or two of these things and can't fully do the job, why on earth would they hire you? If it were me, I certainly wouldn't. She said it was because they want the ideal candidate, but won't get it, and have to hire from what they get, plus there's the whole "well, so-and-so looks good, maybe we'll hire them for something else later" thing. Not that I've heard of anyone getting that in the hiring environment these days, though...

Anyway, it's kind of hard for me to explain how she hit a nerve where other people (Mom, Dave, I forget whoall else that's given me the lecture- half of 3WA?) haven't when it comes to the theory of "apply for everything, even if you're not qualified." I think it's because this is what's still sticking in my head: I'd said something like given how the boy's job frustrates me, I just hope I won't ever have to take a job in retail, and she was all "No! No!" She said I have tons of experience and I should apply for jobs that I'm not utterly overqualified for, "like this one." Well, she certainly is, but doesn't care because she needs to work shorter hours to go get her kids, but ME? Hell, my clerical experience is on the "unofficial" level, which hasn't helped so far because I don't have official receptionist/admin assistant/secretary experience for a few years. My experience is in a different profession (which I can't get hired in, and plenty of folks with more experience in it than me beyond two years aren't getting hired now). So the way I figure it, it's not really beneath me because I just don't have enough in the clerical field yet. Okay, so it's not my ideal career choice, but it'll fill in for now until things improve. Right?

Then again, given how bored I generally am and how I sneak around doing stuff like writing this to keep my brain cells working during the day (my job is easy, but not a lot of thought is required), er, maybe she has a point. Reversed Magician card again and all. And suddenly the ghost of Regina/Erin's entry is haunting me again... (course, that hasn't worked out so well for her, so maybe that's not the best thing...) In a way, it does seem kinda sad when you think about what all of us have done in the past or are likely to do in the future (one person's going to law school in the fall), and yet we sit around doing data entry. I actually find what we're working on to be pretty interesting, given how class-obsessed I was during school, but it's not exactly a job where I can talk to other people about what I do, or keep their interest for more than a second. I do miss that about my old career, as well as missing writing. (Truth be told, my ideal job would involve being able to look up interesting stuff online a lot and then write about it, but those days are dead and gone.)

It's an interesting debate, isn't it? Given the bad economy, do you shoot up, in the middle, or down when applying? And if/when you shoot down, how low can you go?

I went through the job listings again to see if there's any jobs that don't categorically rule me out to apply for. I found four, none of which I'm very excited about applying for... sigh. It's hard to motivate myself to do customized cover letters for jobs I really don't have that much interest in. I'll at least go home and finish fixing up my resume, and then decide if I'm going to bother or not. One is due Thursday and the rest aren't due till the end of next week.

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