Finding a job is a lot like dating. You jump in with no idea what you want or what to expect, send out all the signals, trust in the universe, and pray the right one will come along.
You start with the application, filling it out. It asks you all the personal questions like you would when going out on the first few dates. (birthdays, college affiliation, current position, etc.).
You think you might be a match, so you talk about all the reasons you and the company will work well together and you try to sell yourself. When you’re dating, how do you not sell all the best parts of yourself?
And then you wait. You wait for the interview, and if you have an interview, you wait for more. You don’t mean to, but you find yourself waiting by the phone in hopes they call. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I’m dating/in the new phase of a relationship I’m glued to my electronic device in hopes I’ll get an answer and have plans. And then you jump at the first chance to interview.
Now, at least you get to see if they are a good match for you as well. And of course you Google and run the name of the company by everyone you know before you go in. (It’s called self-preservation. I mean you never know what people know.) And maybe you shouldn’t, but you have to know what you are getting into.
But then you go into the process as a nervous, shaky mess on the inside and cool, calm and collected on the outside because you must put your best foot forward but still be genuine, and you can’t let on how nervous you are. You constructed the perfect outfit (and incorporate the damn blazer that swallows you hole because those don’t fit ANYBODY), applied the perfect/professional amount of makeup and walk in the door. You’ve researched, but there’s no guarantee regarding what’s going to happen when you walk in that door. You form sentences, you answer questions, you try to converse, and you walk out there not knowing exactly what happened.
And so you wait. You obsessively check emails and hope every time the phone rings it’s someone calling to say they want to hire you. You follow up and send thank yous, but you still wait.
You try to keep busy, go on with your life, but you still get discouraged when the phone rings and it’s not them. And you know that things happen when you least expect them to and often when you stay busy and moving forward, but sometimes you can’t help it. You get frustrated about how you can’t find “the one.”
And you know…
That life, like dating, is a waiting game where fate plays the lead role.
And so you wait and hope you finally found the one.
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