Summer hunting season

I am still in the midst of a job search right now.  Not a lot has happened since I last wrote about this.  I have altered some of my techniques though.  I only try to make in person contacts now.  No more of this calling around stuff.  Online applications are not something that I am doing right now.  I find them to be long and tedious.  They are demoralizing to me.  I carry a copy of my resume´ with me and a list of my references.  If a company is not taking applications, I ask will they accept a copy of my resume´.  Most of the time they will but what I want to talk about today is the interview and the parts of the resume´.

As of yet, I haven't had the first call back for an interview.  This is a first for me.  I have been in the workforce since I was 16 years old and it just feels so foreign to me to be out of work so long.  Now I haven't started worrying about this because in my heart of hearts I believe that something will turn up.  It may not be just what I was looking for but it will be something to pay the bills so to speak.  Now the resume´ writing has changed a little since I first learned to write one.  There is this part called the "objective" and that seems a little odd to me.  My objective is to get a job!  Now I can't put that on there can I?  It just doesn't sound professional.  So you have to come up with a sugar coated way to say the same thing.  This to me is stupid.  Now you know why I hate politics.  Things that should be so simple are made to be so complicated.  I think I will omit this.  The work history and education areas are OK I suppose.  I don't give more information than I have to there though because I want to explain more of this in an interview.  I just have where I worked and what I did and the hire dates.  I only go back 10 years unless the information from a past job is pertinent to the job I am applying for.  Employers generally only keep records 7 years or so on you.  Many times if you have been away for longer than that, they won't have a record of your employment.  This does vary from company to company and they may remember you anyway, but don't count on it.  Another part of my resume´ is references.  Work and personal references to be exact.  Now I will only furnish this on a separate sheet upon request.  I appreciate all of the people that said that I could use their personal information to help me to gain employment.  I don't hand that information out to just anyone and certainly not like giving away a free coupon or something.  I have a friend in a nearby city that is a manager of a company.  There is a special paper that you can buy just to print a resume´ on.  It usually is heavy milled and has a watermark on it if you hold it to the light.  My friend will hold the resume´ up to the light and if the watermark is upside down, he throws the thing in the trash!  He won't even look at the content.  I haven't told him, but I think it is stupid to let a potentially good employee slip through your fingers just because of a watermark.  I don't use this special paper anyhow. :)  Call me a maverick.  I may be an unemployed maverick, but a maverick, nonetheless. :)

If I can get to the interview, life will be good.  Interviews don't intimidate me because I can usually talk my way into a job.  The person interviewing is just a person like me and that is how I have always looked at it.  You have to have all of your ducks in a row when you go in there though.  Nothing really in my past that would hinder me so I am confident when I get to this part.  It is just getting to the interview that is driving me nuts right now.  Now I know some of you are going through the same thing and you all have a few different techniques that you use.  Perhaps we could compare notes and give each other a few pointers.  Anything to pass the time. :)  Hopefully, the next time I post about this will be about how I got the job!  I'll definitely post that when it happens! :)