[First posted 7/27/09]
Woooooo-hoooooo! After a very dry year – and a very dry decade – I got and accepted a permanent, full-time state job at decent pay (still “underwater,” but not toooo far underwater), for what feels like a good office with good people doing interesting work.
So, you might ask (my job-search coach did!), what was different this time? Why, after so many months of one interview a month, if that, for much worse jobs at much lower pay, why did you get a job offer now? What did you do differently?
“Uh,” I said to my coach, so very articulately, “I hired you?”
Because, really, I hadn’t done anything differently, to speak of. And yet, last week was different.
I mean, I got called to interview for three different jobs in one week – two of them, for good jobs – when the norm was one a month, for a lousy job, if I was lucky. Every time I looked at any job listings, anywhere – for the state, for Craigslist, online, anywhere – I felt like I was witnessing the Incredible Shrinking Job Market. Being in the midst of a budget meltdown, more and more California state jobs, if even if they were exceptions to the hiring freeze, were listed as intermittent (read: on call) and/or limited term (like it sounds: temporary).
For this good job, on Monday I returned home from the first interview to find a message inviting me to a second interview, for Wednesday. On Thursday, my contact for that job had called – and reached – all three of my references – an excellent sign. On Friday the office was closed for a furlough day (the weekend was verrrry long for me). Today, when I got home from my state internship at 12:30, there was no message. I was actually beginning to doubt that I would get the job after all.
But then, just as I was about to leave for an interview for the third (much, much worse) job, the call came with the offer. Needless to say, I canceled the interview. (The interviewer for the second of the three jobs, meanwhile, called today to say I was “overqualified” – code for “too old.” Not for the state, thank you very much!)
So, luck was definitely a major part of this very different week, with the very happy ending (and beginning).
But my coach was also right: I had done some new things (besides hiring him) that definitely helped me land this job:
- The state internship was a huge factor, in four ways:
- It showed my commitment to state work.
- It gave me a new reference, who could speak to my ability to “get along” in a state bureaucracy.
- It gave me a new confidence in myself and in my skills.
- It gave me insider information for my target job (a professional-level state job), from colleagues who were more than happy to advise and help me.
- My job-search coach was a big confidence builder (thank you, Cliff!), both in his advice and just being there; plus, hiring him reflected a new determination on my part, a last big push to get the job I wanted, before my unemployment ran out early next year.
- I had two other great references, who stuck with me for four long years!
- I took advice from colleagues at the state internship, to start in a job class a step lower than my target job, which this is, and then seek ways to move up later – something that’s much easier once you’re a state worker to begin with.
- I did all the right things, from having good, relevant, concise examples to standard interview questions, to sending thank-you emails immediately (always ask for full names and email addresses of interviewers, and briefly reiterate what you can do for them), to giving my references a heads-up on the type of job and the things the interviewers emphasized, so they could emphasize the same things.
- My wide-ranging background and skills were a good fit, so much so that the hiring manager was willing to overlook my choppy resume in the last ten years (from editor to Web manager to teacher to nonprofit fundraising associate to…state worker??), just as the internship interviewers were.
- And here’s how luck played a part:
- The fact that I was not a state worker, and that I was used to meeting deadlines, was a plus in this case – this office is not weighed down by bureaucracy – but only together with the commitment to state work I displayed by committing to the state internship.
- They were on a fast track to hire someone quickly, as you could tell by the week’s time from first interview to job offer.
- On the org chart, this office is close the head of the entire agency, which likely explains the exemptions they’re getting from the hiring freeze (to hire me along with a half-dozen others), as well as the fast-paced work environment.
- The work, the boss, the “mission,” the colleagues all felt comfortable to me.
- There were no “gotchas” – no traveling, no chain to my desk, etc. – I’d have a hard time living with, because of health issues.
Oh, and one more bit of luck: Before my first interview last Monday, I stopped in at Ki Gifts, purposely for good luck. Why? Because the first time I stopped in, I was on my way to the interview for the state internship. When I went back after the interview, Keith, the owner, said that lots of people had done just what I had done – stopped in before and after a job interview – and had always gotten the job.
Well, I did get that “job” – the internship. And now I got this job. I’ll have to stop in tomorrow and let him know. He’ll be happy and astounded for me. “Ki” means “life.” We all can use a bit of “life” before our job interviews!
My Fourth Recession 