Feeling particularly low today. Got a phone call first thing this morning informing me that I didn't get the volunteer coordinator position
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Notes from the hiring linechimeraeApril 2 2010, 12:59:53 UTC
OK - It sucks to be super smart and a do-er and unable to find a job. You really do have my total sympathy. Sometimes I forget to say stuff like that.
Before I bumped me head too hard and lost the ability to organize my way up a one-way street, I did a lot of hiring, not from the HRDepartment but at the place where the rubber meets the road. And I have worked a lot with volunteer organizations.
You don't put someone who totally rocks in a volunteer coordinator position, first because continuity and consistency are of primary importance and someone like you, however committed and well intended, is going to move on to something paid. Second because ace performers set the bar too high for most volunteers and you lose people.
Ditto on all of that for entry level positions if you have a lot of choice in who to hire.
That said, and with acknowledgement that I totally don't know you, I'm wondering why you're stuck on the job thing in a down economy. You seem to be ideally suited for startup entrepreunship as a way to initially begin to pay the bills while you build a space in the culture for work that supports who you are and the life that really suits you.
A good writer with solid journalism chops, international experience, a great mind, leadership and organizational skills -- isn't there some way you can get paid for being who you are and doing what you do in some form that would pay regardless of where you might be? Can you problem solve over the phone?
Re: Notes from the hiring lineclawsoftiamatApril 2 2010, 17:29:42 UTC
I've been at a loss regarding this for a long time - I came back to the US in December, and have gotten only a single call back from any of the jobs I've applied to. Knowing that I've applied for hundreds, getting a single interview for a part time position has been devastating.
I don't think I'd be very good as an entrepreneur. Maybe I would; there are arguments both for and against. But let me explain.
Though I've never been diagnosed, my family and I all agree I probably have ADD--the inattentive form. What this primarily means is that I am not and have never been a self-starter; I need someone there with expectations to fulfill or I'm not going to get much done. It took me quite a while to get coping mechanisms into place, especially since in school I was smart enough to not need to do my homework, which meant that I was in a particularly poor position when I started college and needed to be able to do my homework and couldn't do it. It took me two years and almost failing out of school and a professor who was on my case all the time to get those coping mechanisms into place.
I am also afraid of authority. I know that fear is a strange response to authority, but this leads back to the ADD in a weird way -- and one that I could only really get a handle on and begin to understand while living at a distance from the source of it. My mother is a lovely woman, but she also tends to have unrealistic expectations, especially given how distracted I can become unless I have a visual reminder of what I need to accomplish. She was always loathe to create lists for me, and no matter what I did, I always forgot some part of it (i.e. clean the garage but forget to put away the broom) so I'd end up in trouble no matter what I did or how hard I tried. Living in China, I saw this illustrated in my life because I worked hard to be a good teacher, but I'd forget something and decide I'd done something wrong and start to avoid the administration.
So, I have a love/hate relationship with authority. I actually think I'd have been perfect for that volunteer coordinator position -- I have the perfect skillset, and as a consequence of the add-i, I'm disinclined to believe that I would expect too much of volunteers. In fact, as a teacher, I found that I was more likely to want to give great grades to anyone who just tried hard, which actually led me to believe that I make a poor teacher. I have a very difficult time grading, no matter what rubrics I create.
I am also not very creative. This has held me back as far as starting my own business as much as anything else -- I have no idea what to do and no idea where to start figuring it out.
The fourth disadvantage I have is that I live in a very rural area and I'm tied here while my boyfriend's in school. If you've been watching the news recently and heard about the guys arrested for wanting to start a revolution by killing cops, you know exactly where I live. They're about five miles away. Most people here are absolutely lovely people and I really had no idea that we had militias in the area, oddly enough.
Having said all that, I do have a lot of strengths. I am extremely organized, and I really am very good at problem solving. I am the perfect person to have around in an emergency, because I can go read the regulations and find a loophole better than anyone else. When Dan's school called and told him he had no credits and they'd basically screwed him out of two and a half years of school, when I couldn't find a solution to it I had us on a plane within two weeks, heading for England to get his visa. I had him accepted to school, with proving his finances, despite having no finances to speak of and doing it all on short notice. I sorted our place out, dealt with our landlord, got our tuition back, etc, within record time. I'm not altogether certain many people but me could have accomplished all of that in the time frame we had, and I'm glad we did. It was a loophole, but it was an effective loophole.
Re: Notes from the hiring lineclawsoftiamatApril 2 2010, 17:31:31 UTC
I'm also a good teacher if I don't have to evaluate much past needed competencies. I'm decent at training and I don't mind talking in front of people so long as I know what I'm talking about -- and there were times in China where I was asked to give a speech to 500 people with no notice and not having any idea what I was talking about, and that is Not Pleasant (tm). I'm a good cheerleader and motivator.
So there you have it. I have no idea what to do with that -- living where we do means that I'm really limited in what I can do, and nobody's going to hire "General Problemsolver -- You gotta problem, I can find a solution." Like I said, that volunteer coordinator position basically had my name on it -- it required all of the technical competencies I have, had an easygoing boss with a moral system I was compatible with, and used my organizing and teaching skills in the right manner. I'm just completely at a loss, and that's why I was going back to school -- at least I can get a degree in something I'm not particularly talented at but will get me a job that I will not completely fail at. I don't know what else to do, since I don't qualify for unemployment and nobody will call me back. It's infuriating and I hate to be a drain on my parents, and not be able to pay for Dan's tuition.
Anyway, end babble. I dunno if you have any ideas for me, but I'm flat out.
Before I bumped me head too hard and lost the ability to organize my way up a one-way street, I did a lot of hiring, not from the HRDepartment but at the place where the rubber meets the road. And I have worked a lot with volunteer organizations.
You don't put someone who totally rocks in a volunteer coordinator position, first because continuity and consistency are of primary importance and someone like you, however committed and well intended, is going to move on to something paid. Second because ace performers set the bar too high for most volunteers and you lose people.
Ditto on all of that for entry level positions if you have a lot of choice in who to hire.
That said, and with acknowledgement that I totally don't know you, I'm wondering why you're stuck on the job thing in a down economy. You seem to be ideally suited for startup entrepreunship as a way to initially begin to pay the bills while you build a space in the culture for work that supports who you are and the life that really suits you.
A good writer with solid journalism chops, international experience, a great mind, leadership and organizational skills -- isn't there some way you can get paid for being who you are and doing what you do in some form that would pay regardless of where you might be? Can you problem solve over the phone?
Reply
I don't think I'd be very good as an entrepreneur. Maybe I would; there are arguments both for and against. But let me explain.
Though I've never been diagnosed, my family and I all agree I probably have ADD--the inattentive form. What this primarily means is that I am not and have never been a self-starter; I need someone there with expectations to fulfill or I'm not going to get much done. It took me quite a while to get coping mechanisms into place, especially since in school I was smart enough to not need to do my homework, which meant that I was in a particularly poor position when I started college and needed to be able to do my homework and couldn't do it. It took me two years and almost failing out of school and a professor who was on my case all the time to get those coping mechanisms into place.
I am also afraid of authority. I know that fear is a strange response to authority, but this leads back to the ADD in a weird way -- and one that I could only really get a handle on and begin to understand while living at a distance from the source of it. My mother is a lovely woman, but she also tends to have unrealistic expectations, especially given how distracted I can become unless I have a visual reminder of what I need to accomplish. She was always loathe to create lists for me, and no matter what I did, I always forgot some part of it (i.e. clean the garage but forget to put away the broom) so I'd end up in trouble no matter what I did or how hard I tried. Living in China, I saw this illustrated in my life because I worked hard to be a good teacher, but I'd forget something and decide I'd done something wrong and start to avoid the administration.
So, I have a love/hate relationship with authority. I actually think I'd have been perfect for that volunteer coordinator position -- I have the perfect skillset, and as a consequence of the add-i, I'm disinclined to believe that I would expect too much of volunteers. In fact, as a teacher, I found that I was more likely to want to give great grades to anyone who just tried hard, which actually led me to believe that I make a poor teacher. I have a very difficult time grading, no matter what rubrics I create.
I am also not very creative. This has held me back as far as starting my own business as much as anything else -- I have no idea what to do and no idea where to start figuring it out.
The fourth disadvantage I have is that I live in a very rural area and I'm tied here while my boyfriend's in school. If you've been watching the news recently and heard about the guys arrested for wanting to start a revolution by killing cops, you know exactly where I live. They're about five miles away. Most people here are absolutely lovely people and I really had no idea that we had militias in the area, oddly enough.
Having said all that, I do have a lot of strengths. I am extremely organized, and I really am very good at problem solving. I am the perfect person to have around in an emergency, because I can go read the regulations and find a loophole better than anyone else. When Dan's school called and told him he had no credits and they'd basically screwed him out of two and a half years of school, when I couldn't find a solution to it I had us on a plane within two weeks, heading for England to get his visa. I had him accepted to school, with proving his finances, despite having no finances to speak of and doing it all on short notice. I sorted our place out, dealt with our landlord, got our tuition back, etc, within record time. I'm not altogether certain many people but me could have accomplished all of that in the time frame we had, and I'm glad we did. It was a loophole, but it was an effective loophole.
To be continued --
Reply
So there you have it. I have no idea what to do with that -- living where we do means that I'm really limited in what I can do, and nobody's going to hire "General Problemsolver -- You gotta problem, I can find a solution." Like I said, that volunteer coordinator position basically had my name on it -- it required all of the technical competencies I have, had an easygoing boss with a moral system I was compatible with, and used my organizing and teaching skills in the right manner. I'm just completely at a loss, and that's why I was going back to school -- at least I can get a degree in something I'm not particularly talented at but will get me a job that I will not completely fail at. I don't know what else to do, since I don't qualify for unemployment and nobody will call me back. It's infuriating and I hate to be a drain on my parents, and not be able to pay for Dan's tuition.
Anyway, end babble. I dunno if you have any ideas for me, but I'm flat out.
Reply
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