This is not going to be me complaining and going “woe is me” for 550 words. I don’t want it to be like that, so stop me if I start turning into some self-deprecating, depressive drama queen okay? All that being said my job search process is not going well – I am not getting the desired result to say the least and haven’t been for the past four months now. I just finished my master’s degree and subsequently found myself looking for work in one of our nation’s worst economic downturns.

I decided to move back to the greater DC area to be with family, but also because I thought the job market would be better out here. Only one of those two things turned out to be a positive, and I bet you can guess it wasn’t the job market. The federal and state government are both on a hiring freeze and local nonprofits are not using the term hiring freeze but have prioritized different departments and industries. I get it, I do. Budgets are tight (believe me!), funding needs to be funneled to direct services such as COVID relief. I would probably do the same in their shoes, but your girl still needs a job at the end of the day.

So, I start wondering, why didn’t I get just one of the two dozen plus jobs I’ve applied for? Einstein was credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results” and that’s starting to be my reality right now. A small part of me wonders if he was talking to future me when he said that – like Einstein I get it but what can I do differently dude?

I know my experience; I was lucky to have multiple internships both during my undergrad and graduate schooling and have worked at some pretty cool organizations and been a part of some awesome work. But maybe that’s not enough or maybe I had one too many misspellings on my cover letter, or maybe there’s some bias toward my field (I got my masters in macro/policy social work and maybe folks just can’t get past that social work line) but I digress.

What I do know I’m doing right is:

  1. I’m not losing hope, even when it seems hopeless
  2. I’m starting to reach out to my contacts and my friends, there’s no reason to go at this alone, sometimes you need to swallow your pride ya know, and
  3. I’m starting to get resourceful, you have to be savvy these days and that means using every resource you can get your hands on.

So if you’re in my shoes I get it, I really do. Things can seem really hard and you can feel like you’re never going to catch a break. But I’m here to say I still believe things can turn around. So keep lighting that veladora candle of yours and never stop proofreading your cover letter! On a side note, if y’all are hiring check out my LinkedIn!