The Adventure of Job Hunting

Ah... real world.

Those who don't know: I've been in university for 9 years now, ever since I left high school. It's been good to me, but alas: my thesis is coming to an end, and it's time to look for a job.

Now, go back one month, when I was still slaving on the last chapters of my thesis. I was browsing around and came across this job that's advertising for a researcher. The description was fairly vague, but it sounded interesting. I thought wouldn't it be great if a job like this one pop up a month later when I've finished my thesis. I was chatting to my friend who's been through the job hunt after PhD thing, and he said I should just apply for it anyway. So I took a day off, updated my CV, and sent it off.

So, I got called in for an interview, stressed about that for a week, and the interview went well: it lasted for an hour an a half, with half an hour of me talking about my current research and what I'm looking for and an hour for them telling me what a cool place it is to work there (and it is...). Although, THEN they told me the position is actually IT based. I was honest with them and said IT isn't really what I want to go into, but I won't mind working in IT for a few months and then move into something else. They mentioned that there is this other position opening up which is closer to my discipline, which is a lot more challenging, and on a rather funky project.

So, the next day I have a guy from another team in that place emailing me to tell me about this said position. I was still pretty confident about the first position, so I thought I won't apply for this one. That was last Friday.

Monday morning came along and I got a call at 9am from the guy asking me to apply for the second position. I was actually being non-committing: seeing that I haven't worked in the exact field before, and I'm still waiting for the IT position. The guy spent 10 minutes on the phone convincing me that it's just a matter personality and transferring research skills, and that it won't affect my first application. So I changed a few words in my cover letter, and sent it off.

I was feeling pretty good about it, but then the next day I get an email saying I didn't get the first job.

Logically, I know it didn't matter since I do prefer the second position, and IT really isn't my cup of tea. But it's still rather crushing I guess. I was being rather cocky about the whole situation before (well, as cocky as someone with a serious self esteem issue anyway). NOW, I don't even know if I have a shot at the second position. *sigh*

Now I get to stress about the interview all over again.*sigh*