Today is the last day of February and March begins tomorrow. March is followed by April, which is followed by May. May will mark the one year anniversary of my graduation from the MBA program.
This is …. pretty frightening. I was looking at my Outlook calendar last week to plan out my March and I had trouble believing that I have been out of school for that long, that I have yet to find a job, and that I cannot recall what I have been doing all this time.
There is a reason why I have not blogged about this topic in over a month. It is not that I never think about my job search. On the contrary, I think about it all the time. I was talking to someone about two weeks ago and I politely asked him to stop asking me about the job search. I told him that there is not a five minute block of time in my waking hours that it does not cross my mind that I am unemployed, that I entertain all sorts of scenarios about how this situation can possibly resolve itself, and hearing comments such as “if you don’t find a job by the time the MBA Class of 2008 graduates, you will really be screwed” does not help.
Since returning to North Carolina, every week has been an emotional roller coaster where my mood changes several times a week, sometimes even on the same day. There are times when I feel like I am a pretty smart guy and can easily find a way out of this and then there are other times when I feel hopeless and don’t see how this journey that I embarked on almost three years ago can possibly have a happy ending. When my mind is idling, it tends to think about things that make me angry or scared. In response, I force myself to do job search stuff even on the weekends just to keep my mind focused on something other than my situation.
One thing that is encouraging is that the interviews are still coming. Two weeks ago I had phone interviews with two companies, one is for a director (yes, director level) of product marketing position at a small technology firm in DC and the other is for a product marketing manager position for a company in Virginia that makes educational software. I thought both interviews went pretty well. One interviewer has responded telling me that while he likes what I said during the interview, he wants someone with more marketing experience. In other words, it wasn’t that I said something wrong, it was on what I didn’t say.
I really don’t know what there is more that I can do except to keep looking and to consider looking for positions that I hadn’t considered before. Last week I applied for a business development position for a well known non-profit organization in China. next week I have two phone interviews – one is for a Senior Business Analyst position at an insurance company and the other is for a Product Manager position at a computer hardware company. These position are polar opposites in terms of what I want to do. The Product Manager position is ideally what I want to do where the Senior Business Analyst is probably the “lowest” I will accept, not because there is something wrong with the company or position, but because it is quite far from what I ideally wish to do. One of the interviewers next week will be talking to me from an office within one mile from my house while the other will be in a foreign country.
As bad as things may look, there are a couple of things in my life that I am extremely thankful for. First and foremost is my Christian faith. I have written on this blog that religious faith is not be based upon whether we like the events that transpire in our lives. Rather, it is when the individual continues to believe in spite of hardship and setbacks that is the stronger testament of faith. Throughout the past couple of years I have fervently prayed for three things. I prayed for God’s will over my life to prevail, I pray for Him to put me in situations where I can be of most use to Him, and I pray for circumstances where my faith will be strengthened. And I have to believe that God is continuing to look over me and will open the appropriate doors. In spite of my circumstances, I cannot say that God hasnot been listening to and answering my prayers. Over the past month, there have been several instances of good things happening to me at exactly the right appropriate times that are beyond what I can explain as mere coincidences. In addition, I recognize this as an opportunity for me to test my faith and years from now, I want to be able to say that when times looked tough, I continued to not only hold onto my faith but relied on it for strength.
Several other things have helped keep me from emotionally going “off the rail.” I have a friend in California whom I have been calling late at night when my mind winds down and automatically starts to entertain various nightmare scenarios (it helps to have friends in several time zones to the west of you). It’s reassuring just to hear her voice telling me about my attributes and saying that things are going to be okay. And this blog has helped me too. I have gone over various entries to remind myself of some of the lessons I have learned (here, here, and here) during business school and why I made the decisions that I have made.
As I looked at the calendar today it dawned on me that today’s the leap day. It’s nice to have an extra day to get things done. If only there is a way God can give me an extra month, or better yet, the past nine months back.
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