Wednesday 13 August 2014

Mismatched

I've been looking for a job for almost two years, since my daughter started school full-time.  I've become a member of at least half a dozen job-search web sites and carefully crafted profiles and resumés to reflect my experience and skill set.  However these sites' search engines frequently present me with listings that are way off the mark.

Project manager.  Customer service representative.  Hardware installer.  Marketing assistant.

I am none of those.  I'm a writer and editor.  Long ago I moved up from a simple data entry clerk to a "Database Support Specialist" and then to "Office Support" which became "Technical Communicator" after I took a certificate program in the same.  But forget about those fancy-schmancy titles that so many companies seem to favour now; at my core I'm a writer.

So why can't I find any positions that match my skill set?

I'm grateful to currently be contributing articles to a web magazine, and I really enjoy it.  My work is supposedly getting good coverage and readership, but this is a six-month intern (non-paying) position with no guarantee that I can expect a referral to a paying job at the end of it.  Plus my husband is looking for work in his field elsewhere - and to be honest I've been strenuously resisting doing the same - and I'm getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to land something appropriate close to home.

People have told me that with my skills I'm not unemployable.  But it's hard to believe that when almost all of my applications, even those to fast food outlets, have gone unanswered.  Perhaps it has been too long.  I chose to leave the workforce to raise our daughter, but now I'm regretting that decision.  It's too hard to get back in once you leave.

2 comments:

  1. Oh, that's got to be frustrating-I'm sorry, and good luck!! Something will come along!

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  2. You have my sincere sympathy. I have no idea what to tell anyone in today's insane economy. The mismatch though is not limited to computers. Experience from 1970/71. I have resigned myself to the relocation from Calgary to Grand Forks in the Interior of B.C., for my husband's job. I realise I don't want to become a teacher of French after all. I went to Man Power to ask the counselor for suggestions. Told him my mind worked better than my clumsy hands, I did not want to spend the rest of my life waitressing, and I was willing to retrain. What could he suggest as a flexible skill that I could use in small towns? His answer: How would you like to be a practical nurse?

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