The One Where I’m Job Hunting During a Pandemic

It’s no news but I have been actively looking for a job. You see I moved here 3 years ago, leaving behind a career in Indonesia. I knew I wanted to keep working after I got married, but I wasn’t able to work immediately after I moved here. So while I waited, I did some remote freelancing work, and once I was able to work, I took on casual work here and there while I settle down and trying to figure out my next move. I then decided to go back to school, enrolled myself in a one-year long Digital Marketing certificate program.

Then the pandemic happened. I remember it was mid-March, I was one class away from my final presentation for a class I took in the Spring quarter. Our professor told us that it was our last in-person class. Then I had to record my final presentation, never met my classmates and professor in person anymore, and the rest is history…

Since the world was changing and there was so much uncertainty, I decided to hold off job hunting until I would be completely finished with the certificate program. Since March, I was enrolled in 2 classes for the Summer quarter, watched an online graduation ceremony for the class of 2020, borrowed a friend’s graduation cap and took pictures my university’s empty hallways, took an extra online class … and now finally done with it all. Yay me!

Since March I’ve applied to more than 100 jobs. No kidding, I used to keep a spreadsheet to document everything, but then decided to stop because I found it overwhelming at one point. I’ve gotten some rejections, some interviews, 1 job offer which I had to turn down, but still unemployed.

At one point I got so discouraged and seriously, in the middle of everything that’s been going on, I began to question a lot of things… like what do I really want to do, what can I bring to the table, etc etc, to a point where I decided to get help, because this poor mind couldn’t take the overthinking and confusion anymore. I stopped my job hunting process for a while to give room for me to sort things out, but I’ve been back being actively job hunting for the past two weeks.

I have to say the past two weeks was interesting. I’ve polished my resume, done more networking, received some job leads, started to apply to some interesting jobs, decided to be more active on Linkedin, did some interviews… including one with a recruiter from a top-ranked Fortune 500 company.

Although there is currently no suitable job opening for me at that company, we had a great talk and she gave me positive feedback for my resume. That was really encouraging! She wanted us to stay in touch, and encouraged me to actively keep an eye for new openings.. so let’s see.

Then I also had two other interviews. One was with a CEO of a mid-sized company. The interview was very off, I could tell that it wasn’t a match from the get go, and I guess it’s the feeling’s mutual for the other side because the interview lasted only 7 minutes :))))). The other one was with a recruiter for a startup company, which went well. I received an email today saying that the company decided not to move forward with me because I’m lacking experience in a specific industry.

To be honest I felt a little bit sad that I didn’t get to move forward with the start up, but I know that it’s not meant to be. My daily prayer and affirmation is to get a job that’s best for me, so I know this is not the one. But, I really appreciate the recruiter for giving me a personalized feedback, instead of just sending me a computer-generated email. Seriously this was the first time I’ve ever gotten a personalized feedback from a recruiter after an unsuccessful job interview. Kudos to that recruiter for being thoughtful during this difficult time.

So, yeah. Thank you for reading my job hunting update. Surely I’ll keep you posted on my journey and once I got that perfect job, I will share what works/what not during my job hunting process. Hopefully sooner than later 🙂