Job searching, my sadistic lover.

When I first began the job hunt, about two months ago, I was wide-eyed, gleaming with excitement, clicking “Save” on every job posting that remotely interested me on LinkedIn and Indeed. I was so excited to begin the journey to my dream job. Two months later and I have bags under my eyes and a love-hate relationship with LinkedIn’s “Jobs” function, but, surprisingly, I haven’t lost hope that I will find and land a job I am actually excited about.

Being 23, I read a mix of Facebook statuses that range from university acceptance letters to pregnancy announcements to the cynical friend who has been job searching for a year and still can’t land a position in their field. Encouraging.

Alas, do not fear, my worried friends, for I am no cynic. In fact, in some cases, like the decision of what to do with the rest of my life, I am entirely optimistic. As I am new the realm of job hunting, I may not be able to offer seasoned advice, but I still think my journey thus far can be helpful to others who maybe haven’t started looking yet, or maybe (like my poor anonymous Facebook friend) are feeling really lost and hopeless in their own search.

When I first started thinking about careers, all I could focus on was working in the education department of museums, so I only looked at jobs in the education department of museums, select museums at that. However, after a conversation with my loving father, I realized that pigeon-holing myself so early was probably not the best idea. In addition, I realized that there were actually other areas in museums I found fascinating, like exhibits and program management. Furthermore, I asked myself what about these jobs do I like and can other jobs, outside museums, offer the same excitement and fascination? Yes! In fact, that loving father I previously mentioned, he went down a rabbit-hole of museum and cultural sector related jobs and industries, and came back up with one of the coolest jobs that I had no idea even existed. Museum and heritage consulting. I could work on a new project every other month in a new museum in a different department or sector! It’s like having your cake and eating it too! And BOY are there a ton of these consulting firms out there, it’s incredible!

Basically, what I am saying, is that I expanded my view of careers I am interested in because I figured out it’s not the career that matters, but what I find interesting, exciting, and engaging that matters. If a career can give me those feelings, I will apply to any job in any industry.

My job hunt is in its infancy, I know that. Most people apply to a hundred jobs, some people apply to five. It depends on a variety of factors and your job search is probably very different than mine. But I am not getting discouraged. Actually, I think the more I job hunt the more encouraged I get- I just keep finding more and more jobs I would want, and that is really exciting. It also offers me the opportunity to see my first job as a temporary job, one that can help me grow and expand into another position or industry down the line. I have so many years in the workforce ahead of me that my first job won’t be my last job. With this knowledge, I am sitting back, relaxing, and taking it one job application at a time.

To be transparent, I have applied to fifteen jobs in the past two months and heard back from a resounding zero. Am I disappointed and discouraged? Not at all. My name is out there, they have my resume and cover letter for the future, and there’s another job application waiting on my desktop. I can apply to five or five hundred, all I need is one to say yes. My odds look pretty good.