My job search has been like a Rubik's cube. I have shifted and turned my approached with resumes, cover letters, and interviews in every possible way I could come up with. Yet the colors still do not sync up to a long term career. I am a 34-year old recent graduate with experience in manufacturing, marketing, and academic office work, yet I still can't land a job. The hardest part for me is getting past the HR wall. I have been able to do it four times in the last year and a half. The amount of hope that blooms with getting a call for an interview is unavoidable, but with a steady mind you can keep a positive outlook and also the realistic possibility of failure. It's not easy dealing with rejection. I usually take a breather from the hunt by walking or exercising. The days so far have been an uphill battle surrounded with questions like "How did I get here?" or "Did I make the right choices?" No matter what the outcome is I have to deal with it and use what I have in front of me.
I am lucky enough to have some wonderful friends that let me do small jobs for them in their machine shop. The job consists of mindless janitorial labor and the occasional light machinist task, but the environment there gives a welcoming vibe. On my spare time I've been writing and attempting to keep up my reading and writing chops. I don't want to be another graduate that leaves what they loved and worked hard for behind. I was a philosophy major and I intend to keep myself looking and acting like one for the rest of my life. I chose philosophy for that purpose; as a tool for living. I have also been keeping up with my marketing skills, something that I've stuck with since high school. I make designs for social media, tinker with my website, and read up on copywriting. Ultimately it's been a journey in itself to follow the way social media marketing is flowing and growing through culture and time. The process makes me humble in a world plagued with pride. I love to learn new concepts that can direct me towards more efficient shortcuts that allow my creativity to breathe.
I have been revered by some respectable people that I am a great writer. I have also been informed that I am a terrible writer. Possibly this is why I love to write. It's another thing that I've been doing on my own for pleasure. I can create and develop ideas by creating a cosmos of words on canvas. Unfortunately I still have that one professor in my head that trips me up when I think of something wild and spastic to pout on paper. He would say "words on canvas? You don't write on a canvas!". A part of me want to go back and find him to tell him "You are a boring academic with your nose lodged in your behind!" The scenario is a fun fantasy of mine that I use when certain synapses require a cease fire from my cerebral headquarters. Often I find myself looking for ways to improve my writing which results in either an answer from the web or an endless rabbit hole of YouTube videos.
Recently I have been practicing through copy work. I stumbled across this idea from an Art of Manliness podcast about penmanship. The practice was actually an old way schools would teach students to write. The recent century has experienced the change to the sentence-by-sentence grammar lessons that we know today. Copy work is relaxing and works well with reading. First, find an article or passage from something your interested in and copy it down. The idea itself seems boring but I find it interesting to write what my favorite writers were writing. It helps the reader understand the meaning ain a different way. Also, if you are ambitious, you can practice cursive while doing your copy work. I am by default an artistic soul that needs some kind of interesting jive to my practice. My routine involves some good lighting and lo-fi beats. Once I get into a groove, I zone out into a world of focus with each stroke containing a purpose (I promise I don't use any mind altering substances; that can be a whole article in itself!). The process is as rewarding as a well crafted dish once you're done.
This is only a peephole shop to my unemployment life.