4 months in, life goes on
I'm about 4 months being unemployed and feeling quite restless today particularly. My social calendar has kept me somewhat busy still but the days are filled with a whole lot of nothing and I've been feeling maybe a bit depressed trying to figure out how to use all the time.
It's almost like it's just too open-ended. I feel like I need some kind of guidance. I've still been trying to work with community networks a bit more but haven't been as involved in that because it has been overlapping with social plans. It's also harder because every job requires a 1-hour commute and in some cases, I'm not doing much beyond observing (when, honestly, I could be running the install myself).
I've been applying to jobs too of course - 45 positions and counting - but it's a classic story. A million applications and no interviews. My resume is tight. It's gotten me interviews before I was unemployed. Now though, the market is rough and anything outside of my industry and apparently afraid to touch me because I haven't done precisely the work they were doing before. It makes no earthly sense! They want a data analyst or a data scientist, I check off every box they have in their requirements and even some of the good-to-haves, and yet because I don't have the entire context of the insurance industry or food supply chains or whatever it may be, I'm left in the lurch. I can learn! I can get that context easily! I'll sit up reading for months if I have to!
It's getting to the point where I don't know what else to do. I've talked with recruiters, I've worked some friends as contacts, I've sent direct emails. I haven't gone off the deep end and started showing up places begging or tried borderline harassing HR people on LinkedIn/email/the phone but maybe that's what it's gonna take?
One of my friends told me there might be a role in his IT organization opening soon that I could worm my way into. I'm really hoping that ends up working out because even just an interview would give me some hope. It wouldn't pay nearly as well, there'd probably be a gentle learning curve working with tickets, but I really think that I could do it. I just need to be given the chance and so far it feels like I haven't.