I use this blog to put my thoughts in writing, to refine and clarify my opinions and arguments, and to hopefully catch any major errors or blind spots before I attempt to act on them. Topics can range from politics to film criticism to things happening in my daily life.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The E-word

I am currently applying for jobs as a teacher.  I am I hold Secondary English/Language Arts licensure (at least provisionally) in three states and am applying to every position I can find in at least a substantial portion of each.  I started searching in early February, shortly after finishing student teaching and graduating in January.

I have submitted 82 applications to date.  I have only missed 8 application deadlines that I know of, half of which were in the last week; between the increased number of positions, and my need to take time away from applications for interviews and (starting next week) working full-time at my summer job, it's now more or less unfeasible to apply to every application that comes along.  That also doesn't count job postings that have no deadline; I'm usually so busy trying to keep ahead of deadlines that those without get pushed to the back of the line, and I'm sure many of the open-deadline positions on my list have been filled for weeks.  Until the rate of postings starts to slow down (and it may have, although I haven't checked my job boards for close to a week), there's only so much I can do.

I have had 7 interviews.  One of those was for a position that I actually had not applied for; my resume came into consideration because the district had it from a job fair.  Another district scheduled me for an interview, but then unscheduled me in favor of someone else.  Yeah.  Classy, I know.  Of the 7 interviews I have had, 4 have notified me of having selected another candidate, one has not contacted me but can be safely assumed to be a bust, and one is still a possibility but is several days past their intended timeframe of reply, from which I deduce that they have offered to another candidate and are waiting to see if he/she accepts and is approved by their board; the only way they will offer it to me is if every more favored candidate turns them down.  Not holding my breath.  The seventh interview was this afternoon; they expect to be contacting candidates with their decision on Wednesday.

I have received confirmed rejections for 31 of the applications I have sent, counting the unsuccessful interviews.

I am so, so very sick of job applications.