Another great day for the unemployed mom

Blur had another crying episode at a class, making it his third and Little Bear is turning into an all-around annoying kid.


I get angry over little things--little to the casual observer, but big to me. I yell a lot. I don't happen to think it's yelling when I am doing it. Like today. I was talking about the shitty Illinois economy and the kids don't understand that I'm mad at an abstraction. (Besides nobody tells me I am yelling when I am yelling. Why is that?)

I have been saying that if things keep up, we will have to move. This does not sit well with the kids, Blur especially. He loves it here and hates change. This talk of change makes him want to hunker down at home so when I take him to Spanish class, which is a new thing for him anyways, he freaks out and bolts for the exit. LB on the other hand, handles that stuff well, but does have anger issues when he doesn't get his way. Maybe it's just because he's 5, but maybe he's taking his cues from me.

All day the kids talk about things they want. Wii games, Minecraft, a pet, birthday parties, Hero Factory, going out to restaurants, Disneyland, California...like their friends have. I have cancelled all our dentist visits and am wondering how I can get out of taking the boys to the doctor's before school because we don't have health insurance and are expecting a big ER bill for LB's smashed finger. Our lack of revenue concerns me.

I am really racking up therapy session topics for my kids. I'm not entirely sure that is a bad thing. Maybe this is my warped mind talking, but sometimes I think I am showing them the reality of what happens when you make bad work decisions, when you are complacent and think things will just work out. The one thing I regret about my life is not having a better plan regarding work, money, and life. My message to me kids: Do better than me.

We made the decision recently to get Blur back into school. I will be at the school first day back from summer vacation to register him. We pulled him because we thought homeschool would be better and it was for a bit. But now that FT is teaching and I need to be looking for a job full time, both kids need less of me and more of other (sane) people.

Searching for a job is making me a terrible mother

I want to be a good mom, but I am not. Now that FT is teaching, I watch the kids more so there is even less time to look for and apply for jobs, to network, and to re-tool with new skills.

If I were equally efficient and clear-headed throughout the day, I believe I could manage it. But I have a definite clear period in the morning. I try and get up at 5 every morning to take advantage of that time before the kids get up, but with later nights because of that damned summer daylight, and a fan running at night because it's just too hot for me to sleep without a fan, I miss my alarm. Usually one of the boys is up between 6:30 or 7:30. This does not give me much quiet time at all.

This morning I insisted on completing a volunteer activity, a newsletter I am ghostwriting. The boys come over and want to eat. They want to eat candy they got from the night before at a birthday party. They want to talk about toys they want. They talk about the party yesterday. I cannont negotiate this and finish this assignment. So I snap and yell at them to leave me alone until I am done because a normal voice doesn't work. Then they cry. I write this entry while making them blueberry pancakes.

Being unemployed is tough. I don't know if it is tough because I have no identity apart from being a mother or if it is tough because I am constantly worrying about money. I often think that if I knew in college what my life would be like now, I would have made very different choices. Money isn't everything, but worrying about money is tainting pretty much every aspect of my life.

Hitting the job search wall

Now that we have settled in to summer, I have less time and motivation for a job search than ever before and I fear I have hit the Wall. On the heels of a long weekend, I've managed to make a few whoppers of mistakes, like completely forgetting a networking meeting with a VP of strategy at a large pharma. Yeah, not good.

As much I don't want to bring up how I am screwing up my job search and how it is so difficult to apply to jobs anymore, I do feel like I have to discuss what I think is happening is only to be able to look back and say, "Don't do that again" or on a more positive note, "It was so clear!". So here goes.

Summer is here, which means adherence to schedules is tough. We've had a string of family activities and the neighborhood kids are outside playing. My sons have also met the girl next door. They can't get enough time playing with her and the Younger will wait next to the gate the separates our houses for her to come out. Summer also means that FT is teaching a couple summer classes, making me a full-time mom.

The Younger is giving me a lot to do outside of a job search: We've taken him to the ER for a smashed finger, taken a day to replace a window he broke out of anger, and generally squabble with him daily on his dietary habits (candy for breakfast is highly discouraged, which sets the tone for the rest of the day). Every year I wonder if the next will be easier.

I've been focusing on being a Stay-At-Home-Mom. I'm volunteering with Scouts and Navigators, Tae Kwon Do, and arranging playdates for the boys. I'm cleaning the house and making meals, making sure the kids are still "learning". I'm also working on volunteering at my local hospital and staying on top of my business association activities. I have more than enough to keep me happily occupied and I am coming to enjoy the lifestyle. When I was working, I never envied the life of a SAHM, now I find myself thinking how nice it would be to have a minivan for carpooling and if we should have another baby.

And yet our economic reality is that neither of us has a job that can support the whole family. Both FT and I have to be looking and picking up part-time jobs as they come. My problem, of course, is that I am having an identity crisis. An identity crisis is very, very bad for a job search.

You can't force a square peg in a round hole. Am I a square peg? Although this current economic climate is extremely challenging, I wonder if I am suited for the corporate life at all. My last experience taught me that I will sacrifice my personal life for my job and that my ambition to climb the corporate ladder is not that strong. Is it worth subjecting myself to those forces again? So I am researching graduate school (again), this time on a path that will lead to a type of certification that would lead to steady employment with an institution that likes to see certification, and perhaps to my own business one day. Are the costs in time and money are worth it?

Job search faith

I am embarking on my ninth month of job searching. It's been tough. It's worse than a regular job because I am paying for all this myself and by the one measure that matters, I have been doing a crappy job. Feedback is scarce and after a certain point, it's hard to act on it because it feels like nothing has worked. Why bother?

Then I talk to people who weren't laid off and get advice like, "Have you gone to CareerBuilder?" and want to put my head to the table. Really? REALLY? Is that what you think differentiates you and me? You would look on CareerBuilder? Yeah, it's frustrating. It's not like taking an SAT or getting through a class. There is no guaranteed way to a job. I've networked, rebranded, applied and applied. I've got more versions of my resume than I care to count. And now, I feel like I'm running out of steam.

There's probably someone out there thinking I am unsuccessful because I have a negative attitude and haven't applied myself enough. I'm right there with you. I only have myself to blame.

What's wrong, I wonder, what do I do better? I'm plagued with these questions. And then there is life. Balancing a job search and family. Don't find many articles on that.

Last night we were at the emergency room because my youngest got his finger smashed. Why? Boys were being boys; Fat Tony needed to work; and I needed to be on a networking call.  Constantly, our minds are pulled away from what is in front of us to where we "need" to be. Fortunately, there was no broken bones, just lots of blood stains, tears, and now a big looming medical bill. Just like the bleeding ulcer, it's tempting to think this wouldn't have happened if one of us had a job that would support us.

I keep thinking we are learning and will come out better for this experience, but do we really know this? Am I just making up stories to make myself feel better?

This is where faith comes in. If there is one thing I need to learn, it's how to have faith. It's never been easy for me to an altogether positive person. I always brought a dark lining to any situation. Maybe I thought I was being analytical or insightful, now I see it's useless. So what? I've decided there is absolutely no good in dwelling on bad scenarios. Some might even say that entertaining bad thoughts creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I am wiping my slate clean. I'm working on being a positive but not delusional person. Where to start? I'm working on doing more, applying less.

Am I there yet?

The application
When I did my first resume rehaul, not to long after the lay off, I realized that 10 pt Arial font just wasn't going to cut it. So I got a template off off the Microsoft Office website and tweaked it. I also did my best to include keywords in the content of my resume and spent a good deal of time writing up cover letters.

I really like this link on how to make a resume shine. What I like is how it shows a before and after image of a sample resume. Most of the points I was doing...I like to scan, so most of the points were intuitive, but I completely missed putting a title at the top! Talk about obvious things you miss.

Lately, I've renewed my push to customize my resume for the job, which involves more than changing the title and summary. I thought I was already doing a reasonable job of customizing, but then at a job search event, I saw someone speak about her successful job search in which she changed fields. I didn't have much time at the end of the event so made a bee-line to her, got her card and followed up with her before she started her new job. I asked her about what she did.

My new contact told me about creating a pitchbook and sent me materials from her outplacement firm. It's really very logical in that it lays out the job description and you, the candidate's, qualifications for it. I am shocked with myself that I did not think to do this. (I am also shocked my outplacement firm didn't give me materials on this.) A central component is a table. On the left side, the req's specifications and qualifications. On the right, what you offer. Now, my standard protocol before applying for a job is creating this table. Before I apply to a position, I fill this stuff out, then write up the cover letter and resume.

It takes much longer to run through this exercise so I can't pound out an online application in half an hour any more, but I believe it gives me more clarity of purpose when I apply. This is a such simple exercise that makes a huge difference when applying. This exercise helps me shape my summary statement and customize my accomplishments and previous job descriptions to match the role.

A definite Don't I should include is reading too many articles on Inc.com. It's an engaging magazine for entrepreneurs, and I got the feeling that I was doing something productive, but in retrospect, I was in a fantasy land. I ended up writing a resume for a pretend company where I was the hiring manager, which makes sense. Would you really want to work for someone who didn't share your values? But what I was missing was the nitty-gritty details of how I would offer value to a potential employer, not my fantasy version of an employer.

Of course, with all this renewed emphasis on building a better resume, I find myself not applying for jobs of late. Quality not quantity, right? Definitely not what I should be doing because searching for a job is a numbers game. It takes much longer to put together an application and I just don't have that much time lately.

One good reason I've had less time was I'd been preparing for an interview for a small pharma and I am pretty excited about it.

Preparing for the interview
First, mentally. As opposed to other prospects, where I held back my enthusiasm for a job, I said to myself that this was the job I wanted...really, really wanted. It's perfect for me and I am perfect for them and here are all my reasons why. As Napolean Hill would say, I had a burning desire for my goal. Corny, but true. The candidate who wants the job more gets it.

Second was research. I researched the company and their prospects, the therapeutic area and the current standard of care, pulling information from the web and creating Word and Powerpoint documents. I built a spreadsheet on the available drugs and their mechanisms of action. Then I mined my network to get informational interviews with people who either do this type of job or who work with patients. I did my best to insert these details in my interview subtly, but for the most part, my interviewers didn't seem to care that much. I would do it again because I felt prepared and I think it reflected in my confidence level during the interviews.

Everything regarding the interview was done very professionally and on schedule, so it gives me confidence in the company I'll be working for. There were some details of the plan that I would consider aggressive, but these days, what isn't?

Pretty much most of my free time leading up to the interview was devoted to preparing. Thing was, I didn't have much free time. Since the end of the school year, we've been consumed with family and volunteering obligations.

Prioritizing
I think the most difficult part about looking for a job is how to handle priorities after a good interview. Do your follow-up--thank you notes and anything else the company wants you to do and then move on to another application. But there are no guarantees so you absolutely must keep feeding your funnel. Yes, I know this. Problem is in practicing this.

I haven't put in a new application anywhere yet. I also did hear back from the other position I was hoping for. The company has decided to delay hiring for a few months. So it is absolutely critical to get a few applications in by the end of the week.

That said, I had a busy week volunteering, managing kids, just stressing. So my body has to readjust. I think it sounds lazy and complacent, but I know that without recharging, I simply can't focus. Also, the sound of rain in the mornings, which we've been getting a lot of in the Midwest, makes waking up very hard. Finally, I have obligations to organizations and people I can't ignore that have been put on the backburner until I finished this interview. Can't ignore Kharma!

Summer job search update

I hate looking for a job. I really do.

At times I think that I will just stop and be a stay-at-home mom, take a class and volunteer. Then I manage to pull it together for one more application.

My sort-of new strategy has been to "rebrand" and to do more through volunteering, where rebranding simply means stepping back and thinking about how I can position my resume and cover letter in a way that says, "I can do this for you," as opposed to "I'm so great because..."

I also tried to increase the number of job search networks I belonged to, which meant really going out of my way to sit through more meetings with people who also didn't really want to be there. I even tried to join an accountability group. When the accountability group never got back to me with time and place, I decided there are better uses of my time. I'd rather be doing something useful through volunteering than handing out handbills.

Then, like a miracle, I had two interviews come up within days of one another. Here are the details for the first so far. The second was for what I'd consider my "dream job" and I did a lot of preparing during a crazy week. It ended positively with the assurance that I would hear about the next step from HR soon. Please cross your finger and wish me luck!

With all these good signs, the most important thing I have to do right now is to stop daydreaming and apply for more jobs, which takes me back to paragraph 1. It's another Monday and here I go.

Phone screen.

After revamping my resume and creating a pitchbook for a job, I applied and got an email the same day to schedule a phone screen. A pleasant surprise!

I could have said that I could talk immediately, but gave myself at least a day to get in touch with my contacts to solicit feedback. These people were incredibly helpful, making themselves available before and after hours and they gave me some input I did not expect-- the stuff I needed to hear, like don't talk about family in your time "off" and bring up my energy level.

I practiced and practiced, paring down answers to anticipated questions and believing that I was the best person for this job. I got dressed up for my call and set my materials around for me to reference as needed. My plan was to practice until the phone rang. Only, the phone didn't ring. There was no call.

Was this the end? Did they already find someone and were they too busy negotiating with that person to bother closing the loop with me? Or could this have slipped this person's mind? If the opportunity was indeed dead to me, then I deserved the courtesy of knowing. If this person forgot, he should know. I called 5 min after the scheduled time passed and left a VM.

I went downstairs and unloaded some feelings about the matter to Fat Tony, then resolved to call this guy every half hour until I heard back definitively. I'll spare you the details, but forty minutes later he called back.

He was very apologetic, but otherwise, it was a cut-to-the-chase conversation. I liked how blunt he was about what he needed and I did my best to assure him that not only was I was what he needed but they were what I needed. I really wanted to work for them and these were my genuine reasons why.

He ended with, "I like what I hear" and said he'd be consulting with his boss. So I am hopeful.

What have I learned?
1. Focus on being more energetic and positive.
I tend towards quiet, so cranking up my energy is not easy for me. The rule of thumb I got is to know where I am comfortable, then go a notch or two higher. So I have my measure, The trick now is making sure I am "on". The mind trick I use is to pretend I am on the stage. Stage performers don't speak in their normal voices, and up close, the make-up they wear is garish. But they are playing to an audience far away. They need to project. Just like I need to project who I am. It's not exactly a stage, but my audience is quite a distance away. He or she doesn't know me. I'm not faking something that isn't there, just projecting what I have.

2. Be more rational.
That said, getting carried away with emotions and visions is not helpful and focusing on energy level is distracting. I made some assumptions based on what I heard in this interview and it was a very short conversation, but what I should have done was to pin him down, only I was feeling good about a next interview.

Making myself visibly enthusiastic goes at odds with being rational. Visible enthusiasm is something I have to practice, like practicing my elevator pitch (which never goes the way I practice it, but usually sounds just fine). It's like sports: You practice a move so much, it becomes part of your  unconscious brain, which frees up your conscious brain to think about what really needs to be done. I need to practice thinking about the next thing like uncovering processes, bringing up next steps and clearing objections.

While I am hopeful, the rational side of me says to cool it. I did my best during the interview and in my thank-you email to assure them I wanted to be there and that pay was not the priority. But there are many different reasons why I might not get this job and I might never hear from them again. I've put a follow-up activity in my calendar, so I know what I need to do here, but the most important thing now is to be working on the next opportunity.