rise and fall

I am gearing up for that rollercoaster ride called job hunting. This means scouring the Sunday papers, asking/bugging friends to send whatever job opening that they stumble upon my way and of course polishing ye olde resume.

Funny thing is, I actually feel good tweaking my resume. In three pages or less, you get a clear picture of where you have been and a somehow more concrete view of where you wanna go. Ang galing nga, e. In the past I had some misgivings about my ‘career trajectory.’ I remember this professor who interviewed me during the application process for my masters in sociology. He said, ‘you have a very inconsistent resume. You jump from one type to another.’ At that time I thought, it was because I was still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

Less than a decade later, I find that all my work experiences and the skills, values and strategies I learned from them are important components of the field I want to specialize in. They don’t look so ungainly anymore. In fact, they look so coordinated (in my eyes at least).

Writing a cover letter is a different story altogether. Where tweaking one’s resume gives rise to a sense of accomplishment, writing the cover letter is some sort of a rude awakening. It’s like “sure, you have all these and that but you still have to convince TPTB to give you the job let alone include you in their short list.” Selling myself - whether it's a personal essay, a short blurb to accompany an article - has always caused me some anxiety. This time around though, I am more comfortable. A big part of that is probably due to the loads of self-describing blog entries I have written here. Navel-gazing has its benefits.