{"id":48942,"date":"2014-07-17T12:17:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T17:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=48942"},"modified":"2014-07-17T12:16:16","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T17:16:16","slug":"patience-grasshopper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=48942","title":{"rendered":"Patience, Grasshopper"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Claire Schmieder<\/a>, now Senior Editor, and formerly Head Editor, INALJ New Jersey
\n<\/a>previously published 12\/4\/13<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Patience, Grasshopper<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Claire.Schmieder.SeniorEditor\"<\/a>It\u2019s official \u2013 after an eleven-month job search, I have accepted a position with the Alice Paul Institute<\/a>. You\u2019re looking at their new Program Associate, folks, and I am so, so excited about the work I\u2019ll be doing. The API is a small non-profit organization and their mission is to promote full\u00a0gender equality through education, development, and empowerment of leaders. If you\u2019re not familiar with API, I urge you to take a peek at their website.<\/p>\n

During my longish job search, I had to exercise great patience \u2013 no small task since I am an admittedly impatient person \u2013 in a number of ways.<\/p>\n

I resisted applying for every single job within my designated \u201ccommuteable zone.\u201d <\/b>As the New Jersey Head Editor, I came across hundreds of jobs for which I met or exceeded the minimum qualifications. Except they were in public libraries. I am blown away by the work that public librarians do, but their vocation is not my vocation. In all, over those eleven months, I applied to 22 jobs. That\u2019s it. Granted, I am somewhat limited by my geographic location, so there were fewer jobs that I actually wanted to apply for. However, that number would have been much, much higher if I applied to every single job within my zone. Instead, I focused on writing really excellent cover letters, fine tuning each resume I sent out, and reaching out to trusted contacts to see if they could offer advice, or even put in a good word for me when possible.<\/p>\n

I only applied to jobs on Mondays and Wednesdays. <\/b>Without a full-time job, I had free time during the day. I could have chosen to apply to jobs every day. However, to avoid burnout and frustration, I decided that I would only apply to jobs on Mondays and Wednesdays. I used my time on the other days to volunteer, run errands, and work part time. I knew that if I spent every free moment writing cover letters, then I would be miserable. My two-day-a-week schedule allowed me to spend more time focusing on the individual job applications instead of robotically applying to job after job.<\/p>\n

I resisted negative thinking.<\/b> Being more self reflective has absolutely made me a more patient person. Instead of rushing through every feeling I have, I take the time to think about WHY I\u2019m feeling the way that I am. For example, I was feeling frustrated over the summer by how hard it was to apply for jobs while I was at home with my kids. Instead of letting the frustration get the better of me, I made a choice: unless the world\u2019s most perfect job appeared, I would take a complete hiatus from my applications over the summer. Making an actual decision about how to manage my job search helped me feel more in control, and thus less frustrated.<\/p>\n

By being patient and by making strategic decisions about my job hunt, I was able to stay positive and in control of my emotions and my career. And, with patience, I was able to stay the course until I found a job that is an excellent fit for me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

special thanks to Kyle Cassidy who took the wonderful photo- nh<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Claire Schmieder, now Senior Editor, and formerly Head Editor, INALJ New Jersey previously published 12\/4\/13 Patience, Grasshopper It\u2019s official \u2013 after an eleven-month job search, I have accepted a position with the Alice Paul Institute. You\u2019re looking at their new Program Associate, folks, and I am so, so excited about the work I\u2019ll be…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":76790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,3858,5147,3632,4963,266,5235,5223],"class_list":["post-48942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-claire-schmieder","tag-extended-job-search","tag-inalj-new-jersey","tag-job-applications","tag-job-search","tag-patience","tag-positive-attitude"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Claire.Schmieder.SeniorEditor.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-cJo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}