Failure To Attract

If you’re like me and also out in the job market looking for something, there are a few resources that are touted to be the best ways of finding a job lead - and sometimes they’re right. Things like Yahoo! HotJobs, Monster, CareerBuilder and even CraigsList all have good things going for them - in fact, I’ve never had an issue with Yahoo! HotJobs. Yet, a trend I have noticed about the big job boards I check out, is that some aspects of their service are unregulated.

For example, since signing up with CareerBuilder and Monster, I have received numerous spam-related emails about “jobs” that just give me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Because it seems as if either the job board companies sell your contact information to third parties, or people spend a lot of time going through collecting your information from your profiles - add you illegally(I think) to a mailing list, and spam you. It’s not fun, and not cool. One would hope these big companies would find a way to protect their customers from crap like that.

If you feel the need to use these services, make sure you have a completely separate email address for them.

-David

I was really frustrated last night, even almost to the point of tears. A lot of things had hit me at once over the course of a couple of days, and it was rather overwhelming.

And then I had a wonderful conversation with A.

“A” stands for Aaron, a hilarious Asian guy I know who lives in Seattle. A is that kind of person who’s a real, true friend, who will listen to you and offer the kind of constructive comments that someone needs to hear when they’re in that mindset - honest and to the point yet softened somehow.

After I woke up the following morning - this morning - I had an email in my Inbox from him with a link to an article that described the Best and Worst Careers of 2008 in US News and World Report along with a simple message: “On the job front - here’s stuff to think about for the long term. A job now will help, but thinking about your career will pay off in the long term.”

I sat and thought about that. Do I actually want a career as working for some other company like that? Or do I want something more? I realized it was an easy decision.

I want more.

I’m still not sure where to go from here, or what I should do, but I think sleep will help me at this point.

-David

P.S. Read that article! It’s really good!