Cutting Back

Hello There My Little Bunnies,

So, first of all I want to tell you all that I am thankful for all of you as my readers. I have been blogging since December of 2003. For the first five years, I was lucky if I ever had more than three comments. Just look through my archives. But I didn't care.  I wrote for me, and eventually when AOL shut down the blogs, and I moved to Blogger, I ended up getting more readers.

I don't write for anyone, and I write whatever I feel comes to mind. And I want to thank those of you that read my blog and those of you that leave comments or even lurk.

I am used to writing almost every day, but I just got hired, and I started my new job yesterday. I have been swamped lately and I just don't think I am going to be able to write as often as I would like.

I work in a law firm as a patent clerk, finally something in my field. I know that the economy sucks ass right now, but even though, none of this was through luck. I did not get lucky with this job. I didn't have any connections, I didn't know anyone that could help me, they found my resume and contacted me.  I can fully say that I earned it and that I am the best person for the job and I had wonderful references through my past internships. I've had luck before in life. Great things have happened to me that I didn't really earn. But this, I busted my ass for.

I have faced rejection non-stop for the past two and a half years. When I first started out, before I even went back to school, recruiters were rude to me and I could barely get people to talk to me or even give me advice on how to get into the field. I had to go back to school even though I had a bachelors. Luckily after I got my paralegal certificate last year, people started calling me and I did get a lot of interviews. At one point I had four interviews in one week, only to get rejected four times in a row. But at least it was nice rejection. I did well in most of the interviews and would make it to the second round, they usually just went with the other candidate. And I can say this because I've gotten compliments from the interviewing attorneys or the admins.

None of this came easy, and I had to work for free for two years by volunteering while I went to school and worked. I really enjoyed volunteering, and it was through that, that I gained the confidence to do well in interviews. And I gave back to the community. But even though I volunteered and had good grades, no one was giving me a chance.

Finally someone finally said yes.

Anyway, so my advice to anyone that is looking for a new job is to not get discouraged. I did get discouraged along the way and I would stop looking altogether. That is the worst thing you could do. It just brings you down further mentally and then on top of that, no one is calling because you didn't put out your information.

My biggest piece of advice is to not be afraid of rejection. You have to be okay with getting rejected and learn to move on. In fact, you need to just know that there is a job out there somewhere for you and you just have to find it. Because once I started thinking like that, things turned around. You have to think that tomorrow is another day and that anything could happen. Because it really can. And what have you done to prepare for that ? Once I started putting my information out there more and more, maybe things didn't happen, but I did get calls. Getting an interview even if it doesn't work out is better than no response at all.

If you are thinking my advice can suck it, and you've tried positive thinking and it blew up in your face because maybe you're unemployed and are tired of rejection after rejection, then I can understand that too. (It took me two and a half years to find an entry-level job in my field, a job that in a good economy would just require a high school education.) What I would then ask you is 1.) Do you like your line of work ?
 2.) Do you truly think you're qualified for the job you're applying for?
 Because if you can't stand your line of work, or if you are underqualified, then yes, positive thinking isn't enough. You will then need to change your line of work or invest some time in bettering yourself. And you have to invest that time. I knew that I would have to put in a solid couple of years in school and make a lot of sacrifices, but I got over it and did it, and it was totally worth it. And if you can't do that, then you're just going to have to have thick skin and not be afraid of rejection.

Okay, enough of me preaching.

I will still be posting and making my rounds on your blogs and leaving comments because you are all comment whores. Just not as often. I know that I may lose some readers, but I hope not.

Ciao for now, loves !

Besitos !