Cinderella

I am a proud member of Northeastern’s Class of 2010. On May 7th, I received my diploma and took the obligatory pictures in academic garb and dined with family and friends in this great city that I have come to call home over the past 5 years. The logical next step for most people would to be to find a job as soon as possible. While logic is something I rarely ignore, heading into the worst economy of my lifetime I couldn’t help but feel that I shouldn’t waste this opportunity of a fresh start on just any job. I have been anything but lackadaisical in my job search, but the fact that I am still jobless in August is more a testament of my desire to find the perfect fit, m proverbial glass slipper of a job. A position that excites me when I wake up in the morning, where I enjoy what I do, where I actually enjoy the people I work with in social settings, and where, to paraphrase Google, I feel that I am doing no evil.

I started my job search way back in September, applying for all of the cushy corporate “Leadership Development” programs and had my heart set on two at different points over the fall. One program was canceled, the other I wasn’t selected for due to the cruel disadvantage that is phone interviews. This left me in an interesting position: I wasn’t so much interested in the corporate LDPs anymore, but most companies don’t want to hear from you until a month or two before you graduate, so I sat back and let the rest of my senior year unfold. As March rolled around I brushed the dust of my resume and got back into the swing of things. April came and a few mentors of mine reached out to help me, as well as a “Life Coach” whom I met at an alumni event. I sought out so much advice that it all ended up to be contradictory ("your resume needs to be 2 pages!" and "Your resume should never be more than 1 page!" type stuff). I realized that as in many of my job endeavors before, you need to stay true to yourself and I ended up disregarding a majority of the advice.

My former mangers and family members all pushed me to work in their respective fields, however subtly they though they were doing it. Others whom I asked for (and genuinely wanted) help from became hard to get in touch with.

Along the way I met a wonderful woman during senior week who got me a temp position at NU. I had a lot of fun, and when that position ended another one popped up in another department. I find myself now in the position where I can take my time in finding the perfect job because I have the "just for right now" job in the bag. I don’t need to settle for a job I feel lukewarm about, because I already have one and they don’t expect me to stay any longer than until I find my next big adventure. Am I completely satisfied? No, which is why I am leaving at the end of the summer, but for the past few months I was able to pay my way living in Boston while I’m looking for my proverbial glass slipper.

I guess my point is, there are amazing jobs out there and I'm sick of people telling me to suck it up and take a Servant to the evil Stepsister type of job when I just know that there are still a few Princess positions out there.