One Word 365

My One Word for 2014: Blessing

The Blessing of a failed Job Interview

Doing a job search can either bring gladness or sadness. There are a variety of reasons why people have to enter into a job search. For myself, this has been a time of searching for a job that will place me on a proper path to my chosen career. It hasn’t been easy, as I have an injury that continued to derail me from being able to find appropriate employment. I finally found some occupations that can accommodate my injury and not exasperate my symptoms.

What I’ve learned in preparing for this round of job searching, is that looking for a suitable job requires knowing a lot about yourself. You need to know about your likes/dislikes, your skills, interests, what you value in the workplace, and what you feel you area worth financially. Figuring this all out for myself required a lot of self-inventory and looking  at my employment history.

Being forced to find a new job or begin a new career path doesn’t always have to be an unpleasant process. The job search process is a great time to do some self-analysis and discover again or possibly for the first time what you want out of life and your career.

I had two jobs interviews this week for positions that I really wanted. I would have been happy to be offered either position. Getting either of these jobs were a long shot. Being contacted for an interview was a major surprise.

At the end of one of the interviews they offered me feedback. I wasn’t prepared for what they had said. They told me my interview was excellent, but my resume was really bad. This is not good news when you are interviewing for a career advisor position. I thanked them for their suggestions and let them know I agreed with them 100%. I had a bad resume. It was created for me by a resume writer who narrowed my resume from two pages to one. In doing so, there was a lot of vital information that was taken out.

I can’t help but consider this a blessing. Some people would have been crushed by this feedback, but I see it as a helpful incident. The critique I received will prevent me from sending out mediocre resumes. By opening ourselves to feedback from others we increase our chances for success in whatever it is that we are pursuing.

I believe that God places people onto our path to provide us with the information we need for staying on track with our goals. If we are receptive to the information and feedback that people give us, it will keep us moving in the right direction. Let’s be open to those whom we might only encounter once in our lifetime, their message is as valuable as if it had been received from a loved one.   

I don’t know where my job search is going to lead me, but I do know that when we don’t get a job that we want, it is not a loss, it is an opportunity to keep searching for a better employer-employee match.