Thus far...

I'm really good at planning. When an idea pops into my head, I start charting the course to bring it to life. Lists, diagrams, budgets, daydreaming—it all goes into my planning process. Library school took two years to map out, and the prep to travel to Ireland on my own was at least eighteen months. (I know. Who has that kind of time, right? Shouldn't I just be living life, instead planning it?) Most of the time, my planning will bear fruit. Then there are the ideas that float back and forth through my brain but never really stick. Plans form, but then fizzle out before they really have a chance to take shape.

A timely example is the intent to get experience in the field during my tenure at grad school. I knew going in that I didn't have the experience that would help me to get that job at the end of the road. A semester on the circulation desk during my undergrad years nearly a decade before adds only a blip to my portfolio (I’m still in shock that it has been almost ten years since I graduated from college. I swear my ten-year high school reunion was just last summer.). So I started to envision getting involved. I would join all of the student chapters of professional organizations, volunteer at libraries and historical societies, and make a general nuisance of myself. Unfortunately, I let a full time job and school work get in the way of all of that.

What work and school also curtailed was the early start on the job hunt. That had been another of my more elusive ideas that escaped my planning it into the ground. All I really did was think about future employment, tinker lazily with my resume, glance through the job opportunities on the listserv, and comfort myself with the fact that I had time. I mean, I didn’t want to start applying for jobs months or a year before I graduated, especially since I wanted to maintain the flexibility to relocate, which I wouldn’t be able to do if I got a job before I completed the program. There was also a very big mental block: That knee-jerk resistance to change. I’ve lived in the same place all of my life, with the same people, in the same insulated world I’ve made for myself. And while I’m chomping at the bit to make a change, it still doesn’t alter the fact that I’m terrified. We all know that fear is immobilizing.

And immobile I am, several months post-graduation. I still have full time employment, which makes me a very lucky woman, as many others can’t say the same as they look for a job. It may not be in my chosen profession, but it pays the bills and lessens the urgency that would otherwise propel me further into the search. I have applied to—wait for it—five positions. With the exception of one in the southeast, I seem to be directing my interest westward. One public, one academic, and the rest archival, I have made my selections carefully. I don’t know if it’s because I am currently employed, but I don’t see the value in playing the numbers game (which is how I feel about dating and probably why I’m terminally single). It's hard to keep your information straight when you apply for 50+ jobs in a short amount of time. I also think it shows that you are less interested in contributing your skills and ideas to a specific organization than you are in just getting a job. I don’t want just any job that I am remotely qualified for; I want a job where I can and want to contribute to the mission of the institution. This is a career, into which I’m going to invest a lot of time and energy and knowledge. I know we all have to start somewhere, and I expect to start low on the totem pole. I just think that that totem pole needs to be relevant to my career goals. So I look for archival processing gigs and digitization projects, because those are my interests. This is my method for now, and it's too early to tell if it's working or not. If it doesn't work, I'll try that numbers game I'm so skeptical of, because I don't always (or ever, for that matter) have to be right.

Maybe I’m too picky. Well, I know I’m too picky.

And I'm open to suggestions.