Why Read Another Blog?

So here goes...my official job hunt hits the Internet. For those of you who don't know me, I moved to Chicago April 2nd. My best friend came with me because I have two cats (Taos and Ella) and American Airlines only allows one animal per passenger. After being asked by a fellow passenger (who I also think got drunk on the 2 hour flight from Dallas) when we arrived in Chicago if there was a "cat convention" because she had never seen two cats on a plane before (sounds like a personal problem to me)....we departed O'Hare (along with the IOC) and headed to my humble abode in River North. Some of you familiar with Chicago might be thinking "wow, that's an expensive neighborhood for someone who is not employed." And yes, you would be correct. However, I had high hopes of having a job by the time I officially arrived in the Windy City.

Anyway...my bestie was able to stay for roughly an hour because she had to depart for a meeting in NYC (she is the queen of municipal credit ratings). So we grabbed a quick bite and a beer at my local Irish pub, and I sent her on her way to Midway Airport.

I moved to Chicago to be closer to my family who reside in eastern Iowa. Plus, I knew I was interested in finding a new job and was, quite frankly, needing to leave the Big D (Dallas for those of you unfamiliar with the acronym). No, I didn't have a warrant out for my arrest (I cleared them all before I left)...I just wanted a change personally and professionally. For those of you who may be reading this, I willingly became unemployed.

So I have been in this great City for roughly a month and I am already tired of job searching. It's a beating... Not to mention, to which I am sure my fellow job searchers can relate, difficult to keep up the momentum and the internal cheering squad when companies have completely let professionalism fly out the window. Today, I received 3 auto rejection emails from a company to which I only applied for 1 job....how is that possible? Did the recruiter at the company laugh in that evil way and say "I will show her!" Speaking of auto emails, I would like to further my rant on this subject. An applicant almost always receives this automatic response when you apply for a job....most of them indicate "thanks for your interest in our company, good luck in your job search, oh and by the way NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE." Literally in all caps. Now really, I understand thousands of applicants are applying for jobs that may or may not even eventually be filled by the company, but what happened to the ability to follow up, show you are still interested in a position, make your plea for why you are the best candidate? Okay, I am backing away from the auto email soapbox now...

I hope this blog is interesting and sometimes funny. I hope to maybe even post some tips for fellow job searchers when I find something that is helpful. In the end, it's really just something for me to catalog the events of what could be considered my midlife crisis (although I hope to live past 70).

Keep on keeping on...you can also find me on Twitter (Katie 1707) and on LinkedIn.