The 2007 Student Affairs Job Hunt

In Medias Res #2-"After me comes the flood"

I feel as if I just left a path of destruction in my wake. Friday afternoon I came into the office to help cover the phones because the rest of the staff was out working an event. Mind you, Friday is my day off and I am so kind and committed I came in anyway. One of the benefits of coming in was a completely distraction free workspace. So I booted up my office computer and my personal laptop and I became ‘Jobman’. Decimating resumes, applications, and cover letters as I steamrolled through the Oshkosh listings I got eight (8!) applications out in the span of a few hours. Obviously the steamroller effort resulted in a few mistakes: I forgot to attach a cover letter to one email (a situation I quickly remedied) and I determinedly typed out OshKosh in the first three letters until someone explained to me that’s the company and not the town. [1] All in all though I feel good. Only one school has gotten back to me so far, but I do have an interview scheduled. So I’m batting one for two, (or one yes, one no, out of nine applications) although I’m not counting the first disinvite because they changed the qualifications on me. But I have at least one job interview scheduled!

I was going through old files this weekend, trying to back things up and I found an old email I had from a friend complaining about his job search last year. I had saved it because it was funny, and as I read it so much of what he complained about were things I was making myself neurotic about. Should I even bother with 10 month positions (what would I do over the summer)? Are the schools that invite me to apply worth looking at if they’re in a part of the country I’d never consider? I can’t expect that Southern Indiana would impress me that much in the interview that they’d completely disabuse me of my preconceived notions. Now that I’ve hit up all the dream schools on the list, it’s time to get down to the practical schools. I’ve broken schools up as such in my job search notebook, and although I think I have a really solid shot at the dreams schools, I figured if I’m spending the money to go out and do placement I should at least put out as many feelers as possible. This doesn’t mean I’m going to accept interviews from everyone, but in case all the dream schools balk at my paltry resume at least I’ll have something to fall back on assuming the schools I’m considering practicals don’t balk too. The system is pretty arbitrary. And then of course there’s the Joint Conference to consider which is only a couple of weeks after OPE and has way way more jobs. So although I’m feeling pretty damn good about getting those resumes out, I know I’ve only scratched the surface (or something equally cliché).

On a completely unrelated note the snow storms that seem to be blanketing fly over country (where I now live) are making me appreciate cold weather more and more. Lots of my grad school friends talk about going back to some place warm. I grew up pretty close to a beach and I can tell you: seasons are a pretty amazing thing. I love walking out of my house at night and seeing falling leaves, or stars, or snow clouds. Things change here and that doesn’t happen so much back home, and the longer I live in cold places the more I start to appreciate how things change.

Finally, a last unrelated note: I just wanted to comment on my co-bloggers last post (we share this blog right?) Kudos to the allies who refuse to work at programs without domestic partnership benefits. I have some friends in heterosexual couples who are experiencing the short end of the Residence Life stick because of outdated and outmoded policies, in addition to all the dedicated LGBT staff members who run into opposition in programs throughout the country because of how closely their life intersects with their jobs (and how uncomfortable people can be with who you choose to live with). I hope lots of candidates are saying the same when they look at schools with regressive or exclusionary policies.
[1] Insteresting side note. Aside from making adorable kids clothes, apparently they used to make a lot of trains in Oshkosh. I like trains.

posted by StudentAffairs.com @ 3:01 PM