Frontwards

Job hunting procrastination

I found this awesome job posting the other day—it’s definitely something I’d like to do and the pay is awesome. Awesome enough that I’d be able to move out after maybe after just two or three paychecks, I think.

However, I can’t for the life of me actually get started on working on this resume and cover letter. There are a few possible things going on:

• The job has been up on Monster for a week, so I’m sure about a zillion people have applied. Someone’s probably been hired already and they just haven’t taken it down
• The job seems too good to be true, therefore how could I even land an interview
• One of my friends was telling me that I was crazy to apply for a job with a salary range that would effectively give me a 38% to 94% raise…but my response was that for that much money, what do I have to lose
• For once, I just want to go to bed early
• In the back of my mind, am thinking about statistic that only 10% of jobs are filled through internet job postings
• I’m also thinking that if Trader Joe’s were open 24 hours, I’d so be heading over there to buy some of their shortbread cookies

I’m a firm believer in basically rewriting your cover letter and resume for every position you apply for. In my post-college working days, this has worked out. For my first travel job, I went on and on about how I loved travel and the UK. While I was there, I went out on a limb and applied for only one job with a totally customized cover letter/resume to see if I was hireable….got an interview and hired. For my most recent job, an ex-coworker told me about an open position, I spent a few hours on the resume and cover letter and I was hired within a week or so.

These days (it’s so hard not to write “in this economy”, but I’m trying to boycott the phrase), I guess you do need to spend a while cutomizing and fine-tuning the resume. The difference is that now I don’t think that’s going to guarantee much of anything because of the sheer volume of applicants, so it sort of feels like an exercise in futility.

But I’ll throw on some good music and fight the good fight.