Candidate #0000 - Post 9

75 days until graduation.

CD I listened to for 6 hours today:
Romeo & Juliet Soundtrack

Last person I talked to online:
RHA President

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone, who e-mailed me! It’s very helpful to hear from people, who have dealt with the same visa issues. It makes me feel like maybe there is some hope for my situation.

So I spent about 6 hours in the office today – on a Sunday!!! What’s wrong with me? At least, I was only doing “work” for the first 2 hours. Then, I threw myself into job-search craziness. Can I just say that I really hate those online applications? It takes forever to fill them out! And I filled out one of them and once I was done, it said “not qualified.” I’m so confused. I have no idea why. So I e-mailed the Human Resource department and asked them. Hopefully, I’ll hear back from them on Monday. And it was a school, I was really interested in. :(

Other than that though, today was definitely a success. I sent my application materials to 7 schools. I also have my cover letter written for two more schools. But there was no e-mail address, so I guess I will have to send those via postal mail. That means, I need to print them out nicely on our office printer (my own printer is slightly messed up lately and prints weird lines across pages, so I don’t trust her with something as important as application materials for a school…I think, she’s going through a mid-life crisis – and yes, my printer is a she). Anyway, the printer in the office didn’t work today either. It was driving me insane. I had originally gone to the office to print out my newsletter and make copies, so my Community Assistants can pass them out when they are doing Health & Safety inspections this week. I tried to fix it – and usually I’m pretty good at fixing things – but it just wouldn’t work. So I gave up. I guess I’ll have to give it another go tomorrow morning.

Back to job-search craziness: So guess what happened…you won’t believe it. I’m so mad at myself!!! After I sent out all these application materials, I realized that there is a mistake on my resume. Can you believe it? I have revised my resume like a hundred times (no kidding), had a million different people look over it (maybe not a million but at least 5 or 6) and read through it myself like ten thousand times (Okay, so maybe math isn’t my greatest subject right now…haha…it actually used to be all through high school and I was supposed to become a math teacher, but that’s another story and should be told at another time). What happened is that during one of my last revisions, I changed a few of my bulletin boards to make them sound better. And when I changed one of them, I by mistake wrote everything in present tense although it was one of my past jobs. I’m still so upset over this. And after I have just sent my resume to most of my top choices in regards to institutions and jobs. :( What am I going to do? Well, I guess there’s not much I can do besides hope that all these people, who’ll be reviewing my resume, will look the other way. Everyone can make a mistake sometimes, right?
Everyone always tells you that you CANNOT have a single mistake in your resume, no types, nothing. I’ve tried so hard, I swear. I can’t believe I didn’t notice this stupid mistake. That’s what happens when you revise your resume too many times!

Okay, enough about that. Like I said before, other than the one online application that said “not qualified” and this stupid mistake on my resume (I am so mad!!!), today was a success. I have been pushing this sending-out-applications back for weeks. I don’t really know what I was waiting for or what I was afraid of. I just couldn’t bring myself to actually doing it. But now I did and I’m well on my way. I just hope I’ll hear back from all these schools soon.
I’ve also made a list of 10 more schools that I want to apply to within the next week. It’ll be a crazy busy week.

By the way, I already have five interviews set up for ACPA (Okay, I feel like I’m bragging, but this is supposed to be about job-searching, right? So I’m not bragging, just keeping you all updated on how things are going). One institution contacted me on Thursday. I was at the mall getting my pictures taken for this Optional Practical Training application, and suddenly my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, so I picked it up and it was someone trying to set up an interview with me for ACPA. I was so excited, but also so flustered because I didn’t have my schedule with me of what interviews I had already set up. But fortunately, I remember the times and knew what afternoon I still had completely free.

And then on Friday, another institution contacted me. So now I got five interviews all together. People keep warning me about setting up too many interviews. But I know myself. I can deal with stress pretty well, and I’m good at going for a whole day non-stop. That’s what I do here every day. I get up in the morning, go to work and barely take a break for lunch or even dinner. I do much better if I just keep going all day, because if I do take a break, I have a hard time motivating myself to get back to work. So I figure, I’ll be alright doing interviews most of the day. I am leaving a half hour in between interviews, so I can review notes of institution in between interviews, but other than that, I’m planning on having a very tight schedule.

I just figure that I will need a lot of option. Some institution may just not like me and not ask me back for a second interview or invite me for an on-campus. Then, some institution may be interested but once they find out that I’m an international student, they may not be able to accept my candidacy for their position. So I need to have a lot of options, if I want to get at least five or six on-campus interviews, so that I will get two or three offers.

Okay, it’s definitely time for bed!
Good Luck to everyone else, who’s job-searching right now!