I’ll admit it.  I’m tired of wrestling with a job market that doesn’t want me.

Last week, I went for what has to be my millionth job interview this year (okay maybe only the twentieth — but there are still two and a half months left to get to the million mark). 

If you’ve read my blog, then you know the drill.

"We love your resume (also known as the Mask my unemployment Marketing Document).  Can you come in immediately — like right now?"

Of course, I drop anything and everything I’m doing and spend an hour driving through town to meet with someone dangling a carrot (excuse me - a job) in front of me.  The meeting goes well.  I spend one to two hours convincing the Carrot Holder that I’m hard working, dedicated, perfect.  I am willing to forsake my life and marriage to work for you.

I rush home, write my detailed thank you letters and wait for another call.  Because there is always another call. 

"Oh my goodness, you’ve meet with Mr./Ms. Carrot Holder.  They said you’re great, but you have to meet the Ultimate Decision Maker.  Can you drop everything again and meet with us right away."

During the second hour long drive, I start having fantasies about actually having my own income, an office, a business card.  Maybe one day I can actually pay down that educational debt I’ve been saddled with for seventeen years.

I sit and smile through a second meeting, selling myself.

"OMG, I can’t believe you don’t already have a job with these impressive east coast qualifications.  You went to great schools.  You have a lot of enthusiasm."

I’m all excited at this point, thinking, maybe this will be the time.  But then comes the kicker.

Ultimate decision maker always says — at the end of the meeting, on the walk to my car, on the phone right after the interview, "We were so impressed with you, but really we’ve always had this Other Person we prefer waiting in the wings — and while we were wowed with your qualifications — and your ability to entertain us for a couple of hours with your exploits — we’re just going to pick this Other Person."

I’d love to meet this Other Person.  They’ve got to be the luckiest person on earth.  They always have more TV, law, public interest experience than I, plus they have the Ultimate Decision maker on their side.  And, they have the job.

So again, I’m considering moving (excuse me, temporarily relocating).  Because the Ultimate Decision Maker has told me more than once, I would surely be the Chosen Candidate if I were interviewing in New York or San Francisco or Chicago — Los Angeles is just too competitive a market for someone with my resume.  (I would have thought I would have been the Chosen Candidate in Cleveland, but the UDM has assured me the Other Person lived there, as well, which is why my attempts at gainful employment in those five years were foiled.

Now if I can just scape enough moolah together to fly to these other cities for job interviews, I’ll be all set.

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