My Job Filters

I just sent off an application to be a part-time receptionist for a foundation that governs what it refers to as "America's premier active adult community." I've been at this job hunt and application gig for three months. Actively, at least. It has been an interesting journey.

First, I haven't applied for a job in more than 20 years. I had a sense that we wouldn't need to subscribe to any newspapers to look at the classified ads. That's good because our newspapers are pretty awful. What to do? AARP to the rescue. You see, ever since I've retired, I've followed select organizations. AARP is one. Others have to do with my own professional development, such as the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), from which I am accredited in Public Relations (proud of that - the pass rate when I took the exam in the 80's was 30 percent) and the Pew Research Center, because there will always be an anthropologist in me.

It was reading one of the AARP aggregated news emails that I found Indeed. I love that you can set up filters to look for work near you. Every morning, after satisfying my Facebook craving, I peruse through the emails from all the various feeds. Sometimes - it varies day by day and week by week - I send off a cover letter and resume. I have two resumes now. Maureen told me that my "real" resume made me appear to be so overqualified as to be intimidating. So I wrote one, in fits and starts, that focuses on writing.

Which brings me back to the title of this entry... job filters. Early on, I made the conscious decision that I wasn't going to cross the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge to go to work. Too expensive, parking's a nightmare, and there are those small matters of earthquakes and firestorms. That one decision allows me to breeze through job postings pretty quickly.

Over time, a month or so, I realized that my Indeed filters (communications, presentations and, most recently, environmental) pulled up a ton of jobs I was either not interested in or qualified for. By interested in, I mean my own screening for what organizations might hire me. I smoke, get over it. That means applying for work in or near a California health care system is out of the question. By qualified for, I mean that hiring officers seem to throw in references about being good at communications. You can be sure that I am not an engineer (nor have I ever met one who could communicate worth a damn, so good luck with that, hiring officer). 

Then, frustrated that all of the jobs were full-time I realized how little I wanted that. So off to Craigslist, on the advice of a previous coworker and current friend. I've found that to be quite useful. In fact, Craigslist is where I found today's job possibility.