For months, I have been diligently looking for a job, scanning the Big Three job sites, sending out custom written cover letters and tailored resumes each day, working my network, and even trying to make jobs at several points. Since July, bupkis. Just one phone interview in all that time.
Then, the tsunami hit Samoa and put all of my piddly problems into perspective. I went to the Peace Corps Response website to see if there was anything I could do. Apparently not at the moment, but within the week I was offered and (gleefully) accepted an invitation in Antigua and Barbuda assisting an organization called the Caribbean Agri-Business Association.
Two weeks later, the replies and phone calls started trickling in, just two to start. By three weeks, a trickle became a torrent: Yahoo, Dolby, IBM, Year-Up, others that withheld their names, and still others who I hadn’t heard of. It’s like they were waiting for me to become unavailable.
My first recruiter told me there would be days like these. I wasn’t looking for a job on that day in 2006, she was mostly talking of the “threat” of romantic involvement after getting invited. (That didn’t happen though, it couldn’t happen, not here, not here in the suburbs. The suburbs are where singles come to die.) Still, I’m happy about my decision. If the job market is starting to thaw now, I can assume that it will be even better 8-10 months from now as the economy improves and the baby boomers start to retire. And since Antigua & Barbuda have internet access, I can get a head start this time by resuming the job search before returning.
