Roughly 6 months ago, I was let go from my job of 4 and a half years. In that time I have been job searching, reading a ton and learning front end web development by teaching myself HTML and CSS.
Its been an extremely wild 6 months. It was fun. It was stressful. It was enlightening. I got to spend time with Paul, even though he was working during the week. I got to eat lunch with my entire family, every day. I played games with the kids, took them to the park after school and helped with homework. I got to spend the entire summer break and all the Jewish holidays with the kids and Paul. I fell into a funk, especially after each rejection email from a potential job opportunity. I worked through each funk. I started running (and need to get back into it). I taught myself a new skill. I read. A lot.
As of today, the job searching has come to an end since I am now employed in an amazing company and am happily working in my new job! And Im going to be utilising some of the new skills I’ve learned!
The process of being (f)unemployed and searching for a job was hard. It certainly wasn’t quick and it took a hell of a lot of work and constant vigilance. It was at times demoralising and at times it was quite a bit of fun. I learned a lot and met some amazing people. The entire process is a post in and of itself.
I definitely could not have done it without Paul and the kids support. They held me up when I thought I would never find a job. They encouraged me to apply for jobs outside my comfort zone. They cheered with me for every interview gotten and hugged me for every position lost. And now here we are on the other side.
And now, the numbers:
- 6 months
- 90+ jobs applied for
- 30+ telephone interviews, skills tests, Skype interviews, psychometric tests and in-person interviews undertaken, from the…
- 13 companies interviewed with
- 3 offers made
- 1 awesome job accepted!
In the last 6 months I have also done the following:
- Read 194 books
- Averaging 32 books a month (1 a day!)
- Averaging 9000 pages read in a month
and:
- Took various classes on Codecademy in HTML and CSS
- Joined She Codes;
- Have had 4 groups lessons
- Completed 6 lessons on HTML and CSS
- In the process of coding my own cooking site
- Starting to learn JavaScript
