January 13, 2009

Unemployment Blogging, Day 23

I received my benefits card in the mail (a prepaid debit card courtesy of Citi -- speaking of which, do check out this post by Felix Salmon on its possible demise); now I'm waiting for the actual money to be added on.

I am trying to articulate my current position in the arc of my career. I suppose I would count, in terms of relevant experience, as entry-level, but entry-level employees don't have Master's degrees. If I had spent the first few years after St. John's doing office assistant duties at a DC think tank, then maybe things would be different. As things are, however, I can count, as a base of relevant policy and political experience, on a nice series of internships, a GA'ship, my stints in the Young Democrats and Drinking Liberally, and my work on Free State Politics. Everything else, and this includes most of my paid work experience, belongs in the category of "stuff done to get by, but not build a set of marketable skills." I imagine that job gurus would tell me that you can harvest useful experiences out of even the worst jobs, but in truth, I haven't yet worked out how to sell the story of myself to potential employers -- perhaps because I haven't yet worked out how to sell the story of myself even to myself.

No comments:

Post a Comment