Hopefully further in the works. Or maybe chillin with the other unfinished pixels. :lol:

I need to work more on my pixels but I've been working so much overtime at work D: Sunday is the day I will do it :D

Yay overtime! More exhausting, but more pay! :D

haha exactly - and it allowed me to buy my boyfriend's birthday present, and visit my friend who lives 3 hours away who is graduating this week and moving back to NYC and I won't see her again until I go up there (which will be years). AND buy a new skirt for my interview on Friday! XDDD

Oh wowee! So much stuff going on for you! :O
Good luck with your interview. :D

Thank you! I've lost weight since graduating college and moving home - not much - ten pounds at most. But the professional pants that I owned that were too big on me before I lost weight look humongous on me now XD So I decided I needed a professional skirt so that I would look more put together for interviews XD

But yeah - I have my interview friday which is also my boyfriend's birthday - I'm happy I'm off that day :D But then my next day off is Sunday - that will be my pixel day (and my day to go see the avengers! lol)

Avengers woo! I'm not an Avengers fan per say (I didn't read the comics) but the previews just look awesome! :D

haha i love comic books <3333 I have quite a collection even though I can't go to the comic book store anymore since the one I go to is two hours away by my college and I can't ever get up there now that I've moved home with my parents XDD

Where are you interviewing, Maria?

I really hope it works out well for you! I know they can be pretty scary.

I've been on both ends of the interview process.
In IBM, you tend to move around and "interview" in different places.

When I was a manager, I did a lot of on-campus interviewing for programmers.

Ugh, I wish I could get an interview... the job market is so competitive here, I can't even get interviews for jobs I'm overqualified for.

The worst part is when I have to fill out an application that wants my ENTIRE work history. I had so many jobs in college (several of which overlapped) doing so many different things with different supervisors and different pay rates... I'm having a lot of trouble remembering all of the information, plus it's extremely time-consuming to put in everything. I had eight different jobs just while I was in college! :gonk: And last year I went through three because I was promoted twice.

When I was working at IBM, I always kept my resume updated.
It was the only place that had all the dates and kinds of jobs that I did.

As the years went by, I just shortened the older work history... basically a one-liner about the dates and type of work I did then.

I kept a full one in college (but not with supervisor names or pay information, since that doesn't "go on a resume") but everyone told me it was too long and had me trim out "irrelevant jobs" like when I was a camp counselor, worked in IT (I'm qualified for IT anymore, nor do I want an IT job), or worked in fast food in high school.

So now I'm scrambling to reassemble it again. Bleh.

I also had to find out what my GPA was in college, because I totally forgot xD (government applications require it; otherwise I don't include that information because I've been out for so long).

lol...my GPA was really good, so I left that in.

Actually, my GPA was better while I was interviewing on campus in my senior year.
IBM offered me a job while I was still in school. It was just dependent on my graduating. So after that I kinds let things slide a bit...No C's or anything like that. I just didn't bust my butt quite so much as I had done before.

The final quarter of my senior year was a real blast. I had my job all lined up, everything was in place for the rest of my career....lol...

Lol, lucky you! I had something lined up but it was temporary work. And hubby didn't know yet where he was going to wind up, so I didn't want anything permanent. So I graduated, moved away, worked for 10 months, then moved back in with hubby. Here I am in month 6 of mandatory unpaid vactation. xD

My GPA was okay. It was above a 3.0 but it wasn't anything absolutely stellar, and I think my work experience when I left speaks way more about my job performance than my GPA.

That's true! Experience is much more important.

As a campus interviewer though, the GPA is pretty much all we had to go on for the first "cut" at people. There were always many more people than we had time to interview...

The way we did it was that a manger would do all the on-campus interviews.
Then he/she would write up a recommendation about the person, put in a few things learned from the interview, etc. Then back at IBM, managers who had openings would review all the interview sheets and recommendation, and decide if they wanted to talk to a person. If enough managers wanted to talk to the student, they were invited for an on-site interview, and had the entire day with interviews scheduled with all the interested managers.

I had an interview with a guy who had all A's... Yet I couldn't get 2 words out of him. He just could NOT communicate. I put that in the notes and recommended that he NOT be invited for an on-site. There was another guy whose GPA was questionable, yet he impressed the hell out of me. Turns out he was holding 2 jobs in addition to his school work.

I recommended that he be invited. He actually got hired later... I hear he did well.

I don't put a lot of stock into straight A's, especially if there's no extracurriculars. And I question people who do. If someone wants to take issue with my GPA and ignore the fact that I was holding two jobs a year on top of that (three during my junior year!), plus club meetings, that's not someone I want to work for.

A good interviewer will take it all into consideration.

GPA was important for getting your foot in the door. After that, the other stuff becomes much more important!

I can't even imagine trying to find a job in this market.

I'm retired, so I don't have to worry about that anymore...

@Jean and Keyori - I'm interviewing at a school that is actually close to my college.

I wish I had something lined up when I graduated college - but I just couldn't find anything. So I applied at a fast food restaurant and started the next day to pay the bills so that i at least made some kind of cash while I was job hunting.

I graduated with a 3.8999 GPA, magna cum laude...tons of experience but this is only the second interview I've had. The first one was a WEEK before the fall would have started, they wanted me to work full time on a part time salary with no preparation, no budget, and wanted me to start a travelling choir, band, and put on a musical once a semester. I said no way...they wanted to pay me for 20 hours a week when it would have been at least 40 hours of work a week.

It just goes to show that if you have connections, you get a job because I've had friends graduate in december and they knew people from their home counties who got them a job super quickly after they graduated. I didn't have that. BUT luckily...my friend is leaving his job to go to law school - so he recommended me and they set up an interview right away.

I should know if I get the job by May 16th - they told me that they want to fill the position before summer break starts so that the teacher has all summer to prepare. And so my interview is Friday and HOPEFULLY I am what they are looking for :)

Ugh, a foot in the door is exactly what I need right now. My alma mater is 2,000 miles away so going to a career fair there isn't practical in the slightest (plus it's extremely unlikely any of the companies there are hiring near where I live now).

It's frustrating doing so much online and never getting a chance to talk to someone, even over the phone. At least the ones I've applied for (so far) have been kind enough to send me a generic email saying I'm not being considered anymore.

That sounds really good, Maria!

My cousin is a band director in Houston.
She actually works for the Lutheran school...she teaches band in a number of different Lutheran schools.

It sounds like a LOT of work!

@Keyori - it's just annoying because my friends who DID get jobs...I had a better GPA than them, finished faster than them, had more experience, and yet they are the ones who got the jobs and I didn't - all because they know people XD

Even if I did go to a career fair at my school I doubt there would be music teaching jobs there....but I check the employment websites for like 5 different counties everyday looking for music postings.

@Jean - I want to teach elementary music although I interned in middle school with a chorus because that's what i originally wanted to do - but I just really enjoyed all my elementary music stuff more. It was just way more fun.

The job I'm interviewing with is a catholic school....I'm not religious at all D: I don't actually believe in the church - but I'm not going to say that to them cause I need the job lol. I'll deal with it for the job. My friend who currently holds the position said all he has to do, religious wise, is go to mass on wednesdays and sit and stand with the mass choir to help keep them from goofing off (or in his words, "to keep them from fucking up" XDDD). So I think I can deal with that XDDD

lol...I'm sure you can handle it, Maria!

It's great that your friend recommended you.
I hope they don't ask you the name of your current church...(I don't know if they can do that, even though they are a parochial, private school).

Oh, by the way...I wanted to tell you that your avie is great!
I don't often see that sash being used so well!

@Jean - My friend say they don't care - he doesn't go to church but he still got the job. I was born catholic and went to church for the first half of my life so at least it isn't too foreign to me XDDD

And thank you :D I couldn't figure out what to do with my avvie XDDD So I used the sash, which I've owned for years and have never used, and just made an avvie based on it XD

Maria--sounds like me missing out on a scholarship when I first started college... one of my friends had a crappier GPA, applied to the school much later than me, did fewer extracurriculars, and yet she got a women's scholarship and I didn't.

Though later on I found out it was because the department in charge had me classified as a man, even though I didn't indicate that anywhere in the application process.

I love that dark yellow color.

I call it mustard or goldenrod...

Lately I've seen cars in that color too!