Job Hunt

I hate applying for jobs. Hate it. Each time I've been on the market for a new job, I only really applied to one or two, and then took one of those when they were offered. (So, I'm also not very experienced at the big job hunt thing.) The last time I was seriously on the job market was in 2003, when I became so fed up with my current job that I vowed to quit by the end of the month, even if it meant being completely unemployed. I sent a single email to a friend at another company asking if they were hiring, and then I threw up my hands and gave my two weeks notice the following Monday morning, unemployment be damned. By the time those two weeks were up, my friend had arranged an interview, I'd met with my future manager, I'd gotten an offer, and I accepted it. Easiest job hunt ever.

This time around is probably going to be a bit more challenging. I've decided not to do the academia tenure thing, and I'm not interested in a post-doc, so I'm just applying for research positions. And they have to not care that I'm pregnant. And they have to be local, because S and I don't want to relocate. And they have to not care that I'm pregnant. And the economy sucks. And did I mention that I'm 20 weeks pregnant?

When talking to people about my pending job hunt, I've been mentioning two competing factors: (1) I didn't want to start interviewing until I was sure about when I would graduate; and (2) I wanted to interview before the pregnancy was showing. Well, now that the defense is behind me, I have a likely answer to (1) -- I'll be graduating in January, within days of my due date. Which is both convenient and a bit awkward. Mostly because it has now made point (2) rather impossible. Even though I have still not gained an ounce of weight, I suddenly popped yesterday and am definitely showing. I noticed it yesterday morning, and several people commented on it during the course of that one day. It literally happened all at once. And while I might be able to hide it a bit with some careful wardrobe choices, none of them are at all flattering.

So, we'll see. I've informally applied for 6 jobs. Two of them won't require interviews, because I've already worked for people there and they're just checking to see whether there's an opening that makes sense (though both have privately mentioned that the immediate maternity leave makes it a hard sell, and they'll definitely be able to make me an offer if I talk to them next summer, after the baby is born, but probably not if I insist on doing something while pregnant. Which is illegal I think? But I'm not interested in fighting about it right now, especially with friends). Two others are at places where I have numerous personal contacts, so I'm hoping to at least get interviews, and then deal with the maternity leave thing later. The last two are more of a stretch, but two of my former managers know people at those places, and they're putting in some phone calls for me, so we'll see.

But the waiting and the doubting and the stress of interviews and the feeling of being judged and the endless waiting? Hate it.