MLK day and my Resume

I think Dr. King would tell me that I've got to be able to take care of my own family before I can take care of anyone else, so I resolve to get my resume in order tomorrow.

Think I can find a job that Dr. King himself would be proud of me for having? That would make me feel like I'm on the right path.

I've got three professors as references, a whole wheelbarrowload of skills, all my blogs, and good journalism experience. And it's bursting at the seams with text--I can't make the margins any bigger.

Putting all this education I've got under my belt has really upped my resume highlights. For the first time there are marketable skills under my belt, not to mention a teeny tiny award for news writing, that I can not only list, but go beyond listing them in a bragging fashion, all long-winded-like, and parse them down into exact, concise, clear, bold & brief declarations of experience in all the relevant fields of the career I want to pursue WHICH IS AWESOME!

But my job experience is a little lacking, only two student papers under my belt, as well as a bevy of retail- & customer service-related jobs that ended poorly (for me). As much as I rant about how mistreated I am and special me and blah blah blah, it sucks to burn a bridge, and it's worse to burn multiple. Not that any employer of mine would say I'm a bad person, but the more you get fired, the more you gotta play a song-and-dance of explaining yourself instead of proceeding smoothly into sweet quadruple figures per year of $$$-making yo (self-fulfillment shmelf-shmulshmillshment).

Late last night I was looking at Craigslist's jobs postings in the pr/marketing and writing/editing jobs, and straight away I came to a few that I'm totally qualified for and are in the Seattle area. Then I had to tell myself in a cowboy voice, "Whoo--o-oo-o-o, now hold on now, there, little pilgrim, you still need to finalize the contact info for your references and try to geeit that fourth one in there!"

I'm suffering from what psychologists refer to as Resume Over-Confidence, which inevitably leads to a fall into conclusions.

Happy (early) Martin Luther King, Junior Day, everyone. Even if you don't have a resume of your own to work on for the purpose of feeding and comforting a family, find someone close to you who needs help, and help them!

In my pursuits of career, a joyous family, and shmelf-shmulshmillshment, I will strive to remember the sentiment expressed by our good doctor here:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

I think he'd laugh at this