It is time for the admission. The prospect of once again choosing a full time job ABSOLUTELY terrifies me!
Last year, I didn’t blog about my job search because I was among the fortunate who secured a position very early in the process. Well, paybacks are here! This year I am in the hunt and I feel pressure to get it right.
My full time job choice will dictate where I live, where my child goes to school, our overall quality of life, and ultimately my legacy. I know, it sounds like I may be over-exaggerating but all of these things come to mind. And admittedly, despite my almost 13 years of work experience prior to Tuck for some reason I even doubted whether I could perform at a new company.
So as you can imagine, entering my internship this summer, I was a mess! At one point, I was ready to leave, not because of anything being wrong with my internship, but moreso because I was a wreck!
In the end, I was pulled back from the edge of despair by alumni. There were alumni at my company, who spent a considerable amount of time, making sure I had a safe place to vet my thinking. One alum in particular, used a considerable amount of his personal time on several occasions. His efforts were definitely above and beyond.
There was also the day I told an alumna working at a different company, I wasn’t sure I knew what I wanted to do after graduation. This was not exactly what I considered putting my best foot forward, but she shared she had been in the same place. This was such a relief. Sometimes MBA’s can appear PERFECT. It was refreshing to hear that someone else had struggled, with the same difficult stuff I was dealing with and turned out happy. I so appreciate her honesty.
And then there was the alumna, who answered what I considered tough questions about career options for someone with my level of experience. She was the first person to say I might have to “start over” despite 13 years of previous experience. I had sensed this, but no one had ever verbalized this.
You might think her words would leave me even more confused and upset, but when it was over, she gave me the biggest hug and said, “Don’t worry. We got you sister”.
Wow. If you hadn’t already taken away that I had no less than 10 hours of alumni attention this summer, you can add to that, the promise that her and her collective network weren’t going to let me fail. I definitely got it.
I will write more about my job search as it progresses, but I wanted to start by saying, I am not in it alone and my alumni network has already gone above and beyond to demonstrate this and equip me for the “hunt”.
Game on!
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