Seek and ye shall find...

...lots of jobs that you probably won't get.

Well, that's what it feels like to me, anyway.

I applied for 13 jobs during February.  Along with several hundred other applicants, no doubt.

How many of them have I heard back from?  Two.  Both replies were of the "Thanks for applying, but unfortunately..." variety.

Apparently, despite my having 4 functioning limbs, a heartbeat, reliability and near-full availability, and the fact that, in their words "your skills and background are impressive", Woolies found someone who "more closely matched the current requirements" for a store replenishment (night fill) position. Seriously?  Yeah, I'm reading that one as "we found someone cheaper".

The other rejection (for an admin assistant to a property manager) was still quite positive. They received a huge number of high quality applications and I am to be commended for being one of only 10% of applicants who actually followed the unusual request for a hand-written cover letter and a posted application, and as such, they are going to keep me in mind if anything further becomes available.  That would be really lovely, but I don't think I'll hold my breath.

Do I expect to hear back from any of the others?  Probably not.  These days, even the ones that don't specifically say "Due to anticipated large number of applicants, only those shortlisted candidates will be contacted" won't bother giving you feedback, more often than not.  It's a rare few who actually do.

In the meantime, I could try to upskill.  That's the buzzword of the moment, isn't it?  Seems like everybody wants a piece of paper these days, on top of your experience.  The problem with this is that, without a job, I can't afford any of the certificate courses that are available.  Even a 6 week basic MYOB course is upwards of $1500.  It could be a while before I can save up enough for that.  Luckily TAFE has several intakes per year for that one.

The whole thing is incredibly soul sucking, but I won't give up.  For every job that I don't get, it should mean that one less person is competing against me for the next one, right?

If only that were true.  *sigh*