Interview exhaustion

This afternoon I had a phone interview for a job that could be fun and exciting.  It could also be a great career-starter.  Naturally, since it is an awesome job and the people I interviewed with sounded friendly and collegial, I am convinced I must have made a major mistake.  Or perhaps I didn’t make a huge mistake, but because the job would be so good for me and me for it, I assume that the likelihood I’ll get asked for a second interview is extremely small.  It would be nice not to have to play this mental game of getting enthusiastic about something in order to convey interest and energy during an interview, and immediately try to forget about the possibility because job lottery statistics indicate it probably won’t go any further.  I can’t afford to get emotionally invested in any opportunities before I have a job offer.  Forcing myself not to hope is extremely tiring.

Job searching is as bad as dating.  Sometimes worse.  The jobs you want don’t want you, and the jobs that want you aren’t the ones you want.  So frustrating.

To rein in the generalities though, I’ve recently been examining an apparent gap between the jobs for which I think I’m a natural candidate and the jobs for which I actually get expressions of interest.  I have only submitted a couple dozen applications so far, but the (admittedly sparse) feedback is interesting.  I thought I’d be a very strong candidate for institutional research positions at academic institutions.  Institutional research analysts collect and compile data about many different aspects of a college or university, perform analyses on those data, and usually produce reports for university administration and/or state and federal regulating agencies.  I’ve worked in academia for over a decade now, I have database skills, know SQL and R, and most of my academic and dissertation work involves analyzing datasets.  From the job ads I’ve looked at, IR positions seem to vary between data mungers who don’t do much analysis to directors who not only analyze but make recommendations about institutional policy and direction to administration.  Obviously I don’t have the expertise for the latter; I could have, in a few years, but I don’t right now, so those positions aren’t a good match for me.  There are some ads for positions at the other end which indicate that I could be far overqualified.  I was hoping to find postings for a sweet spot in the middle.  So far, callbacks from IR postings: 1 request for a phone interview next week.  To be frank I’m a bit surprised at this.  Perhaps many of these positions are filled by internal candidates; perhaps my skills aren’t at all what they are looking for.  Hmm.

Contrarywise, I started applying to more IT-like positions in an effort to expand my options and get some results.  I’ve applied to things with titles such as Data Analyst (often similar to what’s described above but outside of academia), Systems Analyst, Business Analyst (I’ve held both of these titles in the past when working in finance), and Report Writer.  I would not say that I’ve gotten a lot of interest from these submissions.  But I have gotten more than from my efforts to find a position using my technical skills within the academy.  This is a head scratcher.

Case in point: one of the fellowships I applied for takes a single application and sends it to many different institutions.  Each institution can choose any applicant from the pool.  On the application one can indicate a preference for different categories.  The categories have to do with academic research (mostly humanities), data curation, and visual arts.  I checked “academic research” when I submitted, because I thought it was the category for which I was best qualified.  Luckily this does not rule out my being considered for other categories; so far I’ve had one interview request from data curation–the description of the position emphasizes data science, data management, digital infrastructure, and so forth.  There has also been that odd experience in which I was sent forms from a place I couldn’t remember applying; the place turns out to be another institution with a position in data curation.  I’ve no idea if that indicates an actual expression of interest.  I’ve heard nothing more from them, so I’m not counting on it, but it’s thought provoking nonetheless. I was hesitant to portray myself as an expert in these more technical areas but when it comes down to it, I guess 10-15 years of experience with SQL and databases and such is valuable.

There was not a whole lot of progress on the job search this week except for the fastest rejection ever.  I only submitted one application besides that one.  I did successfully complete a phone interview today, and got a request for another interview next week.  That’s all good.  Eventually some interview will, I hope, lead to a second interview, and some second interview will lead to more… I need to find a way to increase the speed though.  I’m becoming very nervous about impending unemployment.