It’s Monday. Like every week, I get up in the morning to get to work at 8 am. As every day I get up tired and as every day I squeeze around grey ordinary people who hurry to their offices to sit at their desks like I do and do the same for the next few hours. These people, just like me, come home after work and out of tiredness or boredom fall asleep. Every day the same thing and every day the same dream that one day something will magically change my life. I dream that finally someone will read my resume and that finally someone will call me and invite me for an interview and until then I’m stuck in suspension waiting for a change of luck.

After a few months, I am tired of sending the same resumes to the same places for the same job. I seriously begin to consider changing all that to transform my life, to break the monotony, and the ideal way to do that is to do what I’ve always dreamed of. To start doing what I really love. But where to start?

All the research

Hmm… I ask others for advice and everybody looks at me like I’m crazy because who changes their job in their thirties? Who is crazy enough to erase ones career in favour of something unknown and maybe unreachable? These questions are always over my head, but I want to change, I want to get out of what I know so well and what causes me nausea and constant tiredness, I want to develop and I want to start all over again.

When I finally make a decision to change my career I wonder what my strengths are, I spend hours at Starbuck drinking coffee and thinking about where I see myself in the next 5 or 10 years. I’ve always liked technology so why don’t I start from there? But how do I do it when I don’t even have any education in this field? I flip through Instagram and come across encoding training. I take a look at it, but I don’t do anything about it. Maybe because I’m scared that it will not work. After a few days it’s still bothering me. When I decide to take a course, everything is snowballing. Life speeds up, work, training, home, sleep, work, training, home, sleep. A few months of hard but exciting work and I already know that this is what I want to do. The course ends and what now? How do I find a job that will allow me to develop the skills I have acquired over the last few months, which will make me happy and give me the opportunity to inhale new life?

The perfect resume

Sending a resume is an awful process, every time I’m afraid that someone will judge me that maybe I don’t fit the profile of the company and I’ll be ignored. Nobody likes to be ignored and so often it happens when it comes to job search. Many job adverts are not answered by anyone, the expectations in the adverts for the positions, I’m interested in, are unrealistic. I can’t prove my experience because I don’t have 5, 10 or 15 years of experience in the industry, I’m not an expert, but I really want to and I like it very much. But how am I supposed to tell it to somebody when they don’t even invite me for interviews?

Over the next days and weeks, I constantly send out my resume, personalise each one of them, try to fit in with all the requirements and perform as good as it is possible. When the phone rings I hold my breath for a while and try to calm down because maybe it’s the phone in response to my application, but no, it’s another phone call from the bank, once again I lose hope for a life changing moment. I don’t know how many resumes I need to send and how long I have to wait for a reply.

The expectations

Suddenly, when I give up hope for a change of job and the possibility of being employed in my dream job, I receive an e-mail with a job interview proposal. I cannot believe in it, so I read this e-mail several times, to make sure that it is what I was waiting for.

I can’t sleep the night before an interview. I constantly prepare the answers to the questions they may ask me, I try to think of the best way to present myself. I wear a suit that has not been worn for a long time and carefully style my hair to look perfect as if my appearance would help me get the job done. I know I need to shine, but everything goes wrong because, I’ m scared. I seem to be doing well, people from the HR department are nice, but I see that something is not right, that it’s not me they’re looking for. Again, I feel that I no longer have the strength to try harder.

After a few days, I get a call from the recruiter, that they appreciate the conversation, that I was in the top three, but the work was outsourced to someone else. I’m supposed to be on the podium, but the prize goes right next to me. The following days pass on to me on sending in more job offers, on refining my resume, on practising my elevator pitch. I want to do better at the next interview, but will I have a chance to present myself, or will they even call? Or maybe my application will hit a black hole in the HR department.

Let’s try all over again

This process is extremely tiring. I often give up in my mind, but I cannot give up my dreams and live as I did before. I have acquired my skills over the years, I have a document confirming that I have completed the course and that I know how to do what I would like to do so, I cannot give up, I cannot show weakness now, I must pursue my goal.

The phone rings and I get invitation to an interview. This time I won’t let my nerves get in the way, I won’t give up so easily, I’ll show all my passion and commitment. I want them to know that I am determined to change my career path to finally do what I love, to get up and work the way I want to. I want to develop and learn every day. This time I will show them that I am perfect for this job and I believe that I will get the job I dreamt of.

Many of us have experienced failures in seeking jobs. This process is not easy or pleasant. It’s hard for everyone to fit in and hard not to give up during the whole process. But if we don’t try, we will never make our dreams come true and we will never achieve our goals and targets. Sometimes it is worthwhile to suck it up and persistently strive to fulfil your plans. The perfect dream job doesn’t come easily, but if we don’t try, it will not come at all.