Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Job application at a grocery store chain - My job search diary.

Today I came across a job for a "wellness associate" for a rather large grocery store chain. This seemed to be a real wellness job working with employees, not a sales person selling vitamins. So I decided to fill in the long online job application. The job application took "forever" to complete, or so it seemed. It must have taken me 2 hours to complete the application, even with my resume uploaded. Half way through the application, it asked, "Are you willing to work 45 - 55 hours per week? What, as a wellness associate? Well, of course I put "yes." Then question by question went by and I felt rather competent for the job. Then I came across questions about my computer skills. In general my computer skills are quite good. But then they asked a question about my experience with a program I had never even heard of. Well, that didn't seem too good. I have full confidence that I can learn a new program, but there was no place for comments, so I could not add any reassurance of my abilities to learn. I had no choice but to put that I was at a 0 in regards to competency in my skill level for that unfamiliar program. That was frustrating. The question came near the end of the 2 hours I had spent filling in the application. That probably knocked me out of the running. So far, I have heard nothing, zip, not-ta from the company. I tried to go backwards in the application to find a place where I could state something to the fact that I was capable of learning any new computer program not yet learned, but no where to be seen was a place to go back and edit any of my previous comments.

That was a bit disappointing, because it was actually a fairly good paying job, and I believe I would have been capable of doing a good job, with a bit of training in my weak areas.

Oh well, the job search goes on.

Emma Faye
My job search diary.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Health & Wellness Jobs vs. Medical & Nursing Jobs

My background and education is in Health Promotion and Wellness. I have signed up for so many email alerts for jobs in health & wellness. So I click on the link and it takes me to a medical job for nurses. Now I purposely did not go into nursing. I did not want medical; I wanted to focus on health promotion and illness prevention and wellness. It is interesting to see who advertises for wellness jobs and what they mean. A hospital or skilled nursing facility wants a wellness coordinator to be an RN. A worksite wellness organization wants a certified health educator and maybe someone who is trained in fitness. A couple of the job sites that have been a little bit helpful has been www.indeed.com  and simplyhired.com. I will post more as I find them helpful.

My Job Search Diary
Emma Faye 

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Blog Post #1

This is the first post for my new blog, as I journal my quest for employment. My biggest problem? I am a senior; I am 59 and self-employed (without enough work). So who wants to hire a woman who is 59 (almost 60) who has spent most of her life as a stay-at-home mom and a self-employed mom. I am educated; I have a graduate degree, but somehow that doesn't seem to help when I am one of many applying for the same job. This last year has been a frustrating year, to say the least. What am I looking for? What do I want? Where do I even want to live? On top of that, I got injured a few months ago and am still recovering. I don't qualify for disability. I have no retirement (because being a stay-at-home-mom does not add to a retirement fund). So I am competing with all of you younger adults for jobs that demand high energy and ambition. What a ride we are having.

Emma Faye