Fiza Arshad

The title says it all. In the time I have spent applying for jobs (since last February – you don’t have to ask), I have read many posts on LinkedIn on how to polish your resumes, what to do, and what not to do. I have read posts on using good formatting versus simple formatting. On interviewees wasting interviewers time. On interviewers ghosting interviewees. On using chat GPT. On over-using chat GPT. On not using it properly.

Now, I just grunt and skip over them. Are humans ever happy? The bottom line is yes, we are. But, only when it’s convenient. If I had a nice breakfast, I would be more willing to read on a job related ran…sorry, updates! If I didn’t make my morning tea correctly, I would stare deeply at a laptop while it loads a busy webpage.

Apparently, it takes up to a hundred or two hundred and fifty applications to land a job. I barely applied to a 100 (busy finishing up my PhD and not keeping count) and I am already exhausted. Of trying to make people see that I am good. That I can read, write, and analyze data while juggling momhood and being a decent human being most days. And I can edit my resume upside down in all kinds of formats available through MS Office.

What I cannot do is nothing. I can’t sit or lay around thinking of how to answer another question on transitioning to industry versus staying in academia. On answering well-intentioned queries from family and friends on: so what’s next? Or, was the PhD really worth it? Or, why another job rejection isn’t the end of the world. Or, why my medical copywriter application to Creative Circle got rejected in two days?!

Note: this post is written entirely by a human. The human is me in case you are wondering.