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Points if you get where my post title is from without googling.

I feel the need to clarify something from yesterdays post (she says, defensively). Much of my woe is coming from the fact that I can’t even get an admin assistant position in the field that I want to be in. Two commenters pointed out that this is the way to go if I’m serious about DC (and they are right) but I have applied for admin positions at every foreign policy, or foreign policy related think tank in DC.  As well as various other interesting places.

There are a number of places where I want to work where I don’t care what the job is – I just want to work there! These positions pay about half of what I’m making now, but I’d manage. Someone just has to hire me first. My fear is that in order to move to DC I’ll have to take another legal assistant job (or worse) which isn’t really my field and I’ll just get trapped in it because all my experience on paper is in it.

The other thing V and I were lamenting is “entry level” is both a misnomer and a double-edged sword. For example, these positions will claim to be “entry level” and they will pay entry level wages, but then they will ask for three years experience and in the end it’s basically an admin position. On the other end,  I have been viewed as “too experienced” for entry level. The number of times my snobby Masters degree has raised the eyebrows (and not in a good way) of the hiring person is astounding. They question why I’m applying to an “assistant” position and they question why I’ve been working in as an assistant.

Existential crises aside, do these people not understand having bills to pay? I’ve been at my current job for a year and a half. A year and a half ago, I was running out of unemployment and I couldn’t afford to shop around for the perfect job. Now that I’ve built up some savings (and I have the luxury of looking while employed) I can be choosier. But my experience, particularly my type of experience, is generally looked down upon.

I know that this all sounds defeatist and terribly know-it-all-ish. Who am I to claim that I know the workings of a hiring manager’s mind? I could be projecting, right? Thing is, I truly feel I’m being pragmatic and realistic with all of the above, and that if I let myself think otherwise then I’m being delusional.

Which perhaps is another puzzle. I believe I experienced this when I was job hunting immediately post-college. That is when I was interviewing for every receptionist/assistant position in NYC. Including one at a glue factory way the hell out in Brooklyn (seriously, it was a looooong ride on the R train) staffed solely by Orthodox Jew.

That was an awkward interview.

On the plus side I put $500 in my savings account this paycheck. On the negative side, I spent an obscene amount of money on clothing. On the plus side, I will be returning a large percentage of it, so no harm done. Mostly.

Now, to get a job in DC, so I have a place to wear all my cute clothes. Suburban Jersey + no dress code at work means I’m wearing jeans and plain sweaters everywhere.