“Mommy, where do job applications go after you submit them?”

“They are sucked into a black hole, dearest, where they live a peaceful existence with all the socks that are eaten by the washing machine and are never heard from again!”


Sometimes I feel this way when applying for full-time employment. Obviously, there is a very competitive market in this economy, especially when it comes to teaching jobs. Left and right, teachers are being laid off due to budget cuts, so new teachers are left to fend for themselves against more experienced teachers who were just laid off because they were at the bottom of the pecking order at their previous school. Schools need to decide whether they want to hire a new teacher or a teacher with 1-5 years of teaching experience. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who is getting all of the jobs (as a side note, my boyfriend actually is a rocket scientist, so perhaps I’ll have to retire this phrase. Or maybe I should use it more! Hmm…)

The budget cuts of schools also cause a problem with me in particular. I have a Master’s degree already, unlike most new teachers, who must take evening classes in their first few years of teaching in order to earn one. This basically means that I’m an expensive hire, since the schools have to pay me a larger salary because of my degree.

I have been told by a number of my former classmates that most school districts do not contact new applicants for interviews until the summer months, especially in August. Until then, I am still submitting applications for jobs in both the teaching field and also in fields related to my undergraduate major. There are an abundance of jobs with competitive salaries (some of which are on par with – or greater than – the salary of a teacher with a Master’s degree!) that also catch my eye. Basically, right now, I’m applying for everything for which I am qualified in the two geographic locations where I would be interested in living. We’ll see who calls me back. I would like to think that at least one or two of my applications weren’t sucked into a black hole, but who knows.

The future is undercertain and therefore quite exciting!