12My Job Search
The hardest part of my data journey was job searching. It's hard to convey to you in bits and pieces what the experience of job searching felt like, so this chapter is dedicated to the story of my job search. It was a roller coaster of emotions—usually negative. I often felt confused, burnt out, and “not good enough,” and it made me genuinely consider giving up. If I'd known that it is hard on everyone else too, I would not have felt so discouraged! That's why I want to tell you my story.
“Open to Work?”
So first, let's set the scene. In April 2022, I had officially decided that I was going to try to get a full‐time job as a data analyst. For the entire duration of my job search, I was still doing my field work for graduate school, which is essentially an unpaid internship. I was “working” at this internship, 40 hours a week, a half hour away, doing something that was emotionally and physically taxing. For the entire duration of my job data analytics job search, I was also doing this unpaid internship at an assisted living facility, which I found to be particularly emotionally draining.
I had decided to start my job search in May, and I was hoping that I would have a job by the end of June. I had no idea what to expect. I'd gotten most of my previous jobs through word of mouth. I had a résumé, but I'm not sure that anyone ever used it to ...
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