Making Your Goal Job One

The year was 1997 and I had been discharged for lack of work, but I was determined to find a new job. Being an older person, I realized that doing this was not going to be easy. I decided to make finding a new job, Job One. A major element of Job One was to send 1,000 letters of application to any sort of business or organization that needed the skills I possessed. My skills were a good knowledge of computers, and over 30 years of teaching them.

I created a new resume to include with my letter of application. Here, I showed my computer experience since I had begun with computers in 1960 but nothing before that. I covered the previous time by simply stating that this had been clerical experience. I did tell the year of my obtaining a college degree, 1973, but did not mention that I had been 50 years old at the time and had worked many years towards attaining it. If anyone were attempting to calculate my age, it would not be easy.

Word processing and the magic of a computer enabled me to send out fifteen or twenty letters a day. I spent a large part of each day browsing various resources to find places I could address. I wanted to stay at or near my home base since I had established roots there.

Most of my letters were unanswered. I did get a few responses that resulted in interviews. A few of the job openings seemed promising at the time but nothing came of them. After several months of this kind of effort, my count of letters mailed exceeded one thousand but this did not stop the effort.

One day I got a call from the New York State Labor Department. They wanted to see me. I arrived for an interview at the appointed time and spoke to an interviewer. We chatted for a few minutes, then, without warning, he pointed his finger at me and stated, "We need you!"

Job One has succeeded! I'm still with the department 14 years later.

If you need or want something badly, making the task of getting it Job One, will give you a better chance of reaching your goal than just wishing for it.