Job Opportunities

DS1 will soon be finishing his education and is in the job search process.  When he called this past weekend he was sharing a bit about his job search process.  Of course he has had plenty of part time and summer jobs throughout his school career, starting with his paper route when he was eleven years old,  then moving on to call center work, tutoring, consulting, and even teaching college undergraduate courses, but this is his first attempt at finding a full time job in the "real world".  We have watched as DD1, DS2, and DD2 have also gone through this process in past years with varying degrees of success.  The economy of past decade has not been a very easy one in which to find a job. 

Later on DH and I looked back over our own working careers, and I was amazed at how we have been blessed with Job Opportunities.  I have never worked full time, but I can only remember interviewing for 1 part time job during college where I was not offered the job, and I had at least 6 different jobs, including summer jobs, during my college career.  After I graduated from college, I stayed at home with my children until DD4 entered 1st grade.  At that time I started looking for part-time work.  I interviewed with one company and was offered the job, but decided that it was not for me and turned it down.  Shortly thereafter DH and I were in the temple and stopped in for lunch at the Temple Cafeteria after our stake temple session and ended up sharing a table with our over the fence neighbors who both happened to work at our local community college.  DH shared that I was looking for part time work, and I was invited over to the college the following week, and have been working there regularly ever since.  DD4 is now a senior in high school.

DH has had similar success in his working career.   He had several different part-time jobs during high school and college that gave him good experience in his field of study.  At the time he graduated from college, he was already working full time.  This full time job led to a very lucrative (for the time) job offer from a small family owned company in New Jersey that included the offer to pay for his graduate school education.  That job blessed our family greatly and we could have stayed there for many years, but in the economy of the late eighties and early nineties there were many companies desperate for good help, and "head hunters" or recruiters would often call DH with unsolicited offers to come and interview with various different companies.  He ended up working for three different companies in the East before taking up the offer from his father to return home and work in the family business, which is where we have been for the past eighteen years.  Unfortunately the economy of the past few years has forced DH to also seek additional full time employment elsewhere so that we can afford to pay our portion of our health insurance premiums.  Granted, he did need to seek out this current job, and has continued to apply to other jobs in the effort to find employment more compatible to his interests and skills, but over the course of our working lives, we have truly been blessed with wonderful job opportunities.  Life hasn't always been one easy, and we are not wealthy, but we have been blessed to be able to provide for our family.