A New Creative Branch in My Transition Tree

SO. Sup. It's been a while. I know. I'm working on it - yeah it's tough. How are you? Good. OK.

I had another interview today, this time with a company here in Hartford County.  Now while it has certainly dawned on me over the past couple months that Hartford isn't as sexy or captivating as New York City, Los Angeles -- but I have learned to appreciate that any professional opportunity has something (if not quite a lot) to teach me -- so I approach these opportunities with the same prep and focus that I would a job interview in any other city.  As I've mentioned in past posts, humility is a gift failure has given me, and the sun shines just as brightly on a small shop as it does a skyscraper.

This attitude is dually-productive -- because (1) with every passing interview that I pursue to the best of my ability, the more capable and comfortable I become in the interview environment and (2) the more I observe best practices leading up to and during those interviews, the more ingrained those skills will become...which will provide me a valuable foundation to build upon as my career progresses.

I don't think that there's any downside to pursuing interviews at jobs that aren't exactly what you're looking for either.  Recently, some contacts with great jobs have told me that one of the best ways to get the job you want is to have a job that is just slightly related.  What do you lose?  A few hours of researching you can make up on the weekend, and what do you get in return? You show your prospective employer that you're someone who's capable of holding down a job -- who isn't just twiddling his thumbs waiting for the job fairy to show up and grant a wish.  Plus, it certainly adds to your value proposition if you're able to say "I'm here because I want to pursue my passion, and I am willing to leave a position I am currently successful at to work here" as opposed to something like "I'm here because I'm unemployed...and I am really passionate about you hiring me."

In conclusion, there's no law against turning down an opportunity if a better one comes along, and you lose nothing by taking an interview that isn't precisely what you're looking for...bottom line is it gives you experience, as well as the most valuable commodity in business: information. Whether the most valuable information is about the job itself, yourself, or something else entirely -- you're still gaining from the experience, and that's what matters.

SHIFTING GEARS

So as fun as it might be filling out applications and banging on digital doors week after week, I've found that exercising your creative muscles is a good way to make the best of my transition period.

Thanks to being without the time constraints of a job, or a class schedule for that matter, these past few weeks I've started returning to my old artsy habits. What this means for me is: Music Composition on GarageBand/Playing Guitar, Drawing, Writing new scripts, Editing old scripts, Reading (a lot...I missed it), Linguistics (Spanish Fluency could be so useful to me right now), Going on message boards and reading/discussing the trades of my favorite industries, and starting a passion blog (still in the design process but stay tuned).

As someone with a car and knowledge of search engines, I have also found that there are lots of organizations and clubs out there (even in boring old Connecticut) for people like me that want to express their creative passions. This too has become a great breath of fresh air to my artistic spirit. And while I am still amazed at how quickly my days can become filled-to-the-brim with activities and earrings, I know that it's a lot easier to fit in these sorts of creative projects now then when this transition period is over and I'm back to work.  You never know, it might just help me get there.

A trend I've noticed in how-to articles for various job markets is that; most successful professionals suggest that job-seekers stop waiting for the chance to apply their creative skills and just, for lack of better words, start doing it.  The digital age makes it so we're all capable of expressing our creative spirit in a public way online in a variety of forms and genres -- for example; musicians can create, promote and discuss music on their own website or on a preexisting one - writers can join websites or start blogs where they put up their own work for review and critique others in a mutually constructive exchange - and graphic design artists can promote their portfolio and connect with fellow artists on a myriad of professional websites and networks.

SO. Yeah. Did you like it? Was it too talky? Do you want to get coffee sometime? OK.

I am getting off the proverbial but and getting myself out there -- both professionally, personally and artistically. There's no reason not to try new things and put myself in new situations to see what happens.  The transition period is a great opportunity slash excuse to start pushing myself as an artist to produce new work.  It's also a great opportunity to build professional relationships in my passion areas and research them in new ways. While at first it will be hard to get back into a regular creative process -- as long as I push myself there's no telling what dividends the experience might pay. So with that, this Transition Period has just cultivated a new branch -- and a new blog.

Stay tuned and keep on pursuing tomorrow True Believers.