Jobsearch blues

Being a parent of a small child and a stress insomniac is a bad combination. It means that even if I manage to get my brain to slow down long enough to fall asleep, chances are I'll be awakened in the middle of the night, giving it a chance to rev up again. I got four hours this time, but now I'm thinking about my job search and there's no way I'll be able to sleep.

I have three months to find a job.

I'm sure it looks like ample time, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like panic.

You see, when I quit my last job to go to grad school, four years ago, I did my homework. I called people who had graduated from the program I attended and asked them about it. I asked them how to get the most out of the program. I asked them what I should know going in. And the wisest (I thought) advice I got was: Know where you want to be when you get out, and tailor your studies so you end up there.

So I looked around. I researched local companies. I looked at posted job descriptions. I did all the weird steps in What Color Is Your Parachute? to figure out exactly what sort of work I was looking for. And (within the limitations of my program), I tailored my studies to where I wanted to be when I got out.

Of course, no positions were (a) open and (b) local right around the time of my graduation, and I got another seemingly interesting job offer in a slightly different field, and. Well. We all know how that's worked out for the last three years. I really don't want to do that again - settle for a job that I know is not what I want and then spend a lot of time being unhappy. But I've been applying for jobs for four months now - longer, if we count the several times my dream job at my dream employer has come up; I would have broken contract to go there, so I applied for that as early as a year ago. In that time, eight jobs that fall within this niche (my field wants BAs to do data entry and PhDs to do direction and design; an MA leaves one in a bit of no-man's-land) have opened in my local area, and I have applied for all of them.

Not one interview. Not one. I did get a cold call from the dream employer after four applications, teling me that they had thought I was overqualified for the positions I'd been applying for (I'm not) but that they might get funding for a new position and they'd be interested in talking to me about it if they did. That call went well, and I was excited at the same time as I tried not to stuff all my eggs into that small, tentative basket. I continued to apply elsewhere (and to get no interviews).

Two things happened yesterday: In response to a polite query about the potential position (which I was initially told they'd know about last month), the dream employer responded that they were "still assessing hiring needs" and "it could be a while" and they'd "keep [me] in mind." And my 90-day notice of contract termination for my current job arrived in the mail. Cue panic. I don't like being unemployed - haven't been for over a decade now, except for grad school and the two weeks afterward I took to get married. But I really don't want to settle for another wrong-for-me job, either. This feels like a crossroads.

I want a job that is:

• In an office
  
• Under a director I respect
  
• With colleagues I mostly respect
  
• In research and/or evaluation
  
• In education
  
• That is a learning stretch for me without drowning me.

Apparently, this is a tall order. I get job offers all the time, but they're contingent on me working from home, or working by myself, neither of which I'm willing to do anymore. At the conference earlier this month, I got recruited with flatteringly heavy sells by colleagues in Boston, SoCal, Washington D.C., Portland, and Philadelphia, but moving isn't an option for me and my family.

I just - God. Is there something wrong with my resumé? Is the job market for this niche just saturated beyond belief? Am I being too picky? AM I CURSED? I should have run away from home and joined the circus become a librarian years ago.