Priceless

Today's quote: You mean to say that you are a daughter of Eve?

I visited Business Careers last week...only to have them tell me that my skills, education, and overall background are only worth 27k-30k/yr. There you have it folks, my pricetag comes at 27-30k. And from the interview I went to on Friday, more towards the low end of that spectrum apparently.

I've been here in WA for almost two months now, and I still haven't found a job that I will be happy with. What with school loans and rent back in IA still riding my ass, I think I need to making a little more than 27k/yr. During this entire time, it has been difficult not to let my sense of self-worth diminish every day. But that's a rather difficult order when you get no calls for interviews, and then when you visit staffing agencies they tell you that you're not qualified for anything (despite an undergrad degree in math from Berkeley).

So what exactly is the problem? Of course, nothing is ever really black and white and that simple. I'm sure that it's a combination of factors. But a lot of times, there is usually just one or two major factors that everything else is sort of tied into or overridden by. So what can I be doing better? I have a not too bad gpa from undergrad, and also not too bad from the first year at law school either. I'm prepared to make the argument that my degree in math shows that I'm tenacious and disciplined, and that I'm not exactly the run-of-the-mill ditz. But I can only really make that argument if I get an interview so that there is someone to spout off all my prepared reasonings to. So, is it a question of not what I know, but who I know? Or, is it because I don't have a typical degree in cs or business that's just so cookie-cutter for certain industries? Curses on the math department advisor at Berkeley! She told me that I would never have a problem getting a job with my degree. However, a few months after graduation I went to the website for the Bureau of Labor & Statistics and it reported that the average annual income for those with my degree was $19k/yr. I am not sure how it's changed since, but that wasn't the news I'd exactly been jumping for joy to hear.

Everyday I wake up and apply to as many jobs as I am even remotely qualified for on monster.com, seattlepi.com, and then I start browsing the websites for each company specifically that I would like to work for. Some of the biggest companies at the top of my list are Amazon, Microsoft, Weyerhaueser, Nintendo and T-Mobile. Is it a pipe-dream to want to work at one of these companies?