A common question I get when I tell people where I work is, “How did you get that job?” Which is a reasonable question because I would likely ask the same thing. I work in Baton Rouge at the State Capitol building for the Louisiana State Senate. My position is a Communication Technician which entails a variety of tasks but the main two are: photography for the Senate and to oversee the Senate committee rooms during meetings. When lawmakers are in session, Senators will meet in the Senate Chamber to debate and vote on a variety of bills. I am in the chamber taking photos of the day’s session. The committee meetings are where the lawmakers learn about the bills and take action to see if the bill will pass and be sent to the Senate chamber, or fail, and that is essentially the end of the bill’s life. I set-up the room before the committee convenes. Once the room is ready to go, I return to my office and watch the meeting on the T.V. If there is an issue then I am called to resolve it.
That is a brief summary of where I work and what I do. Before I got hired on at the Capitol, I was a French teacher at Lafayette High School. I taught French I and II to 9th - 12th graders for one year. Teaching is great but it wasn’t for me. It was super stressful and I was constantly working after regular hours. My weekends never felt free since I was thinking about my lesson plans for the upcoming week. I am sure it’s much different for teachers who have been doing it for several years but as a newbie it was a challenge every day. I remember two instances when I left work at the end of the school day and cried in my car on the way back home. Some mornings I would be nervous to go to work and it was just a regular school day. I know that all sounds dramatic but it’s the truth. Teaching is not an easy job. I honestly can’t believe I survived the entire year.
Anyhow, after week one of teaching there I began looking for a new job. I applied everywhere. Banks, advertising agencies, tech companies, universities, etc... Lafayette isn’t a big city so I began applying to out of state jobs once I exhausted my options within the city. I applied to dozens of universities all over the country. Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Massachusetts, etc… My wife was going to transfer from her college in Lafayette into a different one so that is why I focused so much on universities. I was thinking maybe if I worked there I could receive a tuition discount for my spouse…If only it was that simple.
Overall, I applied to more than 40 different jobs from August 2018 to April 2019. Out of 40, I heard back from two universities about an interview. I did a phone interview with one university, did well on it, and scored a second interview. They then wanted to fly me out to the school to give me a tour and do one final interview. I was so pumped up for this but my wife was not. The school was William and Mary in Virginia. The tuition would have costed us more than $24,000 a year for her to attend and that’s even if she got into the school. I thought I could eventually convince my wife to change her mind so I kept a dialogue going with the folks over at W&M.
Meanwhile, I got an email from the Chief of Staff for the Louisiana State Senate asking if I could come in for an interview. I saw the email and I could not believe they contacted me. I showed up at the Capitol the very next day, walked into the interview, asked a few questions, and then it was over. Maybe 20 minutes or so.
The interview went well and a few weeks later I was notified that the job was mine. This was in May 2019. So now I got this job offer and a potential job offer at W&M. Then a third job called me and wanted to conduct an interview. This position was at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. I could not get over all these job offers coming at once. It’s funny how that works sometimes. The end result was me accepting the position at the Capitol. I started in September of 2019.
So that is how I got the job working for the State Senate. The last thing I will say about the job hunting process is that is takes forever. I filled out so many applications online which can take 30 minutes or longer. I wrote dozens of cover letters and worked on my resume constantly. For months I never heard back from any position other than a rejection email. So I said I need to do something that will make me stand out from everyone else. How could I do that? I began working on my resume more but this time I went the creative route. My Microsoft Word resume was not cutting it. It looked like every other resume. So I made a new resume. A resume that stood out so much that you couldn’t take your eyes off of it. You wanted to show others. A resume you could not refuse. This resume was sitting on the desk of the Chief of Staff while I was in the interview.