Interview next week!! !

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Was any of them within the federal gov't, Tim?

There is also USGS and they are in Reston VA. Did you apply there too?

I haven't applied with the federal government.

I do have another interview for a job in Nebraska next week.

Phone interviews are best, right? You don't have to dress up for the interview and have to talk to the person face to face.

I didn't get either the Lawton or the Nebraska jobs.

I am starting to get discouraged. I feel like I am doomed to live with my parents forever, and as far as dating goes, I feel I am limited to people with absolutely no standards who are only dating me so they can say they have a boyfriend, so they will "be like everyone else".

Stay strong, Tim_Tex! I've never mentioned it before, but I kind of look up to you. I know you can find something. Don't give up looking!

I have applied to hundreds of jobs (and approaching 1,000) in 44 states, and still nothing.

That's a LOT of applications, but think of it this way: what will giving up get you?
Is there any way to work with a counselor who specializes in helping people become more employable? It sounds like you get interviews but get stuck at that stage? Maybe a career counselor could work intensively with you on interview style and you could do lots of mock interviews and get really good so you could move past that stage and into a job?

I don't plan on giving up.

It's just that given that it has been 10 months since I graduated from college (and I also have 5 years of experience under my belt), and the number of positions I applied to, and still haven't found anything, it's taking an emotional toll on me.

BTW, the 6 states I haven't applied to yet are Idaho, Montana, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The GIS department at my university is always saying there are a lot of jobs here in Idaho.
And one of my poli sci professors got GIS certification and is teaching in Montana now.

Don't rule out the Wild West.

I am mainly upset that I can't find work anywhere, and it's keeping me from having my own place and having friends or a romantic partner.

Unemployed + living with parents + Christian + Republican + Aspie = LOSER

Try unemployed + homeless. One of the things I find hardest not to dwell upon was being, basically, "disinherited for being autistic." I was thrust out into the world as a teenager because my mother didn't want me around anymore. It left me very vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation and abuse . . . far worse than "failure to launch."

I don't say this for pity, I say this to help you count your blessings. Yes, people in our culture look down on those who live with their parents, but be grateful that they are there because your life situation could be magnitudes worse if they weren't.

Also, please stop thinking of yourself as a loser because, really, you're calling me a loser too.

Unemployed + on disability + Christian + Conservative (I don't identify as Republican because I'm displeased with some of what's going on in the party but I do vote Republican) + Aspie = ME. And I am not a loser. I'm just slow to bloom! So there!

I have read your posts for years now (I read WP for a long time before I finally joined) and I have always admired your strength, intelligence, and good sense. I firmly believe you have a lot to offer the world of employment but just haven't found your entrance yet.

Do you have a portfolio of work you have done before? If you don't, are you able to contact people you worked for in the past and put one together? Or do you have the resources to do some independent projects to create a portfolio? I recently read "Asperger's on the Job" by Rudy Simone and Temple Grandin wrote the foreword and in it she talks about how people didn't want to hire her because she seemed "weird" so she made a portfolio of her work and brought it to interviews. It gave both her and the interviewer something to look at other than each other and something to talk about other than each other. Grandin points out that the conventional wisdom is to "sell yourself" but that those of us on the spectrum can't really sell ourselves because we come across as odd and that's not something anyone wants to buy.

Instead of selling yourself, Grandin says, sell your work. If you can get the interviewer to look at your portfolio and see that you do good, solid work, you will have caught their interest. Sell your value as a worker, not your value as a "member of the team." Interviewers will see that youa re excited about your work and they will get excited, too, if you offer something they need and want.

Something Grandin doesn't mention, probably because she's from an earlier generation, is that you can also sell your work on the internet. That's what my pedagogy (into to university teaching) professor is teaching us to do this semester. We are creating web pages with our CV (resume) and teaching philosophy and any publications and basically selling our work online. We're also creating packets that are more than just a CV but have all kinds of information like sample syllabuses and teaching philosophy, etc. This is the teacher's equivalent of a portfolio. I even talked to my professor about the possibility of filming myself later when I'm actually teaching classes as part of my doctoral coursework and putting clips of my teaching on my web page. He was very encouraging about that idea. All of this is part of my portfolio that sells my work, not myself.

So maybe focus on putting together some kind of portfolio showing what you have done and/or what you are capable of doing? It's useful to have a "prop" to focus attention on when you are in interviews and a "prop" that shows the potential employee just how much you shine could be the thing you need to hit your tipping point when it comes to finding a good job someplace.

I have a portfolio of the work I did with previous employers, as well as proposals and reports I did in college.

As for my other issues, I don't know what to do.

People assume that:

Unemployed + living with parents = slacker.

Christian/Republican: hates gays, women, and racial/religious minorities.

Well, at least other Christian/Republicans are less likely to assume that you hate gays, women, and minorities.
Heck, *this* Christian/Republican (meaning me) just came home from visiting a couple of friends who also happen to be an interracial lesbian couple. There's all three of your categories! (And they're also Catholics, though not Republican, so there's four of the categories.) LOL

So, anyway, *I* know that Christian/Republican is not a hate crime waiting to happen and I surely can't be the only one. There *are* open-minded people in this world and, while I'm not a paragon of popularity, I get by and figure it's most important to maintain my personal integrity and wait for friends that fit with that.

As for unemployed + living with parents, I agree, that's a hard one for many (not all!) people to get past. In some ways it's probably easier for me as unemployed + living on disability (although I hate living on disability and would far rather have a job! It's humiliating and it runs counter to my philosophical/political beliefs, but my philosophical beliefs would have disabled people who couldn't earn a living being taken care of by family and my family disinherited me for being autistic, so . . . )

Anyway . . . long-winded that I am . . . my point was that not *everyone* will judge you unfairly for your life situation and it's better to just decide that anyone who isn't willing to look past that and get to know the real you isn't someone you'd want to waste your time on right now because you have more important things to do than try to impress the narrow-minded.

More important things like sending out your resume to lots of folks in Idaho, Montana, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Rhode Island, and Vermont!! !

I'm expecting to hear great things from you in the not-so-distant future!

I think that more than anything, I would like to be someone's dream guy, not the one they are just settling for.

I wish that for you, too. I do, honestly, think that your dream girl, your meant-to-be girl, your soulmate will be a person who understands all of you, including your difficulty finding a position and who admires that you love your parents and are/were able to live with them while you worked on getting launched into your career.

I've always been the "I guess I can put up with her as long as she continues to be useful" girl. I don't even know how I would recognize if I were someone's dream girl. I think that's something I've given up on because I look forward so much to living alone after my husband dies. (Don't worry, I wasn't wishing bad to happen to him. He's very ill and not predicted to live a normal lifespan.)

Tim do you have another job at the moment? I.e. one not in your chosen field?