Friday, July 06, 2007

Job Search - First Step

Went to a career counselor today. Step 1 of my job search! It was actually very reassuring: I had all these unanswered questions about what I'm qualified for, what my job search timeline should look like (am I starting a bit late, etc), and how to present some things on my resume. For example I taught a math for education course in the fall, and it went fairly well, but there were certainly many speedbumps... How do I put that on there? Well it turns out that the answer is to emphasize the aspects of the course that I took initiative on: like choosing the syllabus, choosing the teaching order, designing the handouts, and incorporating feedback mechanisms... The guy was right, it does sound way better when you write it like that. It beats the hell out of what I had written prior to meeting with him: "Designed and taught Math for Elementary Education III"...

The biggest worry I have is; what if I don't want a math job? I'm not sure of that yet, but I would like to know my options. If I want a math job, hey, no problem... I know where to look; AMS and SIAM have career booths at their conferences. But what else is there? The appointment was less successful in answering that rather important question, but at least I've started this process early enough that I've still got time to figure it out.

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