I have been in the USA a month now, and it has taken me until today to realise that the job market really IS different here. I was never able to understand why it would take so freaking long for anybody living within a reasonable commute of civilisation to find some sort of job. Now that I've been looking for work for three weeks, and have had only one (one, count it!) response to the bazillion applications I've sent out, I am forced to admit that various people here were right, and the US job market really does suck. Just in case nothing good comes through, I have started applying to entry-level secretarial and office clerk jobs -- jobs which require "high school education and one year of experience" -- and even with *those* I have yet to get an interview. Goodness knows how many people must be applying for them.

My first-choice job had an application deadline two weeks ago, and I applied a week before that. I have called them once a week ever since, to let them know I'm still very interested and to find out how far along the process is. Each week, I've been told the same thing: "We are working through the applications we received, and will start phoning people about interviews next week if possible."

I was getting steadily more disheartened about this, because back in NZ that would be code for "We filled the vacancy internally six weeks ago but had to advertise it anyway to meet legal hiring requirements. Please go away and die." I'm used to applying for a job, getting an interview within a couple of days, and hearing whether the interview was successful within a week or two. Today Dave told me, in response to my frustrated "HOW LONG CAN IT POSSIBLY TAKE TO LOOK THROUGH THE DAMN APPLICATIONS?", that two and a half thousand people applied for the job he has now. This gave me a totally different perspective on just how long it might take to hire for a position, in a country where you can get that sort of response to an ad.

All things considered, I'm glad I currently have plenty of money and a natural talent for hanging around at home doing nothing. Being unemployed for a whole month feels incredibly weird and wrong, but I am trying to readjust my thinking to the fact that finding a job here *can* take months.