I've just come home from a much needed trip to Disneyworld, and have a
couple hundred messages to pour through, so if I am beating a dead horse,
please forgive.

I just spent the last 9 months going through that miserable employment
search.  I am unfortunately one of those people who has that well rounded
and extensive background that everyone talks of as being the way to go,
but, to tell you the truth, I think that is what has hurt me the most.

There is so much more to the job search than writing up a good resume.  I
went through corporate training on how to "sell yourself" and I can't use
any of it because it our field that behavior is consiudered rude and
offensive.  Yup, I've goofed and sent resumes to the wrong name, but I have
always done lots of research and made lots of contact to be sure to whom I
was sending it, and what the job being offered was all about, and that I
was qualified or could meet their needs.

I am very aware of the more pressing things than replying to a resume but
only about 10% of the people to whom I applied or wrote ever sent any
response - even when they solicited me for more information.  If I was
lucky I would get asked months later if I was still looking for work.
Lately I have had a few part-time projects simply because I was another
name on the bottom of the list of people to contact when the regular staff
was short.

Having that rounded background (and a dual-MA in Public History and
Archaeology) was a killer because the archaeologists simply said we have no
need for an historian and the historical agencies (historic house museums,
libraries, archives, etc.) all simply said we have no need for an
archaeologist.  I will forever thank Dave Muraca at Colonial Williamsburg
for being the only person to actually had the guts to honestly tell me that
I was over qualified for anything they could ever offer me (not for the
jobs they have but for the structure of hiring and promotions).  Most
places I asked or interviewed simply dropped me and I can only assume that
my desire for a regular lower-than-my-skill-level position was a bit
intimidating (or I was a victim of the "gypsy" stigma of being a well
trained person seeking work as a shovel bum - there must be something
wrong) (I need a freaking job to put food on the table is the reason) (not
to mention that my high title of Project Director in NY equates with a
lowly crew chief in VA).  I felt severe pity for the one interviewer who
clearly would have been qualified to be not much more than a field tech on
one of my major projects.

By the time I was nearly 40 I had had only one job interview in my life -
and it lead to a good job.  OK, so I was jaded by the experiences of the
first half of my life.  I have always found work through connections but
since I moved to VA I found that I could not rely on any of them because
there were no connections between my old places and here.  People here
don't even know the fine work one of my best references in neighboring MD
let alone anyone I worked with in NY.  The best jobs I have had were always
obtained through word of mouth and personal connections.  For years I had a
wonderful sequence of jobs that relied only on reputation and trusting word
of mouth, and I'm not just talking about archaeology but also my work in
museums, libraries, and historical societies.  That all ended when I moved
out of my "home realm" and to that might-as-well-be-foreign land of
Virginia.  (My wife, on the other hand, can simply say "I'm a Winterthur
Fellow" and all the rest is acceptable.)

It also depends on whom you know.  I don't consider my mentioning names of
people I have worked with to be "name dropping" because I have worked with
these people and they know me as well as I know them, but I see so many
people doing the classic name-drop of people they met once at a meeting -
that is clearly wrong!  When I first moved to VA I did do a little name
dropping, in the manner of "I talked with so and so" and it killed me in
some avenues of work and research for I soon found that the names I had
mentioned (although they are two of the finest archaeologists in VA) had
recenly fallen out of favor with the powers that be.  Right then and there
I had a major door slammed in my face.  I still hold these two guys in high
regards but since I do not know the politics of the situations I am forced
to forever use their names in caution - and the names of anyone else in VA,
for that matter.

This is not something that is restricted to archaeology.  I have faced it
with my other avenues of employment.  Working in the cultural studies
fields, non-profits, civil servant, ... literally any job where you can
feel that you have a real impact on the quality of life and understanding
of the world.

On that note I am preparing to take my skills off to the private sector and
do some CAD and CAM work for someone who is going to pay me what I am
worth, is going to make me work only 8 hours a day, will give me health
insurance, will give me a day off with pay when the weather is nice, and
knows that retirement benefits and investments are an important aspect of
self-preservation.  Oh, not to mention they will pay me well more than
double what I ever dreamed of earning as a top-level archaeologist.  Now I
can think about paying off those student loans I so eagerly accumulated a
decade ago and which have now escalated far and above the sum total of what
I have earned over the last 20 years of my career.  And I'll finally put
those college degress to use = as toilet paper.

        Dan W.