Professional photo of me when I was in my former career as a Managing Real Estate Broker and owning my own Real Estate Company, STEP Reality Inc. Service, Teamwork, Experience, Professionalism.
There is a segment of our society that has never recovered from 2008 collapse, despite all their efforts. It is to them, that I dedicate View My Resume Today. It is my hope that what I share on Instagram for free, will help someone have hope to take one more step forward.
Instagram's December training module is entitled View My Resume Today, #VMRT. This module continues to carry forward what we are doing in November with #PersonalityPower. My headphones are on, and I am in my element writing, designing and developing the strategy for execution. I love what I do, the fast paced transition from left to write brain like energy sparks going back and forth in my brain.
View My Resume Today has been in the process of creation for ten years. Developing next month's training has been a bitter sweet process of reflecting back upon those years. This module has brought tears and laughter as I have reminisced upon the good, bad and ugly of the experiences that have lead to where I am today, writing to you about the training I will be doing next month. I've come so far, but I have so far yet I desire to go.
I feel this tugging at me, to move forward in a direction I haven't contemplated going before. There is a mixture of excitement and anxiety. The same feeling I had when I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane with a man strapped to my back, as I excitedly thought about plummeting at record speed to the earth below. Trusting a stranger attached to my back, that his desire to land safely would allow me to survive this fall.
This was the first item I crossed off my bucket list. I figured go with the big one first. I was still in the cult. I was married, but I knew the marriage was over. It would be a matter of a few months before he would move out.
It would be this one experience, that would preface my ability to face any fear. This one experience that gave me the courage to leave the cult. Isn't it amazing how one experience can be life changing?
View My Resume Today, has been a symbolism of me jumping out into the unknown and in trusting my judgement to do so. The divorce was final. I had given up alimony in order to maintain custody of my two children, left at home. Their three older siblings were adults.
My gift of freedom, from an unhappy marriage that I had been in for almost 30 years, was to purchase my first vehicle on my own. I had been in a accident due to icy roads and my convertible which I loved, was totaled. My first priority was to obtain a safe vehicle that would travel well in the snow. I had bought my Kia Sportage at the end of 2008.
I had taken on pretty much all of the marital debt as part of the negotiation for my sons to remain with me. I was in my dream job, being a real estate broker where highest point managing up to 80 agents. I also owned my own real estate company. I could handle the debt, no alimony with no problem. If that is what it took to end the marriage and move forward, it was worth it.
The mortgage company had talked to my employer and obtained verification that my employment was secure before removing my ex-husband off the mortgage papers. I felt empowered. It was all on me and I could do it!
A few weeks after purchasing my car and having the mortgage put into my name, my work laid me off due to the US 2008 crash of the housing market. The decision makers were a part of the cult that I was in.
Fear... gripping fear enveloped me. I was a female in a male dominated society. I was divorced in a society that shunned divorce. I was an outcast. I didn't degrees. I didn't have 20 years experience. All things that would be expected for a similar position that would produce the income I needed.
The unemployment lines were filled with men that I would be competing to secure a job. My role, as a woman in this cult society was to be a wife, a mom. To stay at home and raise children. To be a support for a husband. I was not to be a career woman, standing in line next to men whose God given role was to provide for their families. I was seen as trying to take a job away from a man.
The shunning that occurred before I ever left the cult. Began when I signed the divorce papers, that my husband had handed me.
Depression set in. I almost begged him to take me back. My option were for me to find another man in this cult environment, to take me as his wife. That wasn't option for me.
It was in this state of mind, that View My Resume Today was born. It was the beginning of tearing my life apart, to rebuild the woman I desired to be. I would no longer fear this transition or the path it would lead me. Being laid off, put me on a path that would lead me to learn to live in this world, that I had been raised to fear as evil.
My question I kept asking myself, "What do I need to do, to get people to view my resume today?"
Value... in this cult community I had no value. I began to look at jobs in different states, leading me to see the mountain that I would be required to climb to make up for the lost years. Outside of this state with a strong cult influence, I not only would compete against men, but career women who had far more experience than I had.
Night after night, I would sob on the air mattress that I was sleeping on in a cold basement. The home had been in a process of being remodeled at the time I was handed divorce papers. With gloves on my hand and fingers cut off, I would type on my keyboard during the day, filling out application after application.
Savings dwindled. I didn't have access yet, to the retirement portion I had obtained. I was being helped by the cult to put food on the table for my children, which I will always be grateful for. I often went hungry to make the food last for my children.
Eventually, I left the cult and moved to Chicago. There I went to school to obtain my degrees. There I would loose my children, when the retirement money was exhausted and I couldn't pay an attorney. While in school there would be times, when I would have to sleep on my professor's couch, a friend's coach. I would sleep in my car in a grocery store parking lot. I would sleep in my car, at a Christian church parking lot. I would use this church restroom to clean up to go on an interview.
I would sleep in my car in the middle of winter, when I didn't know if I would survive the night. The $20 pink sleeping bag, lays next to my desk as a constant reminder of how far I have come. To remind me to have hope, when I know there is still so far I desire to go.
View My Resume Today is the training I put together, to help build my interview skills. First, learning about the different personality types and then expanding out to increase my communication skills with the different personalities. I have succeeded and I have failed. With each failure I embrace the lesson and apply those learning opportunities.
VMRT takes each personality and puts them in the Interviewer and Interviewee setting. We will be going through every combination of the Amiable, Analytical, Expressive and Driver. I'll be sharing interview tips. Interview questions and answers.
Between my real estate career, training real estate agents and the interviews I've gone on while transitioning into a IT career, I love interviewing. It is one of my favorite parts of looking for a new contract or job. I love engaging with others and learning how they process what I share with them, both positive and negative.
I don't have a million followers. I don't live in a luxury home, drive luxury cars and go on luxury vacations. I don't have the "success" that one is expected to have when posting what I do. I haven't "arrived".
What I have... is my experience, my journey I hold my hand out and invite you to share with me. The choice is yours.