A lot has happened since my last post, and I have been waiting for the right moment to share it with the world. 3 months, 28 candidates and 3 interviews later: the Account Coordinator position is mine! It has been four weeks since I became the newest addition to the Travel & Lifestyle Team, and it has been a crazy ride. I have only waited this long to share the news because it has taken me this long to feel secure enough to broadcast the words: I HAVE A JOB! And really not A job, but THE job. My clients, my team, my company; it's all too perfect for words. I have spent this past month waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it has taken a lot of courage to finally admit to myself, I can do this.

The job is half administrative, half client work, which is perfect because it gives me the chance to learn all the quirks and how to best deal with them. I have made it my personal mantra to go above and beyond the requirements; I'm always trying to get started on what needs to be done, before someone can ask me to. It has been tricky, trying to fill in the holes and learn what isn't written for me, but I feel that I am doing the best I can. Positive feedback from my colleagues helps me to know I am in the right place, and that I am succeeding at my tasks.

It's really hard to believe that despite the economy and despite all the factors that were hindering my chance to go after and achieve my dreams, I made it. Honestly, there were times I thought, maybe this profession isn't for me, or maybe I should go back to school. And there was a job offer before this one which I almost took, all the while knowing, while it was PR related, it was not the right place for me. But I kept on trekking and kept on forcing myself to break through walls so I could peek my head in and see what was going on in this world I couldn't find a way into, and luckily, I made it.

Something I said to my then future boss after my interview, still rings true in my head. I told him, despite all the obstacles I was currently facing, I was not going to give up. In fact, these obstacles had only made me try harder to succeed. I had always been someone who could coast through anything. However, when I faced something demanding that extra oomph, it was then that I really stood out as a star. And this is what happened with my job search. I could have graduated, contacted my past internships and probably coasted through the job search, landing somewhere I may have wanted to be. But instead, I networked by contacting people I knew, people I had recently met, and people I barely knew, and wound up with the most fantastic job opportunity, hitting me smack in the middle of the head. And I LOVE it!

So, for the last time I will sign off. But I will leave you with one last piece of advice: Please, if you are in the midst of a job search, don't give up. While there will most certainly be times you feel rejected, dejected, depressed and ready to give up - do not, under any circumstances, let those feelings take control. You just need to stick with it and face the fact that the more you put into this search, the more you are going to get out of it. And that, my friends, is a hard-learned fact.

-Chelsey, the Ex-Job-Hunter