We all know how difficult job-searching can be these days. Spending hours combing through jobs posting, meticulously editing your resume, attending seemingly endless rounds of interviews, and dealing with rejections–sound familiar? The good news is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, because when you find that perfect job all your searching will seem validated.
Below is a story submitted to us from Jimmy Hurley, a recent graduate who endured the job search and emerged with a cool new position at a local Ann Arbor company: CreateMyTee.com. Jimmy used SPARK’s job portal to find his new job, so if you are looking for an exciting new opportunity be sure to check it out!
Jimmy’s job search success story:
I graduated from Western Michigan University in December ’10 with a bachelor’s in Business Marketing. I had worked part-time at a home care nursing agency upon moving back home to Ann Arbor for about the first 7 months. Throughout this entire span of time, I was aggressively applying to jobs and creating an online presence in every online job portal under the sun- trying to gain an entry level position in anything related to Marketing.
A couple months after settling back into my parents house, my father encouraged me to create a profile on Ann Arbor SPARK’s website and join the ‘jobs posting’ mailing list, as he had been on the list himself for about a year at the time. Long story short, I quickly realized that after I had received my first few ”weekly talent search’ emails from SPARK that I need look no further to find a job- and I did.
The thing I love about SPARK’s ‘talent search’ job postings is that all of the posts are for REAL jobs, posted by REAL people… I can’t tell you how frustrated I became with the generic, automated, scammish, and illegitimate SPAM that so many of the online job portals refute as ‘job postings’- most of them are a waste of everybody’s time.
Some time around mid July, I had responded to a new posting that I saw on the SPARK ‘weekly talent search’ email for an opening position with a new startup company called CreateMyTee.com. The position was titled ‘Shirt Specialist’, and I thought it sounded like an exciting and fun opportunity to begin my professional career. I emailed Josh Fales (president, founder, and CEO of CreateMyTee.com) in regard to the posting, and didn’t hear back for a few weeks. To be honest, I almost forgot I even applied to that position after a few weeks had passed- but sure enough, I got a call from Josh in late July. After many hours of questions, answers, restless nights, and uncertainty, I finally got a call in early August from Josh and Steve saying that I had been selected to fulfill the role of Shirt Specialist at CreateMyTee.com!
I can’t thank Ann Arbor SPARK enough for helping me get to where I am today, and starting me off on this new and exciting path at a rapidly expanding startup company. The positive energy and optimism for the future is impossible to ignore from inside our tiny little office across the street from the Ann Arbor Airport, and I believe it’s not too much of a stretch to say that just a couple years from now, it’ll be hard to find somebody who hasn’t heard of us. Thank you Ann Arbor SPARK!
— Jimmy Hurley Shirt Specialist CreateMyTee.com
Got your own SPARK Job Portal success story? Please share it with us! Contact Andria@AnnArborUSA.org
