Jobless in Arlington

Dear all,

Well I'm glad to learn on the grapevine that I'm gaining quite a following. Please feel free to comment/heckle me below, as appropriate :-)

Yesterday I attended my first careers fair, held by the Washington Post at a local hotel. After the relative relaxation of the first week here, it made a nice change to be up in the morning, suited, booted and with a fixed objective in mind.

I set out to walk (yes, this no car thing is getting annoying!) to the place, which was around a mile away. Now this might not sound like too much of a challenge in its own right, but considering my near-total aversion to exercise and Virginia's 25-degree humid heat, it was quite an ordeal!

On arriving, I was disappointed to learn that most of the employers were not even prepared to talk to non-citizens - as the cliché goes, Washington is a government town, so a huge proportion of the jobs in the language and technology sectors involve sensitive government information, which is not entrusted to Johnny English...

I admit, I found this quite worrying. I've never really known 'what I wanted to be when I grew up', so I guess I've been exceedingly lucky that staying the course with my language interest has opened up a career I've so far got so much enjoyment out of. With such options seemingly few and far between over here, I wondered what sort of career-change might make sense. Which of these alien-sounding positions might I a) be interested in b) have the right experience for?

After having a scan around the place, I went for a sit down to compose myself and think up some angles on why I might be interested. Thanks to my new iPhone (which may be the greatest single purchase of my life!), I was able to look into a few of the exhibitors and think up something to say to the mobbed HR reps.

I went back in feeling a little more composed and parked myself at the back of the queue (line ;-) for a local patent law firm which, from my research, seemed to be a very good employer. I would give it a shot and see what happened. I introduced myself and explained that I was a translator by trade, but was looking for a change of career.

Imagine my surprise then when the man told me they employed translators and he would pass my résumé onto the right person! So, I've definitely learnt an important lesson - pessimism gets you nowhere.

Mark Smith's search for his new job CONTINUES...