{"id":3420,"date":"2016-06-05T15:54:09","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T14:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bisexualblogs.wordpress.com\/?p=1132"},"modified":"2016-06-05T15:54:09","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T14:54:09","slug":"can-bi-volunteer-work-help-you-get-a-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/2016\/06\/can-bi-volunteer-work-help-you-get-a-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Can bi volunteer work help you get a job?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year has seen a lot of changes as I’ve moved house, moved cities and found a new job – no wonder I haven’t had the time or energy to write anything here since January!<\/p>\n

I was very fortunate as I had enough money in the bank\u00a0to last through a short period of unemployment and pay for the cost of moving. I also had enough to give me 1-2 months to find work\/start temping so I had the privilege\u00a0of being able to be out on my CV and take\u00a0a higher rate of rejection. If it took longer to get work I would be able to cope for a while.<\/p>\n

There were a few reasons why I chose to do this. One is that I can no longer\u00a0bear to hide my sexuality, even if I know the results of coming out will be damaging. I want people to see ME and not something I’m pretending to be.\u00a0Another is that BiTopia and bi activism took up so much of my life\u00a0there was little time for anything else. (Clearly wasn’t\u00a0following my own advice on avoiding burnout<\/a>!)<\/p>\n

In the UK there is an expectation that your CV must show\u00a0examples of employment, volunteer work, AND\u00a0some kind of skill building, teamwork based\u00a0hobby. (Way to discriminate against all the bi people who are just struggling to get by, and can’t\u00a0do some\/all of the above.) So if I didn’t talk about my bi group\u00a0on my CV, it wouldn’t fit the unspoken criteria for being short listed without lying anyway. Besides,\u00a0it was all relevant experience to the jobs I wanted to\u00a0apply for so it made sense to put it on.<\/p>\n

Another reason was that as I was moving to a much bigger city, there would be a better chance of finding an LGBTQ+ friendly employer. The people who saw queer stuff on the CV and immediately rejected me because of it would be the people who never got in touch – hurrah!<\/p>\n

Finally, I wanted to share what I’d achieved because I felt proud.<\/p>\n

It felt very scary talking about it out loud in the job interview in response to questions like, ‘Do you have experience using social media?’ or ‘Can you work with a wide range of people?’\u00a0I felt very vulnerable and afraid. I kept reminding myself they could be LGBTQ+ too, \u00a0but mostly I was waiting for them\u00a0to shoot me looks of disgust or call the interview off early. (Not that they did of course.)\u00a0My voice did wobble at times despite my best efforts to keep it steady and talk naturally.<\/p>\n

In the end I got the job, and I also had another interview lined up that I cancelled once I heard the news.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to end this with some sappy “You can do it too!” sentiment. Everyone’s situation is different. You might not be in a\u00a0financial position that allows you to leave a job, take longer to find one, or pick and choose amongst them. It might be damaging or dangerous to come out in your field of employment.\u00a0But bi activism and organising groups and\u00a0events can equip you many relevant skills and experiences. And these can aid you in applications and interviews. If being out on your CV\u00a0is something you are thinking of doing then I wish you good luck!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year has seen a lot of changes as I’ve moved house, moved cities and found a new job – no wonder I haven’t had the time or energy to write anything here since January! I was very fortunate as I had enough money in the bank to last through a short period of unemployment and … Continue reading Can bi volunteer work help you get a job?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":1211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[392,493,389,390],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bi-activism","category-employment","category-my-bi-life","category-running-a-bi-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4693,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions\/4693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}