Life Update – Our Move to Austin & A Peek Into My Job-Hunt Journey

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO!

Happy Friday friends! I hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far! I don’t know about all of you but I am READYYYY for the weekend.

So I have been promising for a couple weeks now that I would hop on here and take time to fully explain the news of J and I moving to Austin. I know it probably seemed super sudden to a lot of people because we randomly popped on Insta stories one day and announced we were moving. But it’s actually been something we were planning for a LONG time, so I’m excited to finally sit down and get to share the story of how we got to the point where we are now!

How it started…

So to start out with how we got here, I guess I’ll begin by telling the story from the beginning. Jordan and I moved back from California a couple of years ago. We had to do long distance again for a while as he was finishing school in Beaumont and I was working in Houston. We knew we wanted to move in together when he finished school so we could finally be in the same zip code again. We had thought about moving back to California, but both agreed that, at least for the time being, Texas was home to us and it was where we saw ourselves really starting to build our life together.

At the time, I had just moved to Houston and although I ended up building a home there with lots of friends and people I grew to love, we really wanted to be somewhere where we both felt comfortable and at home. We had both always loved Austin; Jordan had grown up visiting Austin often as he had family who lived here, while I still frequented the area for the very same reason. We loved how you could really get anything you wanted from Austin… the big city feel of course, the outdoors, drive 30 minutes and you’re in the hill country. We talked about it a lot and, over the course of the two years we did long distance from Beaumont to Houston, we decided Austin was for us.

This past summer, we decided it was about time to start planning for everything and start looking at how we were going to get to Austin. If you know me, you’ll know that I’m a PLANNER and do literally EVERYTHING in my life early. So we actually came here back in August to start looking at apartments and get an idea of where we wanted to live.

The plan was initially for me to find a job and move here around early November and then Jordan would graduate in December and move up to find a job afterwards.

Well…

As it often happens, plans don’t always work out the way you intend them to. You can be THE best planner in the entire world and have everything laid out to a T, but when it comes down to it, you can’t control everything that happens.

SO, come September 1st, I started looking for a job. I applied and applied and applied. I interviewed and interviewed and interviewed. My deadline for wanting to have a job and move to Austin came and went. December came, Jordan graduated and moved up to Houston with me… and I STILL didn’t have a job.

I had gotten offers and had met with some great companies, but I couldn’t find a job that felt right. I’m really big on trusting my gut and going with what I feel is right and I just didn’t get that feeling with any of the jobs I had interviewed with.

And then I did…

It seemed so surreal when it finally happened. Jordan and I went up to Austin the last weekend in January because I had an interview on that Friday and we were going to look at one more apartment complex we came across that seemed to be exactly what we wanted. I was initially set to have an interview Friday afternoon with a company I had been interviewing with previously. If I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t completely sold on the position, but I was ready to take it if it meant I could stop the job hunt haha. (It’s absolutely EXHAUSTING looking for a job every single day for nearly 5 months straight.)

I randomly applied for a different job 3 days before the interview. They called me that same day and asked if I could come in for an interview. We set it for that Friday morning before I headed over to my other interview in the afternoon. I went into the interview, not really thinking it was a company I would be interested, but not wanting to turn down an interview.

I sat down in the interview with members of the marketing team and I just KNEW. I finally got that feeling I had been waiting for AFTER 5 MONTHS of job searching and applying and interviewing. We ended up talking for nearly half an hour over when my interview was supposed to conclude. I walked out of the interview, got in the car, and immediately told Jordan I wanted that job.

Now I’m sure you’re wondering what about my second interview that afternoon. Well, I still went just so I could talk with them and see if it was something I could really see myself doing. Fate must have known I was meant for the first job because my interview with the second position was AWFUL. I left feeling degraded, devalued and honestly defeated.

I got in the car and began to tell Jordan about how badly the interview went when my phone started ringing. The first job I had interviewed with that morning called to offer not only a position, but the senior-level position of the job I had actually applied for that morning!

Needless to say I was SPEECHLESS. They told me to take the weekend to think it over and then let them know on the following Monday morning, but I already knew I was going to take the position.

So here we are!

After that, everything kinda fell into place! The next day, Jordan and I went to look at the apartment we had found and it was EVERYTHING we wanted. We submitted our application that day and moved in exactly one week later.

So now here we are! Living in Austin and I for one couldn’t be happier. 🙂

 I know this was quite a long post compared to the normal ones but I really wanted to kind of explain everything and update everyone on how we got to the point where we are now. I also wanted to include the parts about my job hunt and the struggle I had with it to encourage anyone out there who might be having the same struggle. I totally know what it feels like and to put it plainly, it SUCKS.

I applied to 364 jobs during those 5 months and only got 11 interviews total. I say that to let you know that if you’re in the same boat as I was, you’re not alone. I’ve felt how you’re feeling and I know it is SO hard not to get discouraged. But I also know that when you finally do find that right job, where you’re supposed to be, it is the BEST feeling and you will be so happy with zero doubts or reservations about whether or not it was the right choice for you.

You’ll just know!!

Thanks so much for reading friends. Your support and sweet messages of congrats to us on Insta for moving have been so lovely to read! Until next time and all love, Xx.

 

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