I Went Looking for a Job. I Came Back With a Decision.

“I’ve learned a lot.” Apparently, that wasn’t enough.

Yesterday, I went for a job interview.

For someone else, that might sound like an ordinary thing. For me, it wasn’t.

I had actually stopped applying for jobs for quite a few years, especially after COVID. About two years ago, I decided to try again.

I went into the job search with hope.

I thought my qualifications would count for something. I have scored well in my examinations, earned degrees from reputed institutions, qualified as a JRF with a good percentile, and have always been comfortable communicating in English. I also had teaching experience. I had taught Economics to higher-secondary students in a school.

But I wasn’t looking to go back to exactly what I had done before.

I wanted to explore something different—career guidance, English coaching, soft-skills training, or something along those lines. I wanted to use what I had learned over the years and build a new professional chapter.

So I started applying.

But nothing really clicked.

Eventually, I stopped again.

One reason was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: my age.

I am in my 50s.

People often say, “Age is just a number.”

I’m beginning to feel that age is not just a number.

It can influence the way people look at you, the assumptions they make about you, and sometimes, whether they are willing to give you an opportunity at all.

Yet the desire to work never really left me.

I still want a job. I want the sense of purpose and professional identity that comes with being engaged in meaningful work. I want financial independence. And, perhaps most importantly, I want an opportunity to use the abilities I know I have.

Then, yesterday, I received a call for a job interview for the position of an English and Soft Skills Trainer.

I allowed myself to hope again.

Perhaps this could be it.

Perhaps they would see my potential. Perhaps they would give me a little training, allow me to learn what I didn’t yet know, and give me an opportunity to prove myself.

I went there hoping against hope.

But it wasn’t to be.

At the job interview, I was told that I didn’t have training experience.

And then came the irony that has stayed with me.

I’ve learned a lot. Apparently, that wasn’t enough.

I couldn’t help wondering:

How does one get experience if nobody is willing to give you the opportunity to gain it?

You need experience to get the job.

But sometimes, you need the job to get the experience.

And there I was—with qualifications, knowledge, enthusiasm, a willingness to learn, and years of teaching experience—but without the particular kind of experience they were looking for.

I won’t pretend I came home unaffected.

I was deeply disappointed.

I was sad. Very sad.

For a while, all those familiar questions came rushing back.

Am I too late?

Will I ever get the opportunity I’m looking for?

What more do I have to do?

But somewhere underneath all that disappointment was another voice.

A quieter, stronger one.

You know what you’re capable of.

And I do.

Over the years, I have realized that I have a lot of potential. I can learn. I can teach. I can communicate. I can adapt. I can work hard. I can do many things.

Somehow, though, nothing has clicked in the way I had hoped.

Maybe that is what needs to change.

Perhaps I have spent too much time waiting for someone else to recognize my potential and give me a chance.

Perhaps it is time to stop waiting.

So I’ve made a decision.

I’m going to finish my PhD.

And then, instead of continuing to knock on doors that may or may not open for me, I want to explore building something of my own.

Maybe it will be career guidance.

Maybe English and soft-skills training.

Maybe something I haven’t even imagined yet.

Maybe I’ll become a solopreneur and create meaningful work around the knowledge, skills and experience I already have.

And there’s another thought that gives me particular satisfaction.

If I’m able to build something meaningful, perhaps I can create an opportunity for another woman like me someday.

A woman who has spent years learning.

A woman whose career was interrupted because life and family needed her.

A woman who has potential, but finds herself being told that she is too old, too inexperienced, or no longer the right fit.

Perhaps I can be the person who says:

“Come. I’ll give you a chance.”

I don’t know exactly where this road will take me.

But I know this much:

I may have gone to that job interview looking for a job.

I came back with a decision.

A decision to stop waiting for someone else to give me an opportunity and start creating my own.

Maybe that job interview was a rejection.

Maybe it was also a turning point.

Not because it didn’t hurt.

It did.

But sometimes disappointment makes us ask a question we have been avoiding for a long time:

What if I stop waiting for the right door to open and start building my own door?

I don’t have the whole answer yet.

But I’m going to find out.

More from my journey: Books, a Bulging Tummy and a Dream I Refused to Drop