Apples and Oranges

The more that I've been applying for jobs lately, the less I feel like I belong. I can't figure out any other way to explain it, but allow me to try.

I've been in graphic design as a college major and career path since sometime in 2005, but I had been self-teaching myself gradually since about 2002. That's about 9 years of professional and educational experience, all around.

Now, my job is going away. The "end date" has been bumped up to approximately May, instead of August like I had heard a couple weeks ago. The more that I look at new positions to apply for, the more I'm realizing that none of them seem to fit in with me or my skillset. I do well when working with printed media, to a point. I also do very well when it comes to laying out text on a page and formatting. A job in graphic design that involves ONLY these two things (like the one I have now) is extremely rare and focused towards a very niche group of businesses. The more that I focus on jobs like this, the more that I become pigeonholed in jobs like it because they don't allow me to add any other new skills to my repertoire. I find myself now ONLY able to really say I have experience in this very rare type of niche, which means that I'm back at square one again, with no experience again. Or at least, not the right kind for a changing industry.

I have no experience in website development. (Other than just putzing my way through.) I have no experience in Flash. I have no experience or interest in "actual" marketing, which most employers seem to think is exactly the same as graphic design, and that fact has almost gotten me fired before. I have very limited experience in PR, which also seems to come up a lot when hunting for graphic design jobs. Really, when I look at it, all that I've got for background is Photoshop, Illustrator, and Quark. And within those, there are still huge limits to my knowledge, just based on what Carroll never taught me, and what I have or haven't had to do in my employment.

Today I applied with a staffing company that places graphic artists exclusively, from all sort of backgrounds. They required me to list my proficiency in different graphic design programs. After that, they sent me an assessment quiz where they asked me questions about each program. I bombed the whole thing. In the quiz for Photoshop, which has always been my strongest skill, and something that I've been using regularly for six years, I only got a 40%. My other scores weren't much better. The truly sad part is that I know that it was all stuff that I knew SHOULD have been common sense. About three hours ago, they responded back to me with an outright denial of my entrance into the program. Not a "we'll keep you on file" or anything like that. What I got was:

"Unfortunately, at this time, your results do not qualify you for further testing. That decision resulted from your responses to the pre-screen questions, which are based on industry-standard knowledge and best practices, review of your portfolio pieces and from your software skills and experience."

Job rejection is one thing, and ultimately, not that big of a deal to me. There'll be another one. But this. I don't know. It stirs something up inside me. It's like rejecting me from the entire industry and career field of graphic design. And like I said above... It really makes me feel like I'm inadequate on a professional level and that I don't belong here. Those are both things that I've always been worried about and it really makes me look back and go "I was right all along." I've had three jobs in this field. Two of which ended because I quit instead of allowing them to fire me. I can't help but feel like I'm making my life more difficult by staying in this line of work. But then, where do I go from here? What else can I do now?

I'll be honest; I feel very lost right now. I also feel like I need a change of scenery. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I am considering relocating if that opportunity arises. I don't feel quite like I know who I am, yet, and I think I have this unquenched desire to find a new place to call home. I need something drastically different.