Every day last week apart from Saturday, I'd commuted to the library. I'd started by carrying out some research, which amounted to Googling "jobs that involve writing" and checking three pages' worth of results. About a day and a half into the research, I came across a communications job. Its description read "copywriting, proofreading, social media updates and internal communications". It sounded fun.
Over the course of the next four days, I put together a list of all the recruiters who I thought might have similar communications jobs. I found thirty nine of them. Then I spent an extra day checking their phone numbers. My plan was to call them all and to check if they ever had jobs like that, what qualifications or experience were needed and how I could go about obtaining them.
I knew that I'd gone about the whole process back-to-front. I should have researched that kind of work much more thoroughly before spending such an extraordinary amount of time making a contact list. Once I'd started looking up recruiters though, I felt like I had to finish.
I had a choice now. I could either spend Monday carrying out further research to check what the average communications job really entailed, or I could get on the phone and call all thirty-nine of the recruiters to ask if they had any vacancies like the one I'd seen. The first option seemed more sensible. That way I could avoid any pointless conversations where I clearly didn't know what I was talking about.
What would I do if that job I'd seen was a one-off? I'd have to identify another kind of job that seemed interesting. I'd applied for other roles that had involved writing during the year but most were in publishing and it was such a competitive sector. A decision might need to be made. Not yet though. For now, I could focus on the research and the calls. By the middle to late part of next week, I'd have a better idea of just how rare that job I'd seen was.