G.G. and ...

[fargonrob]

Mailed back the last sets of stones for the Graduate Gemologist degree. that's was the last class, and now I have a practical final on the first, and should I pass that 100%, which is likely, I will have finished the degree! I think there are 2 other GG's in the state. They only graduate a few hundred world wide a year, and I have the Graduate

Comments

[fogbear]

Bravo, dear friend. Bravo!

[fargonrob]

Thank you! The distance educator was really surprised I was done so soon. Seems that most folks tend to get extensions on the 2 years this one class permits and I will have it done in under a year. 73 month program in 16 months..I hadn't added them up before.

[kevynjacobs]

You're on the home stretch now!

[fargonrob]

Yep, very much so. Now not to miss one of the final stones. I can take the test 4 times before doing remedial work, and then up to 2 more times but I hope for one but all the instructors I talked to had to take 2 shots at it. Then again..I do have a few more years of general rock ID on them. The only place I have worries about are clear SD OTL stones (telling CZ, YAG and GGG apart is based on pavilion flash and my scope id not built to show it that well, plus it's a bit of a call anyway) and also some color change sapphires are iffy since the color change is minimal and partial.

[kevynjacobs]

*smiles and nods and has no idea what all those big words and abbreviations mean*

Great work! Keep it up!

[fargonrob]

It was WAY worse when I was in college with biology. :)

[stoicbear]

That's good news!

What I would do about your experience is describe what skills each job required, and how you approached challenges or fixed problems (during the course of each job) in each position.

If you list what skill set each job required, it becomes more about your skill, and less about what each job actually was.

[fargonrob]

Sound advice. I want to stay away from the basic resume forms and some how not hit them with a list of jobs out of the area yet give them the idea I can do the job at hand. I am somewhat a JoAT, and that's kind of hard to get across. Heck I even used tools from my metal bench to do a fix on a filling once that was fine and needed almost no adjustment when I did get to the dentist (burnished over part of the metal filling into a small chip and got it flush). I have fixed servers using the skills about metal by reforming parts which was well outside of the job skills (kinds of boggled the team leads that it could be done since they were about replacing things rather than adapting/modifying parts). Used physics to teach basic biology, and math theory to over come people phobias. Heck, even used tracking skills to find missing equipment (new carpet, recently vacuumed helped). I tend to look at problems in ways others don't. Sometimes that's a good thing, other times it can cause disruption.

[stoicbear]

It sounds like you know how to put together an interesting resume. Are you going to target any particular areas in your job search. You had mentioned you liked Oregon at one point.

[fargonrob]

For now I am going to look locally, I can't really afford to move (hey, house payment is $300 a month, taxes this year were I think $640 since the new school going up in a nearby town).

Yea, I do like the idea of the WA/OR area, and I do want to move out there but I need to rebuild the cash cushion that's been hit pretty hard over the last 16 months. Plus having current experience in the business will make getting a job easier.

Heck, I might wind up in any number of places that have jewelry manufactures, they like to keep a few GG's on hand to verify shipments and help with the details. HSN, JTV, Rio Grande in Albuquerque, heck WalMart is the largest diamond retailer in the US by $$. (But I DON'T want to work for them). Now I will have the degree, I need to use it and get my bench and casting going so I can get to my real goal of independent metalsmith/lapidary.

[maxauburn]

Congratulations!!

I think your resume is varied and interesting!

[fargonrob]

Yea but the trick will be getting it down on paper in a way that makes sense and doesn't make me look like a job jumper and likely to bail.

[maxauburn]

Yeah, that's the tricky part - but you could
say that you enjoy challenges, and that you are not afraid to experience new and different work environments.

[putzmeisterbear]

Wonderful. I'm glad you decided to get that degree.

[fargonrob]

So am I, this is one of those cases where...and I have told her, my Mother was right all along. When I was a teenager she thought I should go into rocks, even suggested this degree program. What a different life that would have been. I didn't back then because all I considered was the retail part of the business and just how horribly they inflate their prices and ethics and all. But I have come to learn that money is not evil, and I don't have to live in retail.

I know I am likely going to have to do some retail just to get some cash flowing but I cringe at the thought of selling a $1500 plain wedding ring I know anyone could buy on line for about $150. that's the part I thought was evil.