The competitive Magic scene may not be your best bet. If it looks like you’re not going to make a name for yourself in it, but that’s what it would take for you enjoy it, you might be much better off playing with local amateurs and trying to focus on that world instead. Also, it’s probably a better way to make friends. I’ve never stood a chance at playing competitive Team Fortress 2, but finding a public server and carrying the team every now and then is still very fun for me; I pretend pros don’t exist and temporarily relish in my superiority over 23 randoms.
I don’t have much concrete advice as far as finding a job goes, since there a lot of relevant details that you haven’t and possibly shouldn’t share, but I’ll at least suggest that doing whatever you can to overcome your ugh field around job searching would be extremely valuable in the long run. If you have a large gap in your resume (which sounds like it might be the case), find something you can do that puts an end to it, and can also plausibly retroactively fill in some of the gap. Freelancing of some sort comes to mind.
If I need an excuse for a resume gap, does “I was taking care of elderly relatives” work? (My last job was in 2006, and that was officially an internship.)
I also advocate volunteering. It’s both a good indicator that you weren’t just sitting in your basement the whole time(even if you actually were), and a good source of references. I think the two hours a week I spent at the food bank while unemployed made a big difference to me getting my current job.
The competitive Magic scene may not be your best bet. If it looks like you’re not going to make a name for yourself in it, but that’s what it would take for you enjoy it, you might be much better off playing with local amateurs and trying to focus on that world instead. Also, it’s probably a better way to make friends. I’ve never stood a chance at playing competitive Team Fortress 2, but finding a public server and carrying the team every now and then is still very fun for me; I pretend pros don’t exist and temporarily relish in my superiority over 23 randoms.
I don’t have much concrete advice as far as finding a job goes, since there a lot of relevant details that you haven’t and possibly shouldn’t share, but I’ll at least suggest that doing whatever you can to overcome your ugh field around job searching would be extremely valuable in the long run. If you have a large gap in your resume (which sounds like it might be the case), find something you can do that puts an end to it, and can also plausibly retroactively fill in some of the gap. Freelancing of some sort comes to mind.
If I need an excuse for a resume gap, does “I was taking care of elderly relatives” work? (My last job was in 2006, and that was officially an internship.)
I also advocate volunteering. It’s both a good indicator that you weren’t just sitting in your basement the whole time(even if you actually were), and a good source of references. I think the two hours a week I spent at the food bank while unemployed made a big difference to me getting my current job.
That would be a good component of an answer to “what have you been doing for the last seven years?”, yes.