{"id":17797,"date":"2013-06-20T16:05:44","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T22:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=17797"},"modified":"2013-06-21T09:34:24","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T15:34:24","slug":"jobless-in-idaho-landing-a-career-after-two-years-on-the-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2013\/06\/20\/jobless-in-idaho-landing-a-career-after-two-years-on-the-hunt\/","title":{"rendered":"Jobless In Idaho: Landing A Career After Two Years On The Hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Justy<\/a>

Emilie Ritter Saunders \/ StateImpact Idaho<\/p>

Justy Thomas graduated from Boise State University in 2011. In May 2013, she landed a permanent job in her degree field.<\/p><\/div>\n

Two years, several temporary jobs, 15 interviews, and countless applications later, Justy Thomas has landed a permanent job. “I feel blessed I have a stable job,” she says. Thomas is now working in the human resources department of a local utility company.<\/p>\n

We first introduced you to Justy Thomas<\/a> in November 2011. She’s been part of our Jobless In Idaho series<\/a>,\u00a0a reporting project that tracked out-of-work Idahoans on their paths to finding careers.<\/p>\n

As we reported back in 2011, Thomas was a month away from graduating from Boise State University with a degree in human resources and business management. Thomas decided to go to school after she was laid off in 2007 from her job in the mortgage industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do a reset. I wanted to change my career,\u201d Thomas said in 2011. Then, Thomas said all the jobs she was looking at required something she didn’t have — a degree. \u201cThe job requirements didn\u2019t say \u2018or experience.\u2019 They wouldn\u2019t even look at, or consider me, unless I had a four-year degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Here's<\/a>

Emilie Ritter Saunders \/ StateImpact<\/p>

Here's Thomas on graduation day, December 2011.<\/p><\/div>\n

So, at 38-years-old, she got that degree. When we spoke on graduation day in December 2011<\/a>, Thomas was bursting with pride. She didn’t take a traditional path through the education system. Instead, she got pregnant as a teenager, dropped out of high school, got her GED, and joined the workforce. College wasn’t an option then.<\/p>\n

When we first met in 2011, Idaho’s unemployment rate was 7.9 percent. There were at least 70,000 Idahoans out of work who wanted full-time jobs. The recovery was — and still is — slow and nerve wracking. For Thomas, the prospect of finding meaningful employment was very much an unknown.<\/p>\n

A few weeks before her graduation date, Thomas said, \u201cI wonder if I had gone back to work these last four years, and just pulled up my bootstraps and started at that ground floor again, and worked my way up, would I be satisfied? I certainly would be in less debt.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduation, Thomas started the job hunt. By May 2012 she was working as a temp through a local staffing agency. Through the agency, Thomas worked for a handful of companies for short periods of time. The staffing agency hired her as a permanent job recruiter, but it wasn’t her dream job.<\/p>\n

A few months later, one of the companies Thomas had temped for called to say they had a full-time, permanent job opening — and they wanted her. “I was tickled pink,” she says.<\/p>\n

Just last month, Thomas made the move to the utility company she says could be the place she retires from. “It was a roller coaster ride,” says Thomas, “But, I feel like I’ve finally arrived.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two years, several temporary jobs, 15 interviews, and countless applications later, Justy Thomas has landed a permanent job. “I feel blessed I have a stable job,” she says. Thomas is now working in the human resources department of a local utility company. We first introduced you to Justy Thomas in November 2011. She’s been part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[106,74],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17797"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17806,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17797\/revisions\/17806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}