It was a long shot. I posted on the Eclipse Jobs and Employment Forum, with very specific goals. I’m doing my thesis, so I wanted a part-time job, in Montreal, in Eclipse development, with the possibility of moving to full-time.

As anyone who lives in Montreal and has tried as hard as I have knows, Eclipse jobs are very hard to come by in Montreal. If moving to Ottawa is an option, piece of cake! But there’s maybe a good posting every six months in the Montreal area.

So I knew it was a long shot. But I also knew that a job would bring a great deal of help to financing the remainder of my studies, especially with this economy really hitting hard (really cliché of me to say, I know).

So I went for it. You can look at my post yourself. You’ll see, it’s really nothing special, but out of it, I got two, arguably three e-mails over two months. I’ll admit, it isn’t high traffic, but what I got out of it was great. Not only did one of those who contacted me meet my conditions, but their topic of expertise happened to be in the specific domain I am doing my thesis in! It was really lucky, but still something that would have never happened had I not used the forums.

My advice to anyone out there looking for something better (employment or otherwise) is this: if the options are either do nothing and get nothing, or try and maybe get something, then do it, even if “maybe” means half of one percent. Even a glimmer of hope might help keep your head high in tough times, and in all likelihood, what seems to you to be an incredibly minute chance could be more sizable than you realize.