What might have been ...

Just found a box file of old job application materials, including a whole bunch of rejection letters. The file shows I applied for at least 37 jobs before I got my first and I interviewed 9 times (starred below), never being ranked as the first candidate (I ranked second for my first post in QUB). Most of them are for jobs in the UK - Aberdeen, Anglia, Belfast*, Birmingham, Bristol(2), Cambridge, Cheltenham/Gloucester*, Dundee, Edinburgh, Exeter, Hull, Kingston, Kings College, Lampeter, Leeds, Leicester*, Liverpool, LSE, Manchester Met, Newcastle*, Northumbria, Oxford, Royal Holloway*, South Bank*, St Andrews(2), Strathclyde*, Swansea(2)*, UCL. A handful are elsewhere: Cork*, UCD, Otago, Hawaii, Victoria, Auckland, Minnesota. I've always said I applied for 55 jobs before I got my first and there are certainly places not in the file that I'm fairly confident I did apply to - Penn State, San Diego, Portsmouth, Manchester, Sheffield, Sussex, Glasgow - but maybe I got an email or no response rather than a letter. I wonder where I'd be now if I'd actually managed to get one of these other than QUB?