Job Seeking Tips

CNN informs me that I am not the only who is out there seeking a job because the recession is impacting more than just my life, so I thought I would include some tips and things that I have found useful to my job hunt (obviously, you aren’t allowed to use any of these tips if you are competing for the same opening as me.)

1. Never loose confidence in yourself no matter how long the hunt takes

I put this first because no one is going to hire someone who isn’t confident. Don’t get me wrong I know how hard this is. I cannot always stop myself from thinking what is wrong with me…it must be something since no one will hire me. This is a trap that is deadly for the seeker to fall into because finding a job is all about celebrating the crap that you do well. So stay confident.

Here a few things that helped me and might help you:

• focus on your accomplishments and not your failures
• conquer some of your fears (like splurge on skydiving or I ended my comfortable yet stagnant relationship)
• hang out with people who know how great you are and can remind you
• exercise and eat healthy (I know this sounds cheesy but when you look good confidence tends to follow. Plus, you get crazy high off the endorphins from exercising)
• make to do lists that are actually doable everyday so that you have a sense of accomplishment when you finish that last task
• research tips for staying positive and building confidence on the internet.

2. Tell everyone you know you are job hunting

I even mentioned my job seeking to the guy who works at my neighborhood deli because you never know who will turn you on to your next opportunity.

3. Use multiple strategies while you are hunting

There are many ways to seek out jobs:

• searching career websites
• setting up informational interviews
• using temping and staffing agencies
• looking in the newspaper
• job placement from the unemployment office
• career fairs
• networking with your colleagues
• bugging your family and friends to pull strings and work any of their connections
• finding transferable skills so you can hunt in more than one industry
• searching for jobs on the websites of companies you would like to work for

Using a few different search strategies will not only improve your chances of finding a job, but also will make the search a little more diverse and interesting.

4. Make the search interesting and exciting

• apply your passions and personal interests to your search
• apply or jobs that are slightly out of your league
• transform your job hunt into a way to fulfill your dreams

I found that I had a better time job hunting when I started thinking about jobs abroad because it is has always been my dream to travel and live abroad. Applying my personal interests to the job hunt helped keep my interest in hunting alive.

Also, I found the job hunt less boring when I applied for some jobs that might be considered a little ‘out of my league.’ Just the possibility that I might get a call about one of those high paying jobs or more experienced positions kept me dreaming about what it would be like to actually transform my job hunt into a sort of promotion and/or raise. And just in case you think this sounds crazy, I did get a call back on and interview for a job that required a little more experience than I had so you never know…

A Scab During The Writers’ Strike

In an attempt to launch myself into a writing career, I have decided to become a scab by submitting a Top 10 list to the Late Show with David Letterman. Though it is not usual for one to gain access to the comedy writing world via a contest where the grand prize is a t-shirt…I am sure my writing prowess will impress in these desperate times. Observe:

Top 10 Least Popular ‘Bucket List’ Items

10. Experience the joys of adult diapers.
9. Thank your 5th grade teacher, she was right…you did amount to nothing.
8. Turn out just like your mother.
7. Star in an erectile dysfunction ad.
6. Be the cause of ground breaking privacy laws after being ‘caught in the act’ in a public restroom.
5. Have your name become synonymous with something on the same level as shrapnel or lynching.
4. Start smoking.
3. Tell everyone you are actually crazy and not just a drug addict.
2. Get audited by the IRS.
1. Make the Darwin awards.

Anyway, Dave, call me babe!

Skills: Big Boobs

So, my temporary job has come to an end, and once again I find myself on the hunt for gainful employ that with luck will not interfere with my holiday plans.

Aside from the fact that no job seems to suit my precise intellectual needs, there is a sprinkling of part-time menial tasks that fetch a high-end hourly rate that I could squeak by on, but I have to rely entirely on my resume and cover letter in this digital age. I feel a little disappointed that I have to not only earn my right to an interview based on merit, but also know that I will be hired for my professional accomplishments and not my physical ones.

I thought when I got out into the work force that my cleavage might from time to time supplement for my lack of experience at the risk of an occasional ‘encounter’ with a lecherous boss, but no.

Apparently, this whole sexual harassment is a crime thing is being taken to an extreme where now by mere guilt through association, objectification has also been criminalized so much so that I can no longer put big boobs in the skill section of my resume.

Shit.

Lady and the Temp

Under threat of becoming a commission-based real estate agent in an office directly across the street from the place I worked two years prior, I unleash another barrage of resumes on offices around the city.

This time I am considerably more desperate, having at last reached the end of my liquid assets i.e. cash, and so I have, much to my father’s chagrin,   But  importantly my future office comes equipped with bathrooms that even the neighborhood bum is loathe to use. I saw him considering the use of our facilities then opting for a good pants-pissing and swig of Thunderbird.

There is something to be said for presentation in an office. The place might be a piece of shit, but trick me just for a little while into thinking it is a real, thriving money making machine. Put some up to date People magazines in the racks, and maybe a Time magazine that has not turned yellow and been put on microfiche by libraries nationwide.

If I am going to be on a ‘team’ with some rag tag bunch of failed actors in fake leather boots, high-school drop outs saving up for prom and a Proactiv skin care system, and a general populus of over-zealous unintelligencia that have compensated for the absence of valuable braincells with gobs of Dep hair gel and Axe body spray then at least give me my own desk.

I was willing to do it though. I needed the money, and real estate could be a good way to find a rent controlled apartment until the commissions cheques were divided up, cut, and doled. I was all set to begin, and then the call came.

In a moment of sheer job hunting delirium, I forwarded my resume to a person in need of a household manager on the Upper Eastside. Despite the totally inappropriate and impersonal cover letter riddled with declarations of love for writing, editing, and the publishing industry, I was hired for a temporary part-time position as household manager, the highest ranked among ‘the staff’ in a private residence of an employer who so shall be known as, the Lady.

To work in a private home, where your daily responsibilities range from answering the phones, ordering things on Amazon.com, and making labels for designer wicker basket filled with hand-blown light bulbs, one must accept that he is staff. A staff member is a sub-human, a lesser branch of the species, whose concerns range from service, food, sleep and the commute.

The staff member is a simple creature without lofty dreams nor aspirations beyond obtaining 8 hours of sleep before repeating the cycle. When placed in the same room as a Lady, the staff is meant to marvel, agog at the luster old-money lends to blue blood.

Much to my surprise, the Lady’s aura of wealth intertwined with class, ensnared on tradition did appear to stultify the staff. I being a temp was spared the strange enchantment and intoxicating effects.

My firm grasp of my wits and sobriety unnerved the Lady, and I was relieved to know this strange world would not consume me. My joy was eroded slightly by the looming reality of a job hunt from which I was pardoned temporarily.

Oh My: bastards, cheats, and scoundrels

I return from the funeral, and my finances are…non-existent. In my moment of desperation, I send out a barrage of cover letters trying to convince advertising firms that dramatic writing is a applicable skill in the real world. This is when I encounter a barrage of employers, who look for employees like one might look for a lampshade on overstock.com, the cheaper the better.

I encountered a particularly nasty breed of employer at a boutique advertising firm that is completely fictional of course, the fictitious Jorden Andersen Adverts in a totally made-up locale in downtown Manhattan.

I arrived for my interview dripping wet because it is a gift that I possess. I bring the rain with each interview I attend. If I have an interview, it rains, sleets, and generally precipitates, so my hair is always nice and frizzy and my make-up is nothing more than a fond memory.

Well, an hour later I walk out of that interview feeling good. An hour long interview for a freelance advertising gig with potential to become full-time is promising. My cover letter stood out among the 350 other applications, which was all owed to my careful skimming of the firm’s websites and case-studies, which emphasized a few key points about advertising which quickly made my key-points about advertising in my cover letter.

Jorden had interviewed me himself, so I was well liked by the big boss man. We parted on the terms that I was to email him a few more ideas on the project that I would be working on, and he would email me with freelance work etc. I email him a few ideas, careful not to tap myself out.

He replies after some prodding on my part by asking for my hourly rate and a few more ideas. I email my rate, but hold off on the free ideas since he has not agreed to any terms of compensation.

Well, that was the last word I heard from this guy. Why would he bother to pay me any money when he can choose from a stack of 350 ambitious university students who will cough up free idea after free idea in hopes of obtaining a paycheck and a new adornment for the ol’ resume.

The most essential lesson one can learn in the business of Seeking is to never under value the work you have done and will do in the future.

I propose this mantra to all Seekers for two reasons: the first reason is that if you find a place that wants you to work for them happily humming and eating sushi in the company cafeteria rather than sneaking out to prostitute yourself in a myriad of cheap and meaningless interviews held in the nearby Starbucks or better known as the public restroom of America, then ask for the pay you deserve or you will condemn your chances of California rolls five times a week.

The Second reason is a defense mechanism against the low-ballers like Jorden Andersen, who will be more than happy to take you up on a bargain rate deal of free for your creativity and hard work.

Don’t believe me? Last time I checked, the position is still available Perhaps one of you will be the lucky winner…

Hello world!

Seeker: Part I

I arrive into New York’s Laguardia airport and hail a cab. I like flying into Laguardia because the absence of the AirTrain which runs to JFK airport makes taking a cab socially acceptable or at least an understandable offense. I say offense because I have not paid rent in more than a year, and my ‘poor student’ routine is constantly contradicted by my seeming dependence on 40 dollar cab rides and similarly priced bottles of wine. But if I am to have the things I love then I am most certainly poor and incapable or offering any monetary contribution towards the apartment where I spend more time and use more of the building’s amenities than my cheque writing flat-mates.

This is why I am have returned to New York City in mid-August, when the place is more of a Malthusian armpit than usual, to secure a source of income. So, when the first of the month rolls around I can toss my pittance into the pot, and I can once and for all prove that I am valuable part of society capable of holding a job and more importantly prove I have become responsible, an ‘adult’. The prospect of joining the legions of work-attending citizens leaping over the cliff every morning into the office milieu with lemming-like satisfaction has rendered me thoroughly depressed and quite incapable of focusing my attentions to do anything to better my financial predicament.

As the taxi nears the apartment building, I instruct the driver to stop off at the liquor, bribing him with a mini bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label. Had he been particular, I would have sprung for the black label just so long as I arrived home with am ample stock of alcohol. It is essential that my mind is well saturated in ethanol so I am assured minimal productivity and if any attempts are made to secure gainful employ they will be career damaging blubbering attempts to mask my loathing for employment with an honest work ethic and a sense of affability. My ruse often evaporates after the first sentence of my cover letter, leaving potential employers to marvel at how little I actual want to work for them or anyone really.

I walk into the livingroom and greet my roommates, who have been ‘dude-ing out’ as I prefer to call such activities as ball scratching, video gaming, and drumming along with beat driven music. I drop my luggage on my bed and steal a nip of Johnny Black before returning to common area to offer a round of bosom-pressing hugs to the rather desolate bunch of males who rather than leave the apartment in my month long absence have opted to increase the vigor with which they proverbially measure penises.  Tonight’s ruler is Mario Kart, a racing game with obstacles one can throw at one’s opponent or at one’s opponent’s penis.

I take up a controller, but after a few devastating losses find the idea of jobbing hunting suddenly less daunting. I rouse my laptop from its hibernation and check my email, my myspace, my facebook, and when I have exhausted every social netowrking site, and I have tired of googling baby animals, I turn to craigslist.org, the most unreliable and competetive place on the web for one to find a job. With a few fingers of Johnny in a glass, I move the mouse towards the glowing link ‘writing jobs,’ as yet unclicked, but before my finger can depress the ‘left click button’ my phone begins warbling.

Greedily, I snatch up my phone, salavating for any form of distraction. “Hello?” I declare with an eyebrow arched in a curious question mark.

“Vanessa?” my mom whimpers on the other end.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, suspecting something has gone horrible ary since my departure earlier this morning.
“Joe is dead,” my mom manages to squeak out before breaking out in a wild sucession of painful hoots and wails about the loss of her only brother.

She hangs up on me, and I snap my cellphone shut, determined and with a clear sense of purpose; over craigslist.org/jobs-to-fix-your-problems-and make-people-respect-you-again.org I type cheap-tickets.com. Afterall all, cheap tickets are all this poor student can afford.