Job Hunting
by Psudo
I cannot imagine an experience more carefully designed to undermine self-confidence and self-esteem as modern job hunting.
Compile some data about your work history so that you can be judged based on how past employers have judged you. Make it verifiable, because you can't be trusted. But put a positive spin on everything so that you can compete with more capable liars. If you make a good impression, you win the opportunity to be judged in person based on whatever a superficial, 5-minute interview can gleen. If you do well there, you win the opportunity to take a drug test and, if you pass, be awkward in a new, high-pressure setting for a month or two while utterly failing to learn people's names. Good luck!
Things are a little worse for me as a loner. I don't keep in contact with former coworkers, so coming up with work references is awkward and difficult; when I do, they tend to leave the job shortly after me. I don't know a lot of people, so I don't have a contact anywhere. My difficulty with the whole job hunting process ensures a job history full of the kind of menial jobs that overlook a job history full of menial jobs. It's a bootstrapping failure; no one will give a chance to a guy who hasn't made something of a chance before, so there's no way to get that first chance. I've been a cashier at five different jobs, but I still have to prove I can run a cash register at every new place.
I've never been lousy at anything I've put my mind to. I'm good with customers. I can figure stuff out myself. I don't balk at hard work, or miss work. I'm honest to a fault. I ask for more hours, not more dollars per hour. I actually take pride in doing the work others don't want to do. The idea of my coming in hung over or failing a drug test is just laughable. Where's space for that on the form? I'm not applying for the space program, I'm applying at neighborhood grocery stores and gas stations. Are these not virtues? Can I get some credit for any of this?
Maybe the employer's perspective justifies some of this demeaning red tape, but I don't understand why the entire application/interview process doesn't consist of the employer watching the applicant try to do the job for an hour or two. What does a work history prove that an hour of work doesn't?
Compile some data about your work history so that you can be judged based on how past employers have judged you. Make it verifiable, because you can't be trusted. But put a positive spin on everything so that you can compete with more capable liars. If you make a good impression, you win the opportunity to be judged in person based on whatever a superficial, 5-minute interview can gleen. If you do well there, you win the opportunity to take a drug test and, if you pass, be awkward in a new, high-pressure setting for a month or two while utterly failing to learn people's names. Good luck!
Things are a little worse for me as a loner. I don't keep in contact with former coworkers, so coming up with work references is awkward and difficult; when I do, they tend to leave the job shortly after me. I don't know a lot of people, so I don't have a contact anywhere. My difficulty with the whole job hunting process ensures a job history full of the kind of menial jobs that overlook a job history full of menial jobs. It's a bootstrapping failure; no one will give a chance to a guy who hasn't made something of a chance before, so there's no way to get that first chance. I've been a cashier at five different jobs, but I still have to prove I can run a cash register at every new place.
I've never been lousy at anything I've put my mind to. I'm good with customers. I can figure stuff out myself. I don't balk at hard work, or miss work. I'm honest to a fault. I ask for more hours, not more dollars per hour. I actually take pride in doing the work others don't want to do. The idea of my coming in hung over or failing a drug test is just laughable. Where's space for that on the form? I'm not applying for the space program, I'm applying at neighborhood grocery stores and gas stations. Are these not virtues? Can I get some credit for any of this?
Maybe the employer's perspective justifies some of this demeaning red tape, but I don't understand why the entire application/interview process doesn't consist of the employer watching the applicant try to do the job for an hour or two. What does a work history prove that an hour of work doesn't?
Tags: Work • Job • Me • Ego • Job Hunting • Demeaning • Life
February 2012
January 2012