By HD Silversmith
This is the last weekend before the start of a new 16-week semester at Budget-Ravaged State University.
And despite everything, I confess I'm looking forward to returning to the classroom and teaching my students.
By everything, I mean the drastic financial cuts and managerial short-sightedness that have resulted in:
- Job losses (with far more to come)
- Elimination of classes
- Desperation among students who are left high and dry without enough courses to ensure that they meet their graduation requirements
- Decline in the quality of education and student preparedness
Today's college graduates are far less prepared for the work place they're entering than my own generation was for the work environment it faced.
Granted, I wasn't trained for much of anything when I got a B.A. in English in the early 1980s -- or an M.A., for that matter. (It was a different story when I got my Ph.D. -- in a different field -- because that purportedly trains you as an expert researcher and scholar in your chosen area.) Except that I did have a set of core, transferable skills in critical thinking and writing that employers in technology, finance, and marketing recognized and were happy to employ -- once I repackaged those skills and stated them in terms that spoke to the needs of potential employers.
No one cared that I could recite yards of Shakespeare -- though I did and do. In fact, they often had that schizophrenic, anti-intellectual, "you're under/over-qualified" attitude that's a long-time tradition in American culture.
(My recent students with B.A.s are getting that now, I understand. Seriously? Today you need a B.A. like you used to need a high school diploma, and yet it makes you "over-qualified"? Don't get me started ...)
But potential employers did care that I had an analytical brain, communicated clearly, spoke different languages, could act as an effective liaison among different kinds and groups of people, and worked hard.
And the only way that I could make that clear to them before they met me was in the quality of my application materials and my follow-up.
God knows that goes triple now in the current poor economy.
It helps -- a lot -- to have an initial in, someone you know who can say "Yeah, I know her. She's good."
But it's not enough -- because sometimes there are hundreds of applicants for the same job (there have always been scores of applicants for each tenure-line academic job in my field, so I'm used to this). A lot of those people have folks saying, "Yeah, she's good." Well, we're all good. What else have you got?
So you have to stand out in other ways. Follow up and follow through.
- Send an email immediately before you get an interview, thanking Potential Employer Q for his consideration of your application.
(You applied online for a position at Target and there's no contact information? Do the research. Find a name. Go to the local store and get the hiring manager's name there. Refer to the date of your online application when you email her.)
- Follow your email the next week with a conventional, business-letter snail-mail thank you. Different skills are highlighted in the different forms of communication.
- Follow that with a phone call.
- Lather, rinse, repeat -- no matter how stupid and pointless it seems. You don't want to be annoying, but on the other hand, that squeaky wheel thing is really true.
Realize that you're not going to hear back from the majority of jobs for which you apply. Now, there's no excuse for this. It's rude. It certainly doesn't make you more motivated to follow through on possibilities where the basic odds are stacked against you. In fact, it sucks and it makes me nuts. But it's reality. And it's not about you. So do what you have to do.
(I was talking with a friend yesterday whose husband has been out of work since last spring. He's been applying for jobs and not getting interviews. He's understandably depressed and feels like scrap junk. During our conversation, my friend said, "I'm not sure how much follow-up work he does after he applies for jobs, though -- and part of that's because he's applying for jobs he doesn't even want -- but needs."
(I hear that. Follow-up is labor-intensive enough for a job you do want. Who wants to go through all that rigmarole for a position dishing up fries? But if the reality is, you need a job, then you have to do the bare minimum to get one. And these days, the bare minimum is a lot. That sucks, too, I know. It's a reality that's hard to cope with. Oh well. Onward.)
Realize the hiring process, especially in a poor economy, is slow. Hiring budgets are in flux. Requisitions are submitted and withdrawn. Again, I'm used to this in the academic world, where there are multiple rounds of contact, and the application/interview/offer process takes essentially nine months. (There's efficiency for you -- not!)
Because it's slow, it means you have to apply for multiple jobs simultaneously (and probably multiple kinds of jobs -- ideal jobs v. pay-the-grocery-bill jobs) and juggle the follow-up efforts.
I have to admit that this is where I always fall down on the job-hunt front.
- I'm not a particularly skilled multi-tasker.
- I find it difficult and scary to apply for jobs (though even more difficult and scary not to have one).
- It generally takes all the emotional energy I have to apply for one job, let alone several at once.
If state and university budget cuts result in the elimination of my tenure-line job (a prospect I consider unlikely right now but by no means impossible), I'm going to have to get a lot better about multi-tasking job applications.
Yes, I've been thinking about this. Because the one thing I've learned? For that matter, the one thing that the recent Haiti earthquake should teach us? None of us is invulnerable. None of us is where we are in life purely on the basis of our own merits or deficiencies. Life's a lot more complicated than that.
I believe in doing one's absolute best (because we can do that, and I'm pretty intolerant of people who don't) but realizing at the same time, "There but for the grace of ___ (fill in the blank) go I."
Yes, I'm looking forward to returning to my job on Monday. It's imperfect and the system for which I work is hugely flawed, but I'm lucky -- in so many different ways -- to have a) a job; b) in the field for which I trained; c) that I believe is useful and meaningful.
No doubt I'll start complaining next week. But this week? I'm grateful.
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