Oh, Despised Job-Hunt! How I Long for Your Demise!!!
May 27 '08 (Updated Aug 11 '08)
The Bottom Line Hunting for jobs today can be frustrating and demoralizing. Can you relate?
I am looking for a job. I am neither embarrassed nor humiliated by that fact. Some people seem to feel great shame at the prospect of job-hunting, but I do not. I have a wife and two children to support -- I have no time or mental space for shame. However, I am finding that I have an inordinate amount of time and space to be frustrated and demoralized.
To provide a little background, I work for a mortgage company based in southern California. It is an investment and loan company that has conducted business for over 40 years. Over the past two years, the mortgage industry in the United States has tumbled as a direct result of the remarkable plummeting of house prices nationwide. My company, as well-established as it is, was not immune to the effects of the precipitous drop in house prices: last year, my company closed down its origination division; and, this year, all remaining loans being serviced have been sold and the servicing side will close its doors. Soon, the corporate side of my company will close its doors and the brand of the company will cease to exist.
So, here I am. Though I am not jobless yet, I will no longer be employed with my company in two months, at most. Currently, I am looking for a job in earnest, seeking out any available leads by internet for jobs in my area. I'm sure some of you know how the job hunt goes nowadays: you register for accounts at websites so that your resume gets posted; in a virtual way, you "visit" as many companies as possible to cull leads for jobs suitable to your skill set; and you even contact headhunting agencies in hopes that THEY can find jobs for you. By and large, most of the job hunt occurs in front of a computer screen, with some forays into employment agency offices and job workshops.
Herein lies my frustration: I don't get to actually talk to many people. In any given day, I send out 5-8 resumes and cover letters. Sometimes, I get automated responses, and sometimes I don't. Occasionally, I'll get a request for writing samples (I'm a technical writer), but rarely get a follow-up. From my perspective, it seems that my resume and cover letter are sent into a great, digitized black hole, never to see the light of the sun or even feel the warmth of a distant star. My resume and cover letter are like probes lost in the vast expanse of the cosmos, drifting interminably in no specific direction. Ground control to Major Tom!
Disturbingly, in this landscape of faceless job searches, my resume and cover letter have to represent the sum of all of my best skills and my most marketable experiences. Neither brevity nor verbosity are overly treasured; you must strike that pivotal balance lest who you are be completely discarded. Since when could I be summed up in three pages? Well, since my future livelihood has come to depend on it, that's when!
Rambling aside, I possess one palpable product of my job-hunt: frustration. Back in my day (which was, maybe, 10 years ago), people still walked into offices or businesses and met people. You glad-handed human resources staffpeople and buttered them up with soothing platitudes and high praises. "I am perfectly willing to give my best to your company." "Your company is the reason why I studied what I studied." "If you hire me, I can guarantee success for your company." Back then, people had reasonable chances of convincing a future employer of their own worth, and body language, appearance, and speaking ability meant much from the beginning of the process.
Now, the job-hunt has inverted the formula: text precedes appearance. Four years, when I returned from Japan, I physically traveled to prospective employers to seek jobs. Most employers politely received my resume, but then advised me to apply at their corporate websites. One company even refused to touch my paper resume! Now, it's even worse: you may be fortunate to pass the security guard to even speak to an insider.
Okay, okay -- many people have chanted the mantra "network, network" to me; I'm down with that. I have no problems with networking. I also have no problem with nepotism, to an extent: after all, if a contact can get my foot in his company's door, it's better than putting that same foot in my mouth, or someone else's foot to my bottom. I'm also well-aware of the importance of "pinging," or sending periodic emails to key people to keep up relations with future contingencies in mind. But, whatever happened to walking into a company, showing your face, and getting, at least, an initial 15 minutes with Human Resources?
Anyway, I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus. I do believe He is the Son of God. I also believe that God is in control of my entire job situation and has something in mind for me. Intellectually, I cannot deny this, but my heart struggles with the frustration of having little or no control over my own job destiny. Instead of having the ability to proactively visiting companies, I have to proactively use my computer and send a bunch of ones and zeroes to some anonymous HR coordinator in hopes that the binary information containing my personal data will be read and, more importantly, have any attention paid to it. Instead of handing my resume to an administrative assistant who could possibly make a positive comment regarding my demeanor and professional appearance, I now have to choose good fonts, enter a ton of "keywords" into my resume, and make sure that my file size is less than 200 kilobytes. Some websites don't even allow for uploading of my resume -- I have to enter the text into a field. There is nothing I enjoy more than doing that!
Seriously, job-hunting isn't embarassing, and it isn't shameful, but it is frustrating and demoralizing. As the weeks roll by and leads lead nowhere, it is hard to not question one's own self-worth and marketability. Sometimes, I sit back and question if I have anything to offer that a million other people could not offer. Well, the answer to that is that I may not have anything unique to offer, which is why I have to get to each lead first and apply early. The biggest frustration lies in getting noticed -- I'm trying to work on that. Ultimately, I am realistic and humble enough to realize that I may not be a standout among all the possible candidates out there. That's where God's going to have to step in; if He wants me in a certain job, it will happen. But, if I don't end up at a certain job, that I must believe that I am meant to be elsewhere. If anything, it is this faith that guides me through demoralization and frustration.
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