Job hunting is hard.
For
those of you who don’t know (which is probably most of you), I just recently
lost my job. I was working for a
corporate restaurant, and the corporation decided to close my restaurant. We didn’t have very much warning, which is
sad, but that’s life, I suppose.
It’s
not a crisis. I have a bit of money put
away, enough to keep me fed and housed for a month or two at least. I’d like not to have to dip too much into my
savings, though, and so I am on the hunt.
Let me tell you something: as hunters go, I’m kind of at the bottom of
the pile.
First
of all, I haven’t done this very much. I’ve
only had a handful of jobs, and most of them I got through people I know. My dad, a soccer coach, got me into
refereeing for little kids’ soccer when I was sixteen or so. A year later, I took my first summer job
babysitting for a lady at my church.
Throughout college I had the same work-study position, and my summer
camp jobs I got through a friend of mine.
When I graduated, I got the job I’ve had for the past four years by
going around to different restaurants and asking for applications.
In
my opinion, the internet doesn’t make the search any easier. You tend to get lost in the sea of candidates
and opportunities. And a job description
only tells you so much about the job; usually it says nothing about the people
who work there, the customers or clientele you might have to deal with, or
whether your boss will be an asshole.
(Side
note: I’ve either been very lucky or very unlucky with bosses, not much in
between. I’ve had creepy
no-idea-what-personal-space-is bosses, funny
talk-in-bad-accents-and-give-everyone-a-nickname bosses, and then there was the
one who used to come and have serious conversations with me while wearing a
banana costume.)
Then
there’s the whole etiquette issue. What
am I supposed to wear to a meet-and-greet that might be an interview and might
not? If my handshake is weak, does that
mean I won’t get hired? Everyone says a
potential employer decides whether or not to hire you based on the first thirty
seconds, which strikes me as very unfair, honestly. What if I trip and fall on the way into the
room? Do I try to be polite and
professional, or is it more important to seem friendly and genuine? What is the balance? It’s a
social nightmare of reading half a dozen cues a minute, trying to figure out
how to say what the interviewer wants to hear without lying. Good thing I have a BA in BS—all those papers
in college taught me how to put the right spin on anything.
All
in all, I feel that I make a good impression, but nothing is certain. It’s hard to find the right fit with the
right atmosphere, hours, salary, and benefits.
And while I maintain that money is not the most important thing, it is
pretty important, and it starts to seem more so after a few weeks of paying
bills out of a diminishing savings account.
The only advice I have to people who might be in the same boat is: hang
in there. Keep trying. Don’t take the first thing that comes up if
you know you’re going to hate it—the stress and anxiety of a job you dread
going to isn’t worth the money. But don’t
hold out for something perfect, because let’s face it, your chances of finding
perfection are never good. Try new
things, because you never know what you might enjoy. And if you do spot a good opportunity, don’t
wait! Positions don’t stay open forever.
One
more thing that I wish someone had told me when I was a kid: you don’t have to
find all of your happiness in your job.
It’s important to be comfortable, but it's impossible for everyone who works to find soul food and spiritual fulfillment in their 9 to 5. So do what you love, even if it’s
only in your hours off the clock. That’s
what I’ve been doing for the past four years, and what I will probably doing
for the next four. And that’s okay with
me. When you really love something, you
make time for it. You make it work.
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