career pangs

[wisdomeagle]

You, my darlings, yes you. If you have a job -- if you've ever had a job! -- tell me how you got your job. Because I have hit the panicked three AM moment when I'm convinced I never will land a job, and the books full of advice given me by my mother make it sound as if I ought to know the history of the McDonalds corporation in order to flip burgers.

And I want to flip burgers, or reshelve books, or similar. I am horribly confused by this "what fields interest you?" question since I want to teach graduate level theology and obviously can't do that yet and so.

You. Flisters. Tell me how you got your job. Your first job, even. The horrible crap summer job that Paid the Bills.

You can't be worse at career advice than my mother is.

I still haven't started my xgenchallenge fic. It's not due till the 27th, right?

Comments

[that_mireille]

Ways I have gotten jobs:

1. Know someone who works there. If you have *any* friend who's a halfway decent employee, they can put in a good word for you. It helps.

2. Temp. I temped my way into a really good office job (which then went away 9 months later, but that was the fault of outsourcing).

3. Seriously, if you're looking for a job on the burger-flipping, book-shelving, grocery-checkout-running level, the things to stress are that you'll work whenever they want you to, you're punctual, and you believe in hard work. *g* I have *never* failed to get this kind of job if it still available when I put in my application.

[wisdomeagle]

Thank you!

[zgirl714.livejournal.com]

The Anachronism Girls (http://www.livejournal.com/users/zgirl714/80367.html#cutid1) -Hey! I wrote your Femslash PWP ficathon request. I hope you like it!

[wisdomeagle]

Ohh, thanks for letting me know! *runs off to read it*

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

So you want a stupid low-paying summer job until- what're you doing this fall? Are you going back to school?

(Many congrats on graduating, btw!!! I kept forgetting to tell you so. :)

Do you live in a medium-sized town or larger? If you want to work in retail (you don't *really* want to work in food service. trust me.) you should ideally make a list of all the places you'd be interested in working and then you'll have to go in to all of them and ask if they're taking applications. Be charming and sweet to the girl or boy you ask, just because they might give you the scoop.

If none of those places are hiring, go to your second tier. Set boundaries for yourself, though. Retail will take advantage of you something fierce. You don't want to work at a 99 Cent store. :-p

Frankly, I feel that ANYONE can get a job in retail, even more so if you're cute and presentable and wear clean clothes. You don't need experience, and if they ask if you have any, feel free to lie about a job you may or may not have had at school. When they ask for references, give them some random friend. Seriously, retail is not like working for the CIA. It pays poorly and the hours are not so great and the turnover is high. They sort of have to take what they can get, so you'll do brilliantly!

Did that help? Do you need more specific thoughts? I'm just rambling. :)

[wisdomeagle]

Eh, I will got back to school eventually, but not next year -- didn't get applications in, have no money.

And my town is tiny; it has no retail. (Literally, it has many three businesses.) But there's a mall not too far away at all.

All this sounds like good and practical advice (and since one of my goals this summer/next year is to convince myself that I hate working/living at home so much that I must go back to school, doing a crap job is not neccessarily a bad thing.)

All your advice sounds good except the lying part -- it may work but I hate to lie. (Which is part of what's freaking me out about the whole job search scenario, since it seems an exercise in organized lying about how great you are. *shuddertwitch*)

Thanks for the advice and the congrats -- yaay! I'm done (at least for now).

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

Yes- looking for work mostly tests how good you are at things like interviewing. (Which is a skill only useful for finding jobs, sadly.)

It's an annoying process, but I encourage you to remind yourself frequently that you are incredibly smart and terrific, and not to aim too low. :)

[wisdomeagle]

My dad says looking for jobs is way more painful than actually working. I hope he's right.

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

Totally understand about the lying thing. One church uncle actually told me to fudge my resume and I was like, wha??? You're my church uncle and you're telling me to lie? That said, I do try to present myself in the best possible light in interviews. It's the thing you have to do, unfortunately, and interviewers expect it. It's all about still being honest and sincere while talking about how great you are.

The job I have right now (communications writer) I got through a temp agency. Sadly it is still only a contract position, not permanent employee :(

I suggest checking with people at church if they know of any positions or if they're hiring themselves. I got my very first paid job in high school through another church uncle -- editing/formatting a math text book. I had no idea what I was doing, but I think it turned out okay :)

Have you got a resume? Even if you don't have previous work experience, you should list all volunteer work and even church activities, extra curriculars, etc. Big awards you've won, stuff like that.

[seimaisin.livejournal.com]

My method of getting my first real job was "take whatever presents itself, even if you hate it." After I quit college, I spent three months moping in my dad's basement. Finally, though, I needed money, but I couldn't think of what I wanted to do. One day, I was eating breakfast at Shoney's, and the sign in the window said they were looking for waitresses. Um. I hated foodservice, with a passion, but I needed a job, so I said what the hell? Waited tables there for the most miserable 3 months of my life ... HOWEVER, in those three months, I met a girl who hooked me up with a job cashiering at an employee cafeteria at a local business. That job turned into a bookkeeping job, when I demonstrated that I could count and showed up to work on time, and that job enabled me to get a job doing bookkeeping at a bank ... and so on.

So. I have no idea if that helps, but that's my story.

[wisdomeagle]

That actually does sound really useful since "take whatever presents itself, even if you hate it." is about where I'm at now.

[glimmergirl.livejournal.com]

I'm probably super-crappy at job advice, but...

Well. My first real job was teaching at the high school I went to. I had done my undergrad and some post-BA work in Classics, hadn't had any luck in the job market otherwise, the school needed somebody who could teach Latin and English, and there I was, hired a week before the school year started. Knowing the people that I was going to work with really helped a lot, and I think the having connections thing is what gets people hired. Not that I was a crap candidate for the job, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the ease with which I got the position was due to the fact I'd gone to school there and pretty much *knew* everybody.

Not sure how much that helps? Er... ask me about graduate school. I know a lot more about that... :D

[wisdomeagle]

Hee. Doubt that will happen to me, but thanks for sharing your story. :)

Okay, graduate school! How are you paying for it? I hear there are these things called "loans" but I didn't have one in college and am super-nervous because I have NO MONEY and am thus panicky that I will just not be able to afford school and will be flipping burgers forEVER.

[glimmergirl.livejournal.com]

How are you paying for it?

With lots and lots of grief... ;)

Actually, loans. But! This may not be the case for you, I've just had Bad Luck so far. (Dude. I've been to graduate school *twice*. I really am paying in grief...)

As a graduate student, you can take out up to $9, 000 a year for tuition, books, living expenses, etc. So, even if you're absolutely money-less, you'll definitely be able to pay for the degree. :)

However, hopefully you won't be stuck in this situation that I'm in right now. A lot of PhD programs will fund their best students and offer them a fellowship and stipend (all your tuition and fees paid, along with a small amount of money per month so you don't live in a shoebox and eat old toast crumbs), or a teaching fellowship, where you have to work for you meagre stipend. My program is only for a master's, and they don't have as much funding opportunities as the PhD programs. Some places have tuiton remission if you get hired at the university in some position. My ex gf worked at the library and had her classes paid for while she did her master's, and if I had been smart and applied earlier to grad school (I was still teaching when I applied, wasn't sure where at-the-time-gf would be living, didn't want to move away from her, etc etc), I could've prob gotten a teaching assistantship that would've paid my tuition.

Dude. I talk a lot, I know, bottom line? You *can* get the degree as long as you get into the school, as long as you're willing to either take out some loans, if the funding doesn't come through. For me? I complain a lot about it, but it means *everything* to me to get my PhD. It's what I've been working toward for the past 6 years....

[wisdomeagle]

Aww, thanks so much! That is encouraging and useful. (note to self: apply early.)

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

Thing to remember? Your first, second, fifth job out of school is not your career. Don't worry that by taking a job you're not sure of that you're COMMITTED to a career in repo'ing cars.

I interviewed everywhere that would take me during my senior year and accepted the first job that would take me with benefits and student loan assistance. Then I was transferred, then I hated my town, then I moved and worked from home for that same transferred job and then I got a job with a client of the transferred job. Love my job now. My story is horrible because I was never unemployed. Except for one day before I started the temp assignment that I quit early to start at my current job. Which, er, is not typical of someone with a history degree. :)

But, don't assume you have to commit to a career right out of college. It's a job, wait for the career to find you and for you to find it, as it were. Plus, you get a bunch of those, probably.

[wisdomeagle]

Thanks!

But, don't assume you have to commit to a career right out of college. It's a job, wait for the career to find you and for you to find it, as it were. Plus, you get a bunch of those, probably.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at now. Thanks for the advice.

[webbgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm incredibly the least qualified to answer this at the moment since I'm currently in panic mode about finding something, but I have to say that I got my two major jobs in my life (one 5 years, the other 9) through temping first.

Then again, I'm looking at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Nordstroms at the moment for patch income until I figure out what I wanna be when I grow up. *keeps telling self that two weeks before ones 35th birthday is not too late to have a post-school crisis*

[wisdomeagle]

Hmm. Temping is coming up a lot. I'll have to, uh, figure out what that actually is.

Yay, we can be looking-for-jobs together! (Us and at least a few other flisters... it's the post-graduation job hunt for everyone.)

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

-My first job (save baby-sitting, which i got by being family friends with people who had kids) was shelving at the local library. I asked for an application, filled it out, got called back when they had an opening, and lo, job.
-The summer before i went to college i also worked at a newly started used bookstore downtown, which job i think i got because my grandma was chatting with the propietor and said proprietor mentioned needed assistants and my grandma said effusive things about me.
-My office job at Smith: i looked at the entire work-study listing and sent out queries to everything that looked doable. Some people contacted me to set up interviews etc. AJ's interview was first, and at the end of it she offered me the job, so there ended that job search.
-The job i'm interviewing for in 10 hours? I looked at boston.craigslist.org and queried all the administrative assistant job listings from the past couple days (plus everything from dishwasher to desktop publishing apprenticeship that i was willing to do and that was accessible via public transportation and that would allow me to still attend my Tuesday night massage classes).

Honestly, if what you wanna do is flip burgers or shelve books or something along those lines, you should be able to just pick up applications wherever there are Help Wanted signs (hell, go in and ask for an application anywhere you're willing to work -- that way they have you on file and need only to give you a call when there's an opening). Also look at local Classifieds.

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

Ooh, good luck on your interview!

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dear. I manage to combine being terrified about not having a job and terrified about having a job -- simultaneously, which is new for me. Though it finally occured to me that i always get panicky around anything vaguely resembling confrontation, and interviews totally come under that purview, but being unemployed has never been a worry before 'cause i was always a student, so of course the conflicting panic is new.

Oh, and Ari, lying squicks me hardcore, but the low-end kinds of jobs you want probably just want character references and maybe job references, but stuff like tutoring would totally suffice for that. And as a recent college grad, you are totally allowed to include stuff like departmental prizes on your resume. If you wanna apply for something that actually requires a resume, you can check out stuff like Smith's career development office which has lots of handy samples, or i could even send you mine as a sample. And i definitely wanna emphasize that the job you take now is in no way the job you are wedded to for the rest of your life.

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

being unemployed has never been a worry before 'cause i was always a student, so of course the conflicting panic is new.

Ah yes, the post-undergrad blues, in which we flail about trying to determine what meaning our lives have now that we don't have that shiny goal of Exam! Paper! Degree! to look forward to. Yeah, I still find myself wishing for my student days. *g* Seriously, I totally get that conflict of fear of unemployment (gah) and fear of actually being employed and working, eep!

Ari, what Elizabeth said about tutoring. That is a great thing to have on a resume. Talk about hours, how many students, emphasise things like setting schedules. List skills you have, like planning and organisation, leadership. And whatever computer skills you have.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i've decided that what i need to keep in mind is that i want to do a variety of things and it is possible to balance them all i just need to remember to make the effort. And currently i have these yawning chasms of free time which make me so antsy because i feel like i should be doing productive stuff and feel guilty when i'm not but i frequently don't want to be doing the productive stuffl, but i think once i have a full-time job i'll feel more balanced (and also able to pay bills and such, which will do wonders for the calm, and will allow me to focus on productive stuff like finding an apartment).

[wisdomeagle]

Thank you. And good luck again at your interview.

[splash-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Right out of college I temped as a secretary in the research museum office where I had done some of my undergrad research. That led, four months later, to a temp secretarial/administrative job in the admin office of the department I graduated from. Four months after that, the temp job became permanent, and I'm still in that job, ten years later. Essentially my first post-college job is my only post-college job.

[dawnie1970.livejournal.com]

Overdressing for the interview. Being impeccably ladylike and smiling all the time. Got me every job I applied for.

[raisintorte.livejournal.com]

I went to law school straight from undergrad because after spending three summers as a Human Resources (my major) intern I realized I hated it and it was not the career for me.

I did not have any loans for undergrad either so the idea of taking them out for grad school scared the crap out of me . . . and here I am three years later with mounds of debt and no job (my current outlook is "hopeful"), and I'm happier then I have ever been. :-) Taking out loans is scary but I think the benefits of a graduate degree outweigh everything else in the long run.

[wisdomeagle]

Yay, thank you! Another heartwarming story of debt and joblessness... but seriously, it encourages me that I know so many *adults* who are surviving. And even happy! It's a good thing.

[velvetandlace.livejournal.com]

The best advice I have is to go into the kind of places you want to work and simply just ask the staff if they have a job vacancy, and if so, could you have an application form. Usually, they'll let you apply even if they don't have anything - you score points that way by already being on file and showing the initiative to come in of your own accord.

Aside from that? Job listings. Job search websites. Bug your friends.

Something should turn up. *hugs*

[silly-cleo.livejournal.com]

Everyone's already said a lot of what I would but don't worry, you WILL find something. :) I'll reiterate about aiming too low, though. Also, I understand about the lying thing, I don't like to do it either, so I find it's easier to just work out how to paint the truth in the best possible light. Most everything you do can usually show something good about you if you can word it right. For example, I don't think it would be lying to say the fact you put together ficathons shows your organizational skills is a lie. (Unless it is and my morals are skewed.) But then you can't put ficathons on a resume so you need a more resume friendly way to put it. Do you see what I mean?

Temping, since you mentioned finding out what it is, is when you join an agency and they farm you out to different companies needing people to temporarily take up a job because their regular person is sick/on leave/whatever or they're between people and looking for a new person and need the job done while they're interviewing. Sometimes if it's the last one, they'll offer YOU the job if they're good. This happened to me a few times. I temped the year I took off between high school and college, it was the best paid thing at the time with my qualifications. The nice thing about it is it pays better than retail/flipping burgers, (over here at least, not sure about the states), it's much more flexible because the jobs last varying amount of times, one job can be for a day, another can be for 6 weeks. My longest lasted something like 3 months.

I got office type things, I did a lot of reception/switchboard work, a lot of filing, some typing. I'm not really qualified to do much else but I think you can temp at lots of different levels.

Uh, how you apply. You go in, you give them your resume, you say you want to sign up, there's a form and some aptitude tests, grammar, maths, those are easy. There's also a WPM test, which is how fast you type, then they test for how well you know Word and Excel. All of that's easy if you're computer literate, which you are, so.

The only snag is I don't know whether there's a temp agency NEAR you. ;)

My first job was clearing tables at a friend's cafe, my second job was at my MOTHER's cafe, then my next job was this, so. Temping's actually really good fun, you meet tons of different people. It's easy too, much less exhausting than retail or catering/food type jobs.

[wisdomeagle]

Thanks for the info on temping. It doesn't sound so bad...

[neonethos.livejournal.com]

I had friends who worked at this privately owned business, they needed some more hands for the holiday season, and viola. Packaging monkey. $10/h. W00t.

I've had a lot of jobs.

[laynamarya.livejournal.com]

I got a job working at a podiatrist when my younger sister got hired but couldn't work the late hours.

I got a job at a bakery by answering a newspaper ad and walking into the place with my mom.

I got a job washing dishes at college by attending a mandatory meeting for all workstudy firstyears. I got promoted to supervisor by being good at that. I also got to be the weekend housekeeper cause no one else wanted to do it.

I got my job as resident assistant type person by applying and doing a phone and an in-person interview.

I got my job as a workstudy student at my dad's college when my dad asked me to.

I got a job teaching vacation bible school by asking the director of religious education if I could.

I got a job working in the art museum because I knew someone in the religion department who needed a special project done.

I got a job working at Bob Evans by applying and being interviewed.

I got a job working at Jeep Chrysler by applying to a temp agency, doing the skill interview, and getting called, and being available when they needed me.

I got my current job as a teacher by sending out about fifty resumes, going through several interviews, finding out that I didn't have the job, but getting a call the following week, saying I did, after all.

So. Send out a million resumes. Seriously, apply to as many places as you can. Hardly anyone will call you. This is okay. (Well, it is horribly frustrating, but this is what will happen. It doesn't mean you aren't awesome. You are, in fact, awesome. But that is just the way job hunts are.) I have been rejected and ignored way way way more than I have been hired. Be persistent, be cordial, be AVAILABLE when people want to interview you, and dress nicely and be your own snazzy self, and you will eventually have a job.

The most important part is: DO NOT GIVE UP.

LOVE!

Re: I've had a lot of jobs.

[wisdomeagle]

Thanks so much. That's super useful.

[polyartamorous.livejournal.com]

not giving up is singularly the most important thing. seriously.
good luck!

[polyartamorous.livejournal.com]

ooh by the way (can you tell i'm doing some serious catching up on lj here? for a few months i was without internet.):

i have started watching House.
i love House. i don't often love new tv shows, especially doctory types, but i absolutely love House. granted, i also love House-the-character, which might have a lot to do with it, but it is also just a solidly good show.

more later.