out of state, out of mind - college grad article

7/28/2019 Out of State, Out of Mind - College Grad Article

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Out of State, Out of Mind:

Parallels Between your Bachelors Degree and Toilet Paper

By Tom Lewis

Dallas, TX April 01, 2013 According to every adult you ever met, anundergraduate degree is the vaccine for anyone looking to avoid eating gum from

the bottom of peoples shoes to survive and sharing a bed with a rabid family of

woodland creatures,just to survive.

I am of course, talking to myself, which for a young college graduate trying to

garner the attention of local businesses with well-paying jobs, has become more of

a habit than a hobby.

For three and a half years, I joked that my B.A in English would ensure for me a

promising future in the waste disposal and shoe-shining industries, and as I await

McDonalds reply to the application I sent two months ago, it is becoming frightfullyobvious that the joke was on me.

Well, to be fair, the joke was also on about 270,000 other recent graduates in the

same position as I am. According to one article in The Atlantic:

About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of

bachelor's degree-holders under the age of

25 last year were jobless or underemployed,

the highest share in at least 11 years.

Well, thats a little discouraging, but more people are graduating from college now, right? Theeconomy is in the tank, and the markets for those education intensive positions cant just grow to

accommodate the influx of job-seekers overnight, right?

Its true that the economy sucks. However, according to anotherarticle, this time

from Inquirer News, the number of college graduates only grew by 2.9% in 2010.

It sounds like everybody is getting hit. You know, someone once told me that when

the going gets tough, the tough get going. If the market gets competitive, then the

competitive survive. Like Darwin said, If variations useful to any organic being do

occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized [as fittest] will have the best chance

of being preserved in the struggle for life.

Well, I hate to break it to the phrenologists doing a victory lap right now, but it isnt

that simple. My oldest brother retired from the Air Force as a full-bird colonel. Now,

this guy used to fly top secret missions in the C-130, then he got a bit over-qualified

so they took him out and dropped him in the Pentagon, where he worked in

TRANSCOM, and was in charge of managing supply routes and material going in and

out of Iraq.


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All of it.

After retiring, his plan was to use the skills he developed as James Bond to pick a

civilian job at his leisure. Thats still his plan a year later.

Most of the questions I could ask my brother would end with the CIA picking me up

in a helicopter and dropping into a gorge in Utah where I tragically lost my life in a

hiking accident, but there is one inquiry that I can make: Why dont you have a

job?

The answer?

Nobodys reading his resume.

People, this is the digital age. You have about as much use without a computer as a

drill without bits. If you have ever walked into a store, asked to speak to the

manager, and offered them your resume, then you probably got the same answer

as I did (unless youre attractive): Our hiring is done online. If you want to workhere then youll need to fill out an application through our website.

You know, because theyre efficient.

Then if you are even more like me, you said, Du-huh, okay and proceeded to

apply online, which consisted of registering an account, providing your personal and

contact information, uploading your resume, uploading your cover letter, filling their

work experience form, which is also your resume, agreeing to their terms of service,

and completing an online questionnaire.

About 3-4 hours of application party time later, if youre lucky, you get a message inyour inbox (thats your email inbox) thanking you for applying, and informing you

that HR will process your application in 30-90 days.

So you wait 30 days. You wait 60 days. You wait 90 days. You wait 120 days. Half

a year later, youre still waiting on that phone call. Of course, they never said they

would contact you. In fact, they never said a human being would even lookat your

application. After all, its your privilege to have the opportunity to apply. You sent

them all that stuff that they had to pick through and, you know, process. Can you

imagine how exhausting it is for them? Um, youre welcome.

Except, well, computers dont get exhausted, and thats exactly who read your

resume. In fact, remember when you provided your phone number, email address

and home address? Yeah, they made bank on that noise.

Poor Sap.

Almost every online application is done through a proxy, an intermediary that

handles the hiring for the company. They sell that information to other companies

that have found a way to make money off of harassing and misleading you. Heck, I


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just got off the phone with someone who thanked me for using their website in my

job search, offered to assist me with seeking employment, and asked me to verify a

bunch of personal information that I guess I filled out in my sleep.

Somehow, even though I have about ninety cents to my name at this moment,

these rocket scientists have found a way to profit off of my unemployment. Theyare part of an industry that stands between people and the jobs for which they are

qualified, and though they present themselves as the line between the dots, they

dont have business if you arent looking for a job.

Now this brings me back to my ultimate point. Chances are if youve ever looked

for a job, youve heard the term networking. The idea is that you know people,

and other people know people, and if you talk with them about businessy and jobby

stuff, that sooner or later the people that other people know will become peopleyou

know, who will connect you with people theyknow until somebody walks into their

bosses office and makes an inspirational speech about how you will save humanity,

and then youll have a job dropped on your lap.

You know what? This is absolutely true, well, partially absolutely true. People

connect through networks. There are trade societies, unions, companies,

entrepreneurs, all kinds of stuff that meet and talk about the jobs they have and

stuff. Unless you get put on the circle track, and get connected with someone who

connected you previously, then theres a good shot that you will move with this

networking business.

Of course, to meet new people, you need to know people first, and if youre in

college and all the expenses are paid and you did your chores and your homework

and gave thanks for all the many blessings of life, you can meet people throughyour school, locally, the whole shebang. You might even get a job lined up after you

graduate.

But if youre still like me, and you went to college out of state, if you didnt get lucky

with that networking and, though there might be a job out there with your name on

it, but you havent found it yet, when you get your Bachelors degree and go home,

all of those connections evaporate. That isnt even the worst part, because, unless

you had something lined up with Burger King or whatever back home already, you

are going to be unemployed, with expenses, and shit out of luck.

Try networking for free. I dare you. How are you going to make contacts withouttravel, memberships to organizations, or the ability to hire someone to find you

leads? Are you going to network through your parents? Ha, good luck finding

someone who isnt humoring you as a favor to your mom. Youve been gone for

four years and nobody knows you anymore, correction, you havent met anybody

here for four years. You are surrounded by a series of roads, all leading in different

directions, but ultimately arriving at the same place: You waiting and wondering.


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If you took out loans, like me, then you need a job right now, because, if youre like

me, your parents, who couldnt afford to pay for your college, still cant afford to

pay for your college.

Here is a list of four things you cant do for free and without connections:

1. Look for work in another city because you cant afford gas, an apartment

or food.

2. Do an unpaid internship and expect to pay off loans.

3. Get certified in a skill that somebody will actually pay you for.

4. Guarantee that a human being at the company to which you are applying

will look at your resume.

You will not know how you are doing in the job search process. If you have work

online, people may contact you, but they will almost never offer you a job, unlessyoure attractive and its porn. Even if you kick down doors, get pushy, and get

someone to agree to read your resume, they more than likely will tell you to apply

online, call some number, more likely will take your contact info and promise to call

you, but never will. Of course, thats if they havent called security on you.

You wont get a potential employer to take your word that you are qualified,

because youre just some college kid who probably has an entitlement complex and

an addiction to sex, alcohol and the frequent use of, bro in everyday parlance.

You cant say that you have 2-5 years of work in a related field because you have

been in school your entire life, and were lucky to get the part-time, soul sucking,

skill-less job you took to pay your way to a better future. They can afford to nottake a risk on you, because there are 10,000 people who arent you all vying for

that job, and who remembered to put keywords in their resume. To tell you the

truth, the best thing you can do for yourself is get creative. Make something that

will catch peoples attention when their guard is down. Make a movie, draw a great

picture, invent a product. Hell, write a funny article so people will realize you can

be entertaining and informative, because you arent winning any beauty contests,

champ. Not today.

out of state, out of mind - college grad article

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