When I graduated from graduate school in 2015, I’d been a student for the past 20 years, if you count pre-school. Up to that point, I’d worked numerous different jobs such as copy editor of the newspaper, camp counselor, telephone fundraiser, yearbook editor, writing tutor, cake decorator, and—wait for it—a lawn pesticide distributor (for one day), to name a few.
When I walked down the aisle at the University of Kentucky wearing that ridiculous square hat and took my diploma and smiled for the professional picture I was too cheap to buy, I knew this was the real deal. I had been telling people for years that I was going to be a writer, and now I had to prove it.
After all the fanfare ended and my parents went home, and it was just me and my master’s degree and a quiet, empty, college town, I got to work applying for jobs.
I’ve filled out probably a thousand (YOU HEARD ME) job applications in my life. One of the best tricks I can share is as follows: when the application requests you fill out a form detailing every single one of your jobs, simply write “see resume” in the first blank and leave the rest of them…blank. The employer will be amazed at your ingenuity and probably apologize for trying to waste your time while giving you the job and salary of your dreams.
I filled out probably 50 applications those first two weeks. I applied for jobs I wanted. I applied for jobs I didn’t want. I applied for jobs I wasn’t qualified for. I applied for jobs that sounded so cool I actually said a prayer before I sent out the application.
Then I waited. And waited.
Finally, I had an interview.
I took a shower and put on clothes that weren’t pajamas, but I still didn’t get the job.
Then two months passed, and I was still curled up in my chair staring at my computer screen with bloodshot eyes and refreshing my email box over and over.
I jumped when the phone rang. It was my dad. He told me to come home to NJ. Despite the apparent counter-productivity of saying, “Heck with you, stupid applications,” and spending two weeks sitting on the beach, that’s what I did.
Some serendipitously inclined folks give advice like: “Well, sonny, as soon as you give up, you’ll randomly succeed!” I used to make fun of people like that. And I still make fun of people like that.
But anyway.
When I returned to Kentucky at the end of the summer, I got a full-time contract job as a corporate communications writer/editor at an academic medical center. Woo-hoo! A job in my field! At a hospital!
Then I taught journalism at Asbury University, where I went to college. Then I worked as a long-term substitute English teacher. Then I flew to Spain and helped launch the Olympic Channel. Then I came home and decided to run my own business.
So anyway, this might come as a shock, but I don’t know how to get a job without really trying. Sorry the title of the post was completely misleading.
One time in grad school, I stayed up until 5 a.m. writing a paper, and then I waited until 7 a.m. to email it to my professor so he’d think I woke up early to turn it in, not that I’d spent the last eight hours combing it for potential plagiarism. One time an angry elementary school student tried to stab me with scissors while I was serving as a substitute teacher between full-time jobs. One time I got a call from a potential employer before 8 a.m., and it woke me up, so I sat up in bed, cleared my throat, and answered the phone.
Somebody, somewhere, just applied for two jobs after graduation, got one of them, and started two weeks later, but that’s just not what happened for me. SOMETIMES, it just ain’t easy. What would be the fun in that?