Let me explain. I’ve been on the job hunt for a couple of months now. I’ve sent out plenty of resumes and I’m doing ok. I’m not finding the exact jobs that I want, but I’m finding jobs in the industry I want so I’m counting it as a win. Over the course of the past month, I’ve completely scrapped and redone my resume four times and I’ve written over 50 cover letters. I have had interviews with 8 companies, which accumulated to 14 individual interviews. I have consulted my network and built a completely new network in my new city of Nashville, TN.
Job searching is the worst. I was scouring the internet looking for a new position/company that I hadn’t yet applied, and I began to lose hope. Like any good millennial, I decided to take advantage of the internet and look to the people who are supposed to be leaders in their industry. So, I went searching on Google, Quora, LinkedIn, and Medium.
What did I find? A whole bunch of bull. Sure, every little individual snowflake had packaged their precious nuggets of wisdom in different gift boxes, but in the end, you open the box and it’s still a load of crap.
There is one of two types of crap in almost every article that I read.
The first is just pure laziness in writing.
An example would be someone who tells you to check LinkedIn for jobs or they say to consult a mentor.
If another article tells me to spellcheck my resume ONE MORE TIME I’m going to block the author on Twitter. Not because I followed them initially, but because I’m feeling petty and I really don’t want their thoughts to pop up on my feed.
The second is extreme examples that are grossly unhelpful.
When I read that an author applied to 900 jobs and only got 3 interviews, that shows me that you have no resume and cover letter writing skills. Why do I want your advice? Do you know what I think when an author says that they spent 3 years working for absolutely nothing in Silicon valley and living in their parent’s basement, but now they’ve finally worked their way to a dream job? That tells me that they live at a level of privilege that I will never understand or afford.
If as an author you want to suggest a new resume or cover letter making or formatting tool, I’ll read it. Maybe you know something I don’t. Some of the best tools are from little companies not as well-known. (Side note: Have you heard of
JobHero? It’s awesome) If you want to tell me about the hustle you put in and why you took that job as a barista, I’ll read it. If you tell me about how you created discipline in a time of jobless chaos, I’ll read it. Tell me about your networking strategy! If you don’t live in LA or New York I would love to read your story!! Tell me about how you went on a hike to find yourself just so you didn’t come off in interviews as desperate because I’ll read it. We need more of these articles, not just the same rubbish I spent most of this article complaining about.
Once I figure out what works and have the feeling that I’ve made it in some way, my promise is to write an article about job searching that is worth reading.
I’m still hoping to find a great job and that means digging through the muck every now and then. As I move forward I’m going to make it a point to try and be more helpful with my advice. When someone asks a question I hope to be able to give actionable advice in a non-stereotypical form.
Liz Leach 