How are people supposed to get jobs?

[Wulf Ratbane]

Colleges probably should, y'know, warn us liberal arts folks that we ain't gettin' a job in any career that we think matches our degree.

I thought it was assumed you'll just keep circling the bowl of academia.

My advice to the OP echoes what others have said:

1) Focus. Your post reads to me like you can't make up your mind what you want to do.

2) Sharpen your resume. If your resume looks like your post... see above.

3) Know somebody on the inside.

I'm not sure if you mentioned where you live or not, but if you're going to try to land a job that has anything to do with a BA in History or Poly Sci, you better be in a blue state where a degree like that is actually a plus and not a red flag. (See RangerWickett's advice above.)

Spoken by the holder of a Bachelor of Science in English.

 

[wingsandsword]

I thought it was assumed you'll just keep circling the bowl of academia.

My advice to the OP echoes what others have said:

1) Focus. Your post reads to me like you can't make up your mind what you want to do.

I know exactly what I want to do: go to law school and be an attorney, and judging from the high grades I got in my pre-law classes, the high LSAT score I got, and my experience working at a prosecutors office I believe I would be good at this job and enjoy it. Until then ideally I'd like to work as a legal secretary since I've received a lot of advice from attorneys that the best thing you can do to be a good lawyer is to work in a law office for a while first to learn the practical side of the practice of law they don't teach in law school.

However. . .after more than six months of applying for dozens of jobs in that line of work, getting only two interviews, and two irate callbacks from temp agencies from applications saying "you're wasting our time applying for these jobs", and finding that almost all jobs in that field require prior experience and there are very, very few job postings in that line of work that don't require at least two years of experience, I'm quite willing to broaden my scope of the types of jobs I'm willing to work until I can get that kind of job. I know I can work basic IT jobs, I know I was good at working in a library and wouldn't mind doing that again at all, and if I have to I'll work retail, but even those jobs seem to be hard to get.

I just want a job, a simple fracking job at least to pay the bills until then. I'm tired of panicking over bills and having to have my parents and fiancee help me financially. Ideally I'd like a Legal Secretary job, but I know there is a wide variety of jobs I could work at to pay the bills until then. That's the "lack of focus", it's more of a desperation to get any job I can since being focused has been getting me nowhere but broke and frustrated.

 

[Cabled]

I don't mean this to sound harsh, only honest, so please take it as such. Entertain the possibility that your experience in the real working world is so limited that you don't actually know what you want to do, only think you know. And you think it's the legal field. In the mean time, take the first job you are offered. If you have honestly been offerend NO jobs in your searching yet, keep searching...you're in a traditinally bad time to be looking right now, the late winter months after all the holiday broo-hah has gone away, but keep looking.

When you finally have that job you hate, keep looking for something better even as you work, there's no law against that. But don't fall into the self fulfilling prophecy of hating any job not connected with your college education, and miss something you might really find fulfilling just out of spite. More people than not go on to careers unrelated to thier education, and often even beyond thier wildest ideas.

If you see someplace with a help wanted sign, do not go in there to see about getting a job. Go in there to DO the job; show up to work right that very minute. If you're unfamiliar with the place, make a quick fly-by to see how employees are dressed, groomed, etc and then go look like them, and quickly. Then you walk in the door, talk to whoever is in charge and tell them right out, "I see your help wanted sign, and I'm here to help." Yeah, that takes a little chutzpah, but it's how I got the job I've been doing for 21 years...a job unrelated to my degree, and that I didn't even realize existed as I piloted the waters of a late Master's degree program. It wasn't what I "wanted" to do at the time (although when I saw it, it did interest me terribly) And I'm not the only one I know who has gotten in the door that way.

So very often though, getting a job really boils down to just pure, bullheaded perseverance. So keep looking, and understand that the people who seem to have a problem with you looking (like the work agency you spoke of) have the problem, not you.

 

[Cabled]

Sorry, one more thought! It can be easy to resist working a field you didn't get a degree in, because it makes you feel that maybe you wasted your time getting the degree in the first place. To say that though devalues the education you earned in the act of receiving the degree. You may not use the degree(s), but you will use a good deal of your education no matter what you do...it has become part of who you are.

 

[Merkuri]

I found my first "career" job through a friend of my mother. As others have said, sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know.

When I got laid off from that job I sent LOTS of "cold call" letters. My college gave me access to a database where I could search for businesses based on a variety of credentials (I was mostly looking for the location and industry I wanted). From the large list of companies in that database I systematically went through each one, examined their website and looked for any sign of job openings. If there were job openings I tailored my resume and cover letter to the opening, and if there were no openings I sent a generic resume and letter. I sent out ten letters a day. These were physical letters, not emails. I got maybe one or two responses back a week. But then I got one phone interview that stuck. It wasn't in quite the career area I wanted (I was looking for a programming position and got tech support) but I've now been there for three and a half years and just began managing my department.

In my case, brute force worked best. The idea was just to get your name out to as many places as possible and to get in before the job opening was advertised. I learned that for jobs listed on big websites like Monster or CareerBuilder you have to be an absolutely perfect match because they are getting hundreds of applications for their jobs. If you can sneak in your resume just as they realize they need somebody then they may decide you fit well enough and you can save them the effort of sifting through all those apps on Monster.

This method can take months, and may cost you a lot in resume paper, stamps, and saliva (get a sponge - don't lick the envelopes and stamps if you want to keep you tongue intact), but it works. Well, I should say that it worked for me.

Of course, you can keep doing your regular job searching in the meantime. Who knows, eventually you may see that job on Monster for which you're an absolutely perfect fit.

 

[RangerWickett]

When I got laid off from that job I sent LOTS of "cold call" letters.

Hard core.

Ladies and gentlemen, this man did it right.

Me, I'm banking on fame and fortune.

 

[Merkuri]

Ladies and gentlemen, this woman did it right.

Fixed it for you.

 

[drothgery]

This method can take months, and may cost you a lot in resume paper, stamps, and saliva (get a sponge - don't lick the envelopes and stamps if you want to keep you tongue intact),

Err... get envelopes and stamps that don't require licking; the latter are pretty much the default now, and the former aren't significantly more expensive even if you're unemployed.

 

[RangerWickett]

Fixed it for you.

Well played. Next time, Merkuri. Next time.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I know exactly what I want to do: go to law school and be an attorney... I just want a job, a simple fracking job at least to pay the bills until then.

Ahh, no. See, you want a career.

You need a job.

As far as your career goes it sounds like you're on the right track-- you still have school to finish.

So just suck it up and get a job in the meantime.

Deliver pizzas. That's what I did. It paid. Best part of the job was throwing out the enormous lawn-size garbage bags full of stale dough at the end of the night. It was like trying to wrestle an unconscious fat chick into a dumpster.

Or, uh, so I imagined.

At the time.

It's not like I dwell on these things.




Nevermind.