The on-going, dissatisfying, and apparently never-ending job search continues. I continue to go through the painful process of writing dozens of cover letters a day combined with the most ridiculous and inefficient application forms in the world. I completely understand the need to have resumes--documents that highlight your entire life's work in one page(or at least the important crap--everything else is apparently futile). And I understand cover letters to some extent because they allow you to elaborate a little more on why you would be a good fit for the job(and prove that you actually read a little bit about the company).
But I will never understand the purpose of these long, eleven-page applications that ask you overly redundant questions already answered in your resume and/or cover letter about your past five jobs, three work references, your college education, your high school education, your middle school education, your GPAs, your race and ethnicity, what makes you smart and quirky, why you're a team player, how many games of Scrabble have you played in your life, etc. It's just frustrating to spend hours explaining how going to a liberal arts college and writing poetry under a tree(which is what my brother's high school college advisor said about liberal arts and what many employers might think of me) puts you ahead of the pack--the least they can do is send you a simple rejection e-mail.
As disappointing as a college grad's job search can be, every now and then, a silver lining does sneak its way into one's inbox every now and then. One of the companies I was very excited about applying to sent me the following email to help me keep my chin up a bit.
Dear Mr. Utermohlen,
Thank you for your interest in _____.
We have carefully reviewed your qualifications. Although we would like to represent you at this time, based on our clients' needs, we are only able to pursue senior talent that can demonstrate several years of professional creative or production expertise.
You are certainly off to a great start in the creative industry. We would like to encourage you to consider _____ again when you have had the opportunity to further develop your work experience. Good luck in your future endeavors and we wish you great success.
Best regards,
_____
_____
As much as it stings to get rejected, kind words do have the power of easing the pain every now and then, and it can give someone the necessary boost to keep from giving up. And who knows, maybe one day you won't get rejected.
The Other Waiting Game
Although waiting usually sucks, it can be exciting. Really exciting. I completely finished applying to eight grad schools with the intent of pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing several times because of application items I kept forgetting. But I didn't mind those applications at all, and I am not nearly as frustrated about this waiting game than the job one. However, I am much more anxious about it. I am terrified to hear whether or not I get into at least one school(which would be pretty good considering that most top schools only accept 1-3% of its applicants--getting into an MFA program is harder than getting into law school). Besides, having the Masters degree would make the job search a lot less frustrating. Seeing as how the MFA is the terminal degree for Creative Writing, I might actually get a job three short years from now.
Just like the e-mail from the "job" section of this post put a smile in my face, so did a Facebook message I got from a friend recently. For my last piece, I talked about a memory I had of my childhood where all I dreamed about was dunking. As a way of both continuing his neverending productivity and inspiring me to continue writing creatively, my friend and brilliant graphic designer Hector Abreu created the following illustration based off of my post:
Needless to say, it's one of the coolest most uplifting things I've seen in a while. And just like I dreamt of dunking as a kid, I continue to dream about joining the professional world of the written word.
