Email us questions at [email protected], subject line “businesslady.” Previous installments can be found here.
Dear Businesslady,
I am set to graduate on the Annual Dean’s List in June. I will have a B.A. my major being Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences: Politics, Philosophy, & Economics, with a double major in IAS: Law & Policy. These are rather open ended, more general-skills degrees. I can research and write well, and I have some basic proficiency in economics.
What do I do??? Everyone I know says “do what you like” (which is literally zero help) or “What does your degree give you?” (some toilet paper). Should I just bite the bullet and work at McDonald’s for the next ten years? Is there a way I can look for jobs I would be at all good at?
I’m so confused!
Dear Confused,
I’m glad you wrote to me, because the answer is yes.
Yes, you will have to work at McDonald’s for the next ten years, at least. On the plus side, you’ll save money on toilet paper now that you have that diploma!
Okay, I’m teasing you a little bit, but that’s because you remind me a lot of myself when I was finishing up college—young, full of enthusiasm, totally at a loss as to how one gets into a career…and privileged.
I realize that engaging with privilege at the outset of every single advice column would render it an incredibly tedious genre. (“My sister broke my cell phone and won’t apologize!” “You know, some people don’t even have cell phones.”) But before I launch into my how-to manual on career-starting and job-applying, I feel like some kind of caveat is necessary. For every person who uses “McDonald’s” as an example as an undesirable job, there’s someone who actually works there and someone else who submitted an application but never got a call back. For every person who rolls their eyes at the uselessness of their degree, there’s someone who never got to finish college and someone else who never attended it at all
I’m not trying to shame you for what is clearly a lighthearted shorthand, but I want to stress that everyone’s experience is different. Plus, spending some time in the trenches of unglamorous work is pretty much an inevitability regardless of your background. Almost everyone in my circle of friends has a postgraduate degree (except me!), and almost all of them also held retail and/or foodservice jobs at some point (including me). It’s hard out there for a pawn in the capitalist system, folks.
Finally, because I’m coming at this from my own particular perspective, which is just one of many paths into the professional world, I’d like to solicit supplemental advice from the commenters. Did you get into a corporate job without a college degree? Did you work your way up in a less office-y industry, like running a restaurant or making a living as an artist? Does your field have drastically different norms than what I describe below? The more voices we have in this conversation, the more useful ideas we’ll be able to offer one another.
But now, without further ado:
Businesslady’s Finding-a-Job Primer
How Do I Career??
Like Confused above, I graduated college without a clear route to The Job I Would Now Obtain, and my degrees were even more humanities-focused than theirs. But I could also research and write reasonably well, and that—plus being a quick learner with a good attitude—was enough for me to get hired in an administrative role.
My own journey since then has been: admin role at place I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about conceptually→promotion into better admin role→admin role at place I was much more enthusiastic about conceptually→promotion into better admin role→promotion into what I’m doing now (a job I actually really enjoy). This took literally years. And I didn’t just throw “good attitude” in there as a throwaway: paying your dues in a less-exciting job can be your ticket to bigger and better things, but that won’t happen if you radiate palpable disdain.
“Do what you like” makes more sense in theory than in practice, and if everyone took that approach our entire social infrastructure would collapse. Work is, you know, work, and there are going to be times when you have to grit your teeth and get through it. Even if your job was to watch Netflix for a living, you’d find a way to feel annoyed that you weren’t allowed to go outside until you’d finished binge-watching Lost (although if anyone’s hiring for that position, please write to me; I’ve got an excellent work ethic).
Applications
First of all, you have to apply. Apply, apply, apply. I’m old enough that I actually bought a newspaper and circled classified ads when I was job-hunting, which felt like the practice of a bygone age even way back then. While we’re in a mostly virtual realm these days, that’s only diversified the range of places where you can find postings. Check Craigslist, Monster, CareerBuilder, Idealist (for nonprofits), Jobing, Indeed, your local newspapers(’s website; sorry print journalism), and the individual sites for places you might like to work.
Apply for any job with qualifications that remotely align with yours, and don’t be choosy. You have my permission to skip places whose ideologies are overtly incompatible with your own, but beyond that, cast your net as wide as possible. (You might have the option of being a bit pickier further along in your career, but the same principle still stands: the more applications you send out, the more likely it is that one of them is going to generate interest.)
The odds of you of landing a position—or even an interview—right away are slim; the odds of you finding something that’s in an industry you’re super excited about are even slimmer. Think of each application you submit as a coin tossed into a wishing well; if it turns out the way you’ve hoped, you’re lucky; if it doesn’t, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
But just because you’re carpet-bombing prospective employers with your materials, that doesn’t mean you can send the same thing to everyone.
Your resume (more on that later) can stay fairly consistent across multiple opportunities, but even there, you should be paying some attention to the skills you’re highlighting and the ones they’re looking for. If your core strengths are in A, B, C, and D, and a position is mainly looking for D and B with a little bit of C, then your skills should be arranged accordingly: D, B, C, A. Once you’ve made these tweaks enough times, you should eventually have an A-highlighted resume, a B-highlighted resume, and so on, which you can use for future applications with similar specs (but the file you submit should never reveal your secrets; call it something straightforward that doesn’t call attention to its malleability).
You should also submit a tailored cover letter with each application—yes, even if the job ad doesn’t explicitly require it. (If they explicitly say “do not send us a cover letter,” then fine, you’re off the hook. But that’s pretty rare.) I’ll go into more detail on how to approach that further on, but for now: do not fear the cover letter. Anytime I’ve been impressed by a job candidate before meeting with them, that’s been the thing that does it—resumes can only tell you so much, however useful they may be. And the point of your application materials is to make the hiring manager think, “I want to talk to this person and see if they’re right for us.”
Resumes
If you’re fresh out of college, your resume probably shouldn’t be more than a page long unless you’ve got an unusually robust work history. But as soon as you’ve got some experience under your belt, don’t be afraid of going to two pages—and really make the most of that second page. One of my biggest pet peeves is a two-page resume that’s short on details, with a second page that’s only a line or two long. (Conversely, three pages is probably too much at any stage of your career; if you’re struggling to keep things under two pages, it’s probably a sign that you need to drop your earlier positions that are no longer relevant to your current candidacy).
You can pick a style and format that feels right to you, but stay away from anything colorful, gimmicky, or aggressively themed. Not everyone will share your aesthetic, and the goal is to produce a highly readable document that gives hiring managers the info they want with minimal effort on their part. You can narrow the margins (up to about ½”) if that helps you fit everything you want to include, but don’t cram the text together so closely that it’s taxing to the reader’s eye.
After your name and contact info, it’s helpful to have a “skills summary” that lists everything you’re capable of in 3–4 thematically organized bullet points. As I mentioned above, you can reorder these (and/or adjust the language in them as necessary) in response to particular job ads.
From there, list all of your relevant work experience, including titles, dates, and duties. In addition to what you officially handled in each position, you’ll be well-served by including an “accomplishments” section where you highlight things you did particularly well—compliments you received, improvements you made, and so on. If you’re struggling for ideas, think about what you were most proud of, or times when you got good feedback on your work. (It’s cheesy, but I actually have an email folder where I copy things like that, and it’s a really useful resource when I have to do a self-evaluation of my performance: “hmm, what awesome things did I do in the past year?” You’d be surprised how quickly you can forget those little details.)
When you’re writing things up, stay away from obvious filler terms like “team player” (no one’s going to self-identify as a misanthrope in a resume) and unnecessary verbiage. To this latter point, avoid “responsible for” and similar language—instead of “Responsible for managing staff calendars,” just say “Manage staff calendars.” This isn’t just about being concise (although brevity is always your friend in this context); it’s about placing as much emphasis as possible on what you actually did, as opposed to just transcribing your job description. As a friend once put it: “My teenage daughter is responsible for cleaning her room every day. But that doesn’t mean that her room is currently clean.” Don’t just say what was expected of you—explain what you got done.
Cover Letters
A lot of people hate writing cover letters, and I get it—it’s a super-weird genre. But it’s also a chance for you to show some personality and provide a fuller picture of yourself beyond what your resume says, while also drawing direct connections between your experience and the specific job you’re applying for. You’re essentially telling a story to the hiring manager that addresses their questions about you: Why would I like working with this person? More importantly, why might I be interested in talking with them more to see if they’d fit in well here? What do they bring to the table that other candidates don’t?
It’s common to approach cover letters in a stiff, overly formal way, and/or limit the content to “I’m applying for This Particular Position” followed by a resume summary. Doing that essentially wastes an opportunity to explain what you, as an individual, are all about.
I like the Ask a Manager suggestion of “pretend you’re writing to a good friend” (all the tips at that link are stellar, by the way), but keep the audience in mind. It’s frustrating to see cover letters that focus on things like “this job would allow me to get experience in _____”; while that might inform why you’re interested in the position, hiring managers don’t care about the personal growth they can offer you—they want to know what you can offer them. So even as you talk about your enthusiasm for the organization or the work you’d be doing, keep the thesis “…and that’s why you’d be smart to hire me” firmly in mind. Anything that doesn’t support the idea that you’re an excellent candidate (e.g., the office’s proximity to your favorite restaurant or tangential details about your personal life) is superfluous and should be cut.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
All of the above advice remains relatively consistent regardless of the stage you’re at in your career. Sure, your resume gets longer over time, and you can make a more compelling case for your own expertise once you’ve logged more hours in the workplace. But applying for a job means distilling your entire professional persona into a couple of documents, which you then send out, hopefully, into the ether.
The job-search process is about making concessions, and sometimes (all too often) about finding some kind of income-generating position as quickly as possible before you suffer dire financial consequences. But in a perfect world—and sometimes, even, in the real world—the job-search process is about finding a gig that makes the most of your particular talents, where you get along well with your coworkers and actually enjoy the work that you do.
You can’t guarantee that prospective employers will respond well to your application materials, and you can’t guarantee that a job that seems great in theory will be as enjoyable in practice. But the more thoughtful attention you give to your resume and cover letter, the more likely it is that you’ll eventually find your way into a position that’s a good fit—for you, not some hypothetical ideal candidate.
To Confused, and to all the other class-of-’15 grads out there (god I’m old), and to anyone else on the prowl for a new and better position—good luck!! May the road rise up to meet you, I hope you dance, etc. etc. etc.
—Businesslady
Tags: advice, dear businesslady, jobs, work
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Businesslady, you’re a saint and doing yeoman’s work here. Job searching makes me want to die anyway, but this is the best strategy to follow.
Cover letters are really hard to start, so I tend to just start blathering about how awesome I am and then going back to fix the intro afterwards.
And everyone starts out doing crap jobs. It is hard and it sucks and plenty of people won’t even get hired at McDonald’s. Don’t trash retail or food service or whatever. And don’t refer to an office job as a “real job” or a “big girl job” because that not only makes me angry, it makes you sound immature. Real jobs pay real money–working at Starbucks (super competitive in a lot of places!) Doesn’t pay in monopoly money. Be patient. You are not alone.
There was this spectacularly tone-deaf post in the Ottawa subreddit last night – a student fresh out of her first year of law school who wanted leads on a “high-paying summer job” but she didn’t want to work retail or food service because that doesn’t pay enough (and no, she doesn’t speak French, either). Yeah… good luck with that.
I am not trying to say that this letter-writer is also a tone-deaf jerk! I can definitely understand the frustration of finishing a degree only to realize that the only jobs you can get are the same jobs you could probably have gotten straight out of high school, when you didn’t have all this pressure and student debt. But retail isn’t the worst thing ever – at the very least it keeps a roof over your head while you search for the type of work you really want to do.
(I am currently struggling to force myself to write a cover letter and apply for yet another job at the public library that I will be rejected for without so much as a phone screen, so I feel the pain too.)
I don’t know of any “high paying” summer jobs for students anywhere, really, apart from those few-and-far-between summer associate positions with fancy law firms. (And those are lined up WAAAAAY in advance– those firms usually start interviewing on campuses the year before).
The only ones I’ve heard are summer seasonal positions in mining and other work camps. Unsurprisingly, the hot house flowers who would post about wanting a “high paying summer job” that doesn’t involve retail or food service generally aren’t willing to take a job that means hard work with working class people either.
The software engineering summer interns at the company my husband works for make the same hourly rate (or better) that I do in my grownup job. My sister made about the same in materials science at her summer internships. Study STEM, kids. (Oh, and be astoundingly awesome at it too…)
I have a good canned start to cover letters! I always start “I am writing with great enthusiasm to apply for X. I am confident that my (two-three relevant qualities or experience) make me an excellent fit for the position.
I tend to finish on ‘I am confident that the combination of skills and experience I would bring to the role would make me a valuable addition to your team’.
(I have had the same job for 11 years. I hate changing jobs and hate applying, so I feel for you, letter writer!)
So I am a college dropout with three-quarters of a political science/international relations degree and I currently run operations for a small nonprofit. I am 33 years old.
I spent eight years supporting myself by waitressing and bartending and taking awful, I mean spectacularly horrific day jobs. I got a couple of certifications. It took years. YEARS.
I have gotten jobs (including my current position, oh hello impostor syndrome) that I am vastly underqualified for, several times, based on the strength of my cover letters alone. That is not an exaggeration. Here is my secret: I tell stories in my cover letters. Not the lying kind of stories, but the kind that demonstrate my affinity with the organization and involvement in the role. Tell a specific story of a specific instance where your life intersected with that business’s goals. There is no way in hell that I’d have my current job based on resume alone–they never would have understood how important this mission is to me if I hadn’t let them know about my personal history with it, in a compelling and interesting way. My previous work demonstrated an ability to learn fast, so they took a risk on my passion over technical qualifications. It worked.
Which leads me to my second point: Even if you are technically underqualified for a position listed, if you are passionate about the overall mission of the company (could be financial, environmental, journalism, whatever), APPLY FOR IT. Make them listen. You will be a much stronger prospect than someone who is technically qualified but couldn’t give a shit about what the company’s goals are.
Good luck and Godspeed.
Yes, don’t be afraid to apply for jobs you are enthusiastic about but somewhat underqualified for. I read something once about how men apply for jobs where they meet only some of the qualifications, but women feel like they have to be everything listed on the posting before they can apply. Just apply! The worst thing that will happen is that you will get no reply. But maybe they won’t get anyone that matches their ideal candidate so they’ll call you, or they’ll have another position you’d be perfect for, or they’ll know someone else who is looking for someone like you, or they’ll be intrigued enough to call you anyway, etc. etc.
Exactly. Especially if you’re in a smaller community, those networks can run really strong. The nonprofits network up here is super tightly knit–all the EDs know each other and work together on grants and stuff–so by applying to one you basically apply to all of them.
Pretty much every worthwhile job I’ve ever had, I’ve learned how to do the stuff in the job requirements after getting hired when I could get paid to try it out. ‘Eh, close enough’ is absolutely a thing
This was great to read– one of my best friends is struggling to get through college right now (he’s been in community college for years but is having trouble getting into a four-year school because he has a very bad period on his transcript, due to truly awful life events), and it can be so hard for him to believe that he can still be OK and have a great career. I might have to send your whole comment to him.
Please do! It certainly hasn’t been easy and I don’t know that I’d recommend it to everyone, but it’s been a heck of a ride for me and now I have a career that is honestly pretty great. MrChouffe also lacks a degree and has done rather well. The other thing to tell him is that jobs simply don’t all look the same, and can come out of nowhere/left field when you least expect them. Before being laid off this winter, MrChouffe held a job for seven years that he got by asking a couple of friends if they knew of anything, and one said yes, and he started the next day. Turns out that the job he just got this week (thank jeebus) uses the exact same skill set. You just never know.
100% this, but small caveat – if the underqualification takes the form of not having the degree required for the position, pause and do some research. This is especially true if they don’t make a mention of experience being an acceptable alternative somewhere in the position description.
I say this from libraryland, where we toss out a lot of applications from people who don’t take a cursory look at the structure of the LIS profession. I imagine it applies in other fields, too.
This is certainly a factor–LIS is a good example, engineering is another one, a lot of the hard sciences and for specific positions within those fields, definitely. I’m only speaking from the humanities/”soft science” perspective.
I kind of hate to ask this but I really want to understand. Can you give an example of what you mean about telling a story in the cover letter? If this is the job posting, what kind of hypothetical response would you craft? Or respond to any other imaginary job posting! I’m not attached to this sample. I do really want to understand what you mean.
Posting: Corporate Paralegal at [prestigious international law firm]. One year corporate paralegal experience or recent graduate of accreditation program. Document drafting, incorporations, preparation of filings, and creation and maintenance of client records. Experience in financings, mergers/acquisitions, and initial public offerings.Maintain minute books and corporate records. Manage private company stock plans including drafting stock purchase or stock option agreements and issuing options, grants, and stock certificates.
I think the legal field is rather different, in that it tends to be pretty conservative when it comes to resume formats and cover letters. (Especially if you’re talking about white-shoe firms and corporate law).
I think Mrs_Peel is right in that the legal field may be more conservative than other industries, but that doesn’t mean a cover letter can’t be relatable or have a story element. What led you to take a paralegal certification? Was it a specific case, or a type of law that you felt compelled to know more about? This listing seems to be a lot about the financial side of the laws–are you particularly good at financial transactions? How did you get that way?
Those are the type of questions I usually ask myself when I’m writing a cover for something I feel really strongly about. If I can figure out the root of my interest in the position or company, there’s a good chance it’s a story that can add just that little bit of extra oomph.
(I actually applied for a legal assistant job a few years ago, and a big part of my cover letter had to do with watching Law & Order during high school, and being so blown away by the power of law that it affected my major and course track because I’d planned on law school, took the LSAT and did well, and life got in the way of finishing that goal but the passion for law was still there. I had two excellent interviews with them before they decided I was overqualified.)
This is hugely helpful, thank you! That posting is an amalgamation of typical corporate paralegal postings. And it is really dry and conservative.
But I see what you’re saying about looking for the root of my interest. I happen to love insanely detail-oriented work. I would’ve probably been a carpet weaver or pointillist painter in another era. Give me anything that requires minute organization and I will shut myself in my office, come out a day later, and present you spreadsheets, documents, and an organized data room.
I don’t know. I think I’m crazy. I like organizing things. Is that a passion? I like making things that don’t seem to have any coherence fall into place and tell a complete story. You can recreate the history of an organization from founders through to IPO if you have enough records. And there’s a story to tell there, from the lucky secretary who will now be rich in the IPO because someone gave her options and she stayed, to the three VPs they went through and each of their severances. It’s like detective work. It’s actually a lot of fun.
So yes, I can tell the story that I like to see the stories of companies. I like that. Thank you!
But clearly you already DO know how to write about your job in an engaging way. Just look at this thing that you wrote:
“I happen to love insanely detail-oriented work. I would’ve probably been a carpet weaver or pointillist painter in another era. Give me anything that requires minute organization and I will shut myself in my office, come out a day later, and present you spreadsheets, documents, and an organized data room. I like making things that don’t seem to have any coherence fall into place and tell a complete story.”
IT IS AWESOME. Put it in your cover letter! Consider changing “insanely” to “incredibly”, possibly take out the carpet weaving sentence if the workplace seems really conservative, but otherwise I think you’re good to go.
See above–yes, this is exactly what I mean.
As a frequent jobhunter who has jumped from one career “ladder” to another more than once, I think this advice is spot on and thorough. Job searching at the beginning of a career trajectory requires a lot of tenacity and sheer luck. The good news is: every application, interview, and new job you take during this period is going to be a learning experience! You will have plenty of opportunities to reassess your career trajectory and goals later. Right now your career goal can be to try lots of things and learn a lot. And there is zero shame in taking minimum wage and unglamorous jobs. You’ll find that most jobs, even a bit higher-income ones, are pretty unglamorous.
To the practical advice I would add: when you’re applying for entry level jobs (which you necessarily must , educated though you may be), tailor your cover letter to specifically address the specific qualifications listed in the job posting, using their exact language when possible. Imagine that the hiring manager for the position is busy and hassled, imagine that the position has been open for awhile and the manager is swamped and dreading having to train someone new for the position. Do everything you can to reassure the person reading your resume that you have the experience needed to transition smoothly into the role.
It’s a catch-22, because at the beginning of your career you don’t have a lot of experience, and yet the jobs you’re applying to are often going to be ones with the least available administrative support or professional development. (In many cases, you will be applying to become the administrative support.) The more cover letters you write, the easier this gets–you start getting the vocabulary and language to talk about your own experiences in ways that convey your abilities. I often point people to these exercises I took early on in my last career change–they helped me tell stories about my professional qualifications more effectively.
“…specifically address the specific qualifications listed in the job posting, using their exact language when possible.”
This can be a way to get past the first round of culling for online applications with hundreds of applicants, where (due to sheer volume) an automated keyword search is often employed.
I really wish there was a Toast job board…
Can someone please make this happen?
If you really have no idea what you want to do, I think you should also consider internships (paid or unpaid). They are usually good ways to get into an industry you may be interested in, and they’re usually limited in time–3-6 months. So, if you decide you hate it, your commitment is short. When I started my career, I got my first few jobs because of internships (either the internship led directly to a job, or my intern boss knew somebody who could offer me a job). And, there are usually internship opportunities for recent grads.
Seconded, even if it’s an unpaid internship. I think the unpaid intern economy is a damn shame and I always feel bad for encouraging young people to work for free, but honestly it is one of the best and most direct ways to obtain experience and insight into the fields that interest you.
I also agree. After college I wanted to go into international economic development or some such thing. I ended up interning at an NGO and realized that it was not for me. (For starters, I’d have to get at least a masters in economics, which was not going to happen.) That was a very valuable life lesson and prevented me from chasing waterfalls, even though I worked for free.
I have to disagree about the unpaid internship and say that unless you’re comfortable financially and the work is giving you really useful contacts and experience (and I mean REALLY useful), you need to avoid unpaid internships. More and more businesses and organizations are using these positions to basically get free labor. I know when one is unemployed and increasingly desperate the rhetoric sounds convincing, but you’re really just devaluing your own worth as a worker. From Forbes:
“The National Association of Colleges and Employers conducted a recent survey that questioned the correlation between internships and full employment upon graduation.The findings were astonishing. Hiring rates for those who had chosen to complete an unpaid internship (37%) were almost the same for those who had not completed any internship at all (35%). Students who had any history of a paid internship, on the other hand, were far more likely (63%) to secure employment.
What’s even more astonishing is the pay disparity between those with paid, unpaid, and no internships. Those with unpaid internships tended to take lower-paying jobs than those with no internship experience whatsoever ($35,721 and $37,087, respectively). Students with paid internships far outpaced their peers with an average $51,930 salary.”
If you’re not getting paid, I’d say taking a crap job while volunteering in your field on the side is a better bet for your time.
Hello, I am a refugee from another time. I had three (three!) paid internships in Print Journalism (!) in the early 2000s. And now, many of the skills I learned at those jobs are completely irrelevant not only to my current work, but also to the modern media landscape as a whole.
THAT BEING SAID. Because I worked in newsrooms (one of which hadn’t fully made the jump to digital yet), I can relate to the higher-ups in my current business better. A lot of the senior people in PR/Marketing roles are in their 50s-60s and cut their teeth in the newspaper industry when it was still powerful and glamorous. They want to swap stories about late nights and scoops and wax pagination and developing photos in darkrooms (ask your grandparents?). I have those stories because I took those internships even though I would rather cut off my own hands than have a career as a reporter.
So, you know, it isn’t the end of the world to start out in a job/industry only tangentially related to the one you want to be in. The important thing in your 20s is to get experience, form good work habits and build your network.
I’ve gotten a job through Craigslist before (a real one!) You have to be careful, obviously, since there are scams there, but there are actually some legitimate jobs. In the legal field, it’s not uncommon for smaller and mid-size firms to advertise there (e.g., for legal secretaries and so on). I would try there.
I’ve also had pretty good luck getting jobs through employment agencies. It’s admittedly not the most secure work, and sometimes they just need someone for a few months or a year. But I have had jobs where I started as a temp and was hired on permanently after that. (Including my current job of five years). Temping is a good way to start out and build a resume, if you don’t have much experience.
Seconding the craigslist. I’ve gotten two jobs there, one of which I still do part time. You just have to use your head while looking there.
Temping is also a good way to get a taste of a variety of industries/jobs. You can learn about what kind of work and work cultures you prefer while also improving your skill set.
I know this doesn’t work for everyone, but I had awesome luck at a small employment agency. It’s kind of nice to go to a place where you can actually talk to the people and have an honest conversation about what you do or don’t want to do. That’s how I got my current job (which I love, and wouldn’t have found out about or applied to otherwise).
Employment agencies seem like a crapshoot. A couple of weeks ago I saw a posting for a govt job in my field through a local employment agency. They required a Master’s degree, at least 5 years of experience and Secret-level security clearance… and the salary was 20 cents above minimum wage, less than 1/3 of the gross pay you’d take home if you had that same job but worked directly for the government.
Agencies can be a good way to get your foot in the door but you might end up making more money as a server or bartender.
Oh, absolutely. I had only middling luck with them when I was in Boston but GREAT luck here in DC. In fact, my company typically only hires from this particular employment agency, so it’s an opportunity I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I also think it’s not the route I would go if I had specific job skills or a particular career path in mind. As it was, I had an irrelevant degree from a decent college and no idea what I wanted to do. I think it also helped that I went to a small, very personalized employment firm — in Boston, I was at one of those huge corporate places that barely knew my name.
I worked in a federal office through a private employment agency for about four years– I’m sure it does vary a lot, but we actually got paid quite well and had good benefits. (In some cases, we actually made a bit more than the comparable federal staff, but had less job security).
Even if you do end up with lower pay for a while, though, I’d say it’s still a good move if you really want a federal job someday.
There’s a *ton* of competition for entry-level federal jobs. If you don’t have (say) a veterans’ preference, or a master’s/ PhD/ JD/ MD/ etc. to get you into a higher GS level position, it’s going to be tricky to get a federal job by applying directly. (And the process takes *foreeeeever*). A number of my co-workers who started as contractors did get full-time federal jobs, once they got that initial foot in the door and a few years of experience.
I might be misinformed here, but somebody in our staffing department told me that the way it works for the (Canadian) federal government is that when they hire through an employment agency, they pay the agency as much as they would pay a direct hire and it’s at the agency’s discretion how much of that money they’ll pass on to the employee.
I applied directly for both of the government jobs I’ve had, but that was after doing a paid internship through my grad school.
I could see how that would suck!
At the place I worked, I think the government ended up spending the same amount or more on their temp staff (compared to a federal employee). The main advantage for them was that they had the flexibility to lay people off if needed, since the federal employees had more union and job protections. Also, I assume they end up paying a lot less in benefits and pensions over the long run.
In my experience agencies rarely pan out–you can sign up for literally dozens of them in my city, and make no mistake, they will be happy to sign you up, but 95% of them will never call you for any actual jobs. That said, agencies are great interview practice, and when agencies did pan out for me, it was because I was able to find out (through a friend) which specific agencies were working with the company/industry I was trying to get into.
A good friend of mine never ended up going to college, he started taking community college classes after high school but stopped when he started working. He ended up doing contract work for Microsoft for several years and now works full-time at another tech-ish company and is doing really well.
Actually both he and I work in tech jobs, and that has way more to do with playing with computers growing up (including building or own computers, installing the OS, etc) than our formal educations (I have a degree in Physics which I don’t use at all).
I got my job by applying to my University’s temp agency, bounced around a couple times, then when my dept found out I had IT applicable skills they hired my on a temp basis to IT which lead to a full time position. Actually the front desk position I temped for here has been a stepping stone to full-time jobs in the dept for everyone who has worked in that position since.
Also, pro-tip: if you’re a broke and starving young person just starting out (with a limited food budget), working for restaurants or caterers is a great thing because they usually feed you.
(Catering work is also a nice way to make some supplemental income, because it’s often just occasional evenings or weekends that you can fit in around another job. At least, that was my experience).
Third tip: Whatever you do, DON’T GO TO LAW SCHOOL.
This is the MOST IMPORTANT tip. I ignored this tip – learn from me, children.
I’m willing to make a personal phone call to anyone in the US, on my own dime, to talk them out of going to law school. I consider it part of my pro bono work.
Same. I’m willing to show them my tragic bank statements and slim hope of retirement (I work in education policy now) as all of my cash goes to almost unbelievably large loan payments. Don’t do it, kids. Don’t. Do. It.
Really? Please talk me out of going to law school. I’m not really seriously considering it, not the way I was considering getting a Ph.D. in English before some kind souls on the internet talked me out of that, but it’s always on the back burner of my mind, the thought: I spent two years on a totally worthless Master’s in English when I could have just spent three years in law school and had a degree that actually qualifies you for something. And then I think, you know, three years isn’t that much, maybe I should just do it. So no, I shouldn’t? My dad always says not to, but that’s because he hated law school with a passion, not because of anything having to do with his career.
I didn’t go to law school, but I work with and am friends with lawyers, and the biggest deterrent for me is the money. First-year associates don’t actually make all that much (I mean, well above the median, but not instant riches), and the debt is CRUSHING – I know more than one person whose debt load is over $100,000. It’s a little disappointing, because I think law is fascinating, but I think a better approach for a lot of people is to get a master’s in something tangential – policy, public administration, social work – that will allow you to do law-related things but cost you literally 10% as much.
My advice is do not go to law school if you do not want to be a lawyer. Also, do not go to law school if you want to be a rich person, unless someone is paying for you to attend school.
I am a 2014 grad. I have $160k in law school debt. I am currently looking for associate positions that pay in the $60-75k area. These are positions that do not qualify for loan forgiveness, so I’m sure you can do that math. I fully intend on paying off my loans into my 50s. I will never be a rich person.
BUT I wanted to be a lawyer. I love the law. I am looking at lower paid associate positions because I am looking for jobs in rural areas. I knew going in that my loan burden would be high and my salary would not likely be much. But I was previously a full time barista with no other way out that I could stand. The year before I started law school I made $17,000. So for me, even with the loan burden, it was a step up. Yes, I could probably make more money and build more wealth in a different field. But this makes me happy. So, yes, sometimes law school is an okay choice. But you have to go in with your eyes open, and it is no longer a good fallback option for folks who just don’t know what else they want to do.
ETA: I’m not unemployed now. I am clerking in a rural area. If you are willing to live rurally, there are still lots of places that need lawyers.
ETA #2: Geez, I sure am defensive!! TL;DR probably don’t go to law school.
The time factor is almost the least important consideration, IMO. The main issues are that the job market is terrible, having six-figure, non-dischargeable debt is terrible, and even many attorneys who *are* gainfully employed think their jobs are terrible.
I wouldn’t advise anyone to go to law school, with the following exceptions:
1.) You’re offered a 100%, guaranteed free ride for all three years;
2.) You’ve always dreamed of being a lawyer and will never be happy doing anything else;
3.) You have a strong STEM or finance background and want to go into patent/ IP or tax law (where there are actually good jobs to be had); and/or
4.) You have a job waiting for you at a specific firm (e.g., with relatives or family friends) after you graduate.
Do you say this solely because debt?
Mostly the debt, yes. (I’ll be paying until I’m well into my 50s or 60s, and will probably never be able to afford to have kids). And also the terrible job market.
I’m one of the lucky ones, in some respects– I have a job that I actually like and find interesting, with reasonable (40-45 hour/ week) hours and government holidays off. But the majority of the attorneys I know hate their jobs and/or work crazy hours.
Another “talk me out of going to law school” comment. I want to do public interest work, maybe civil legal services, so I’m not looking to work at a firm.
I would say that public interest work is actually one of the most competitive areas to get into. Particularly if you don’t want to do criminal defense, if you aren’t bilingual, and if you aren’t willing to live outside of a large urban area.
It’s hard for a variety of reasons, but mostly because public interest organizations do not have a ton of money, so they can’t really afford to hire that many people. Whereas big law firms can generally hire new associates every year. A lot of my friends who work in public interest not only had to find a job, they had to find a separate organization who was willing to supply the money to pay them to do that job. And, at least in the city where my law school was located, they had to compete with a lot of the best students who also went to school to do public interest work. It takes a lot of hustle.
A big “yes” on the bilingual thing- that’s a huge advantage in most parts of the country.
I went to law school specifically to work in the non-profit/ government sector. I have had some really great experiences (e.g., clerking at the ACLU, working in a free clinic where I felt like I was really helping people in concrete ways, etc.)
That being said–
With the average law school debt, it’s impossible for most people to maintain even a bare minimum standard of living and work at a non-profit. Even with the new repayment and loan forgiveness options, it’s *very* tough. You really have to crunch the numbers, and possibly commit to watching every penny, never buying a house, etc., for decades to come. The starting salary for attorneys at many non-profits is in the $32-$35K region. I still have almost $150K in debt, and (even with the forgiveness options) I just can’t afford to do that kind of work again for another 25-30 years.
I ended up working primarily in the government sector, where average salaries are a bit higher. Right now, I’m working for a private company that does a lot of government contracting. I do enjoy it, but it’s definitely not the kind of Legal Aid work that I envisioned when I decided to go to law school. I find it interesting, but I am a bit of a bureaucratic cog in a giant machine.
Also, getting a job at a non-profit is *extremely* competitive these days. With the contraction in the legal job market, there are many more people applying for each position. Also, the economic slump and decline in charitable giving have hit non-profits hard– many of them have hiring freezes in effect.
My two cents: if you really want to work at non-profits and help people in a more direct manner, I’d look at jobs that don’t require a law degree. There’s a huge need for people who are good at fundraising, database management and IT stuff, etc. Or, if you are interested in the law, I’d stick with a paralegal certification. Paralegals often end up doing a lot of the same work, without the massive debt load.
Agreed! Don’t do it. I didn’t do it, but only by a slim chance. I fully intended to go, had planned my junior and senior year classes and internships around going, was preparing for the LSAT, aced the practice exams, and was signing up for the full exam. It was a done deal.
Then a lawyer friend said, “Huh, so you want to be a lawyer? Okay, well my best professional advice is work at a law firm for year. It will look GRRREAT on your applications!”
So I did it. And within months realized I would never go to law school.
[Lawyer friend knew what he was doing. Ohhhh did he know.]
The practice of law has so little to do with the theory and philosophy of law as taught in law school that graduating JDs come into the market with basically zero applicable job skills. It’s as if medical school were all about the philosophy of the nervous system and making drawings of the skeletal structure, while learning little to nothing about how to diagnose the common cold or perform surgery.
That means the first 3 – 5 years of law firm experience are learning on the job which looks more like baptism-by-fire. New attorneys work 60-75 hour weeks, 52 weeks a year, for 3-5 years, with no paid overtime. And for the first year or two years they have no idea what they’re doing.
After 2008, the legal market went from a seller’s market where partners told clients their rates and clients signed, to a buyer’s market where clients will edit bills to the last nth, cross out whole pages, and simply not pay what they will not pay. The skin this pound of flesh comes out of is the junior associate’s. All attorneys now are gruelingly overworked, under unhealthy levels of pressure, and have no time left to train the junior associates how to do the work that needs to be done.
Finally, the work itself itself can be terribly boring. Today, as a paralegal, I know more about the practice of law than incoming junior associates. They will never again write the briefs they were taught to write in law school. And when the senior partner says, “Hey, incorporate my friend’s business, we’re going to charge him half price, and get his stock ledger set up, bank account opened, stock plan drafted, and the entity qualified in our state, oh and learn their business model and set them up with a long view to an acquisition in 3 years by Big Company X” they have not the first clue how to actually perform the legal work they’ve been assigned. They have to come to the paralegal to be trained. Believe me, the practice of law is far more administrative than it is intellectually challenging or rewarding.
I tell my attorneys they are Customer Service Representatives for the Law. And they laugh, because it’s true. Clients don’t come to attorneys because they’re having a great day and need someone to chat to. They come to attorneys because the attorney is the interface with an overarching legal justice system the average citizen has no idea how to interact with effectively.
Even when it’s not a divorce case, child custody battle, commercial litigation, or other adversarial event, no one comes to an attorney to do something they know how to do for themselves. They come because they need that customer service rep to hold their hand, explain to them what they’re going to do to fix their problem, file documents, enter things into systems, and solve things.
Do you like calling your cell phone provider and waiting on hold, and then going over your bill with those folks in customer service? Nope, neither do I. Well this work is what attorneys do, on an intricate level, within the legal justice system, for their clients. And too often clients resent attorneys, talk badly about them behind their back, and fail to really understand or appreciate the lengths to which their attorney has gone to solve their (sometimes self-created) problems.
Don’t go to law school. Don’t do it. I’m so glad I didn’t. And if any attorneys need a tip on how to keep others from doing it, do what my attorney friend did, tell them to work at a law firm for a year. It works!
So, SO well put. I, too, got a law-firm job out of college to kill time and get some experience before applying to law school – I even went as far as taking the LSAT before I woke up and realized that the reality of being a lawyer was a far cry from the fantasy I’d had. (And this was in 2003, back when going to law school was still a good idea and young lawyers could reasonably expect to get jobs with little difficulty.) I actually still work in legal – it’s not where I thought I’d be at this age, but I have job security, many years experience with easily transportable skills, I make pretty good money and have great benefits, and at 5pm I leave work behind and have time and energy to live my life – which is more then most of my associates can say. Sure they probably make more money than I do, but when I go on vacation I get to BE on vacation.
If you are called to the law – the way some people are called to medicine or the priesthood or art – then by all means go for it, but if you are at all unsure then go do anything else for a living.
Yes, all of this. I got through the LSAT and had a stark realization that life as an attorney would preclude life as anything else (ie, a person) and veered off track for most of my 20s.
Missy G, I absolutely LOVE what you’re saying about customer service in the law. One of my absolute favorite things to talk about in interviews (and it’s something I learned through fire) is that every job is a customer service job, even if you don’t think it is/ Everyone’s doing something for someone else–internal, external, clients, patients, you name it.
“The practice of law has so little to do with the theory and philosophy of law as taught in law school that graduating JDs come into the market with basically zero applicable job skills.”
Absolutely true. I was extremely fortunate that my law school had a great law clinic, where we worked with actual clients doing the work of real attorneys. I think that should be compulsory, really. (Or a period of apprenticeship after graduation).
I will say that (despite what I said above about not going into non-profit law) the nice thing about working for a non-profit is that they throw you into the deep end right away. You do get a certain level of supervision, but they want you handling clients and doing real work by yourself ASAP.
(I agree with all the rest of that, too!)
Networking is key. Temping, volunteer work and joining relevant professional/social organizations are good ways to find (and for god’s sake impress) people who will let you know about a job and even recommend you. I’m socially awkward so this was a big challenge for me but ultimately I got the awesome job I have now because I’ve always had a solid work ethic and I knew people in the company that now employs me. Nobody is too good to work so don’t expect to get THE job and pass up learning opportunities because an offer is less than Barbie’s Dream Job.
oh, man, networking. The last three jobs I have had I got because I knew someone. Yes, I still had to apply and interview, but I would not have known about them if someone else hadn’t told me about them, and having the recommendation of someone who is a known quantity can help a lot.
Yes, so much yes! I hate how much networking is key. I hate it so much. BUT that’s exactly how I got my job. I learned about the position from my now-coworker via a professional meeting, later started volunteering with the organization as a sexual assault advocate in the hospitals, then found out that I knew my now-supervisor through my grad school practicum. They hired me because they knew me, my background, and my personality.
It was exhausting, but definitely a major lesson in the importance of networking.
(I want to add that I had a few part time gigs before landing this job: A/V worker at grad school, baby-sitter, and prep baker. I also had a back-up kitchen/baking job lined up in case I didn’t get hired here, and I was able to get that position because I knew them via the baking job. So much connection and networking even for the part time gigs!)
I agree with all this advice so hard. As a recent grad (2012), I graduated with a science degree because I loved my subject but was not particularly interested in moving forward with it in Academia, and with just a BA that leaves lab jobs…. I’m a fieldwork kinda person, and those jobs are 1. hard and 2. seasonal, usually.
Advice from my own experience- follow wherever you have leads. I ended up working at my alma mater because the person I used to dog walk for as a student advocated for a temp job for me there, which translated into a full time admin position, which ~2 years later translated into a better full time position. Am I doing what I love 100% of the time every day? no. Do I find it interesting and challenging most of the time? Yes. Do I like earning a steady paycheck in a positive environment more than I am interested in Pursuing My Dreams? yes. Do I like having access to free food sometimes which I take without guilt because I am a Former Student? yesyesyes.
You probably won’t like your first job, but that’s ok because it won’t be your job forever, just whatever you do LEARN from what you like/don’t like about your first job, and apply accordingly.
I’ve got a humanities degree that’s even more useless than the average(Classical Piano Performance!), and after getting a job as a grunt-level debt collector in a call center I’ve worked my way up to Vice President of the company. The most important thing I can tell you about how to work your way upwards is: learn as much as you can. Talk to the managers and the IT guys, get them to show you how the systems work. Make it clear you’re interested in how the company works, and if possible figure out a couple of ways to improve things. Ask if you can take over a few of the more tedious system duties to relieve the strain on the manager.
It’s a double-whammy, because not only are you making yourself indispensable(especially if the manager leaves the company, leaving you as the sole heir of their systems knowledge), but if you ever decide to leave the company you will have a huge list of skills that you didn’t before.
I graduated with a bachelor’s in English, so I understand the anxiety of “OH NO MY DEGREE IS USELESS EVEN GARRISON KEILLOR THINKS SO.”
But the thing is, in a lot of office jobs the specific degree doesn’t matter all that much. Companies are mostly just looking for any college degree at all because they see a degree as an indication that you have some amount of mental discipline, work ethic, and critical thinking skills.
So here’s what helped me with finding a job:
1) Having a summer job, any job. I was lucky because my father was able to help me get a job at a coworker’s brother’s tiny consulting firm. But any job is good because employers are inherently suspicious of gaps on your resume.
2) Work-study! You can totally include that on your resume! Who cares if you were getting paid peanuts and it was technically part of your financial aid package? You were still working!
3) Same with volunteer stuff. When I was first job-hunting I included my stint volunteering at a women’s shelter, even though it was for class credit and it was for only a few months. It allowed me to show a broader skill base, and it reflects well on your ethics.
Absolutely include any work-ish experience, even if it’s not paid work – make sure to highlight the work-relevant things you did, like “stay calm in difficult situations” or “manage fundraising event” or “show up when I said I would”
Depending where you live and how cool you are with uncertainty in your life, temping might be a good thing. You get to try out different workplaces and organizations and roles and make tons of contacts. Bonus, if they like you, they might reach out to you directly the next time they’re hiring down the stretch. PLUS if you end up in a toxic workplace or similar your agency can hopefully pull you out of that nonsense real quick.
I think my one tip that wasn’t covered above is more of a word of encouragement: you don’t know what will ultimately give you the edge in the hiring process. I got my first full-time job in part because I had worked as a camp counselor for four summers straight, and the woman who would become my boss had worked as a camp counselor in her youth and knew firsthand how good camp counselors have to be at keeping calm under pressure.
I did conservation and disaster response when I served in AmeriCorps. Part of the gig meant that I had to learn how to operate a chainsaw. Let me tell you, I keep my chainsaw experience and certs on all my resumes regardless of field because it’s unique (if I’m not applying for conservation work, anyway). And people ask me about it. And then we have good conversations in the interview and I can talk about how the skill and the work I did then applies to the job now.
Plus people really like hearing chainsaw stories. For real.
That does seem like a great conversation starter! I, for one, would love to hear some good chainsaw stories if I was interviewing someone.
I volunteered at a film museum for several years when I was a teenager, where I did a lot of hands-on work in the archives (e.g., inspecting, repairing, and shipping 35mm films).
I kept it on my resume for a long time (even when it became fairly irrelevant to my job), because it’s a beloved local institution and people always seemed to want to talk about it.
One suggestion: if you are staying in the same area as your school, apply for jobs there! I work in higher ed admin and a LOT of new grads work as full-time employees in the first-rung positions (admins, receptionists, and so forth). This is a great way to get experience in a familiar environment.
“You have my permission to skip places whose ideologies are overtly incompatible with your own”
This, plus, if you interview somewhere and get a Bad Feeling, it’s OK to turn the job down sometimes. You need to make your own determination about where you are, financially, but I wish wish wish I had not taken the job with the evil bully yelling boss that gave me (no shit) PTSD. I also wish I hadn’t worked for two years for the Catholic Church, where nobody yelled and everyone was nice but which ultimately did as much damage as 8 months of being bullied. Holding your tongue and working on things that you actively, passionately oppose (I planned and attended TWO trips to the March for Life [sic]) takes its toll on you, mentally and physically.
I know it’s counter to the advice that everyone’s parents give but you have to remember that you are interviewing them too. If you’ve never had a truly terrible job, it’s hard to imagine the serious damage that it can do to you. Listen to your gut!
Thank you for that, I got a “oh we would love to have you please email us” sort of interview offer but when I looked it up saw catholic affiliate org and just told my husband I couldn’t do it, even for job in my field on the beach. I am already in a “well it is okay” job, i don’t need another.
Protip: when the senior admin, during a full day of scheduled interviews, tells you to seriously, seriously think about whether or not you want this job, this is not a test, she is being serious, and you should deeply consider why she checked to make sure whether her boss (and potentially yours) was within hearing range before asking you this.
I am actually relieved that the government sequester resulted in me being laid off eight months into that job, because the boss was terrible and left me feeling shaky and incompetent every moment we worked together.
Another good reason to always be nice to everyone involved in the hiring process, even the receptionist: they can give you insider knowledge and potentially save you some time (and mental anguish).
ESPECIALLY the receptionist. When I was the office manager in a staffing agency, I would actually sit at the front desk and vet possible candidates on how they treated me. My boss wouldn’t send any candidates to interviews that I didn’t approve, because their behavior could reflect poorly on us. And I did turn away a couple of highly qualified people.
I don’t have any real advice, because I’m also a recent grad with a liberal arts degree trying to find a permanent job…..but I just wanted to say thank you for a real, down to earth piece about jobhunting. When I’m really down, I tend to google things like “how to find job in [my field] w/o masters” or “cover letter writing”, and so much of the advice is super dated, restricted to one particular field, or just crappy advertising for a career counselor.
Oh man, career advice is something I’ll always read. This is some good stuff, Businesslady.
My two cents:
Work your networks! Post on Facebook or Twitter or whatever you use that you’re looking. Write up a brief outline of what you’re looking for—a full-time office gig, a part-time fundraising thing, whatever—and ask folks to recommend their favourite places to work, loop you in on job postings, and also wish you good luck.
This is really great cover letter walkthrough, which I’ve totally referenced multiple times in my own search, and got great feedback on.
Also, volunteer. Even when you’re working, find something you love doing and give your time to it. This opens up your professional networks, gives you new skills, grabs another reference for potential employers to call, and is generally a great resume builder. I have an English degree, but it was my five years of sitting on a co-op housing board in my twenties that started to get me in the door. Also, volunteering is an awesome way to keep you involved and invested in the type of work you’d like to be doing long-term, especially if you’re initially working post-graduation jobs that don’t feed your soul.
I am graduating in May and a job opened up in my area that is my dream job and I not only have all of the qualifications, I actually know someone who works for the organization. I am hoping to at least get an interview, so this advice was very timely! Thanks to all the commenters as well for their input, I will definitely be using it as I apply.
I’m surprised to read the resume advice– I have been operating on the “one page no matter what” assumption and I have 7 years of work experience. Though I guess when I move on to my next position it will get to the point where one page will be a lot harder.
I think the one-page resume is partly a hold-out when people could expect to have maybe two or three jobs in their whole career, so you could devote a quarter of a page to each one & still have room for other stuff. Now that so many people have more/different/overlapping jobs, you don’t have room to cram everything on one page.
That’s a good point. I’ve been sent lots of poorly formatted way too long resumes but never felt like a one-pager needed to be longer, but I’m not bothered by well-done two pagers either. Probably mine is about to make the jump to two pages.
I was wondering about that, too. I was still being told to keep it to one page when I was in law school about 7-8 years ago.
ETA: Oh God, it was actually 10 years ago. I’m An Old now.
It also depends on the kind of job. Academic CVs are never one page. For management or admin (by which I mean, jobs with titles like “assistant to the director,” not admin as in basic clerical) positions, résumés will also be longer to display range of positions and growth in responsibilities.
I think another thing the ‘do what you love’ people don’t acknowledge is that you *have* to do your job day in day out whether you really feel like it or not, and that can be a really quick way of killing your love for it, even if you thought you went into it as a vocation. I used to work with horses, and still teach at the weekends, and the main reason for people leaving was that it made them stop enjoying doing it a a hobby.
I now have a job that pays the bills and allows me time to do my hobby which I love, and I don’t want to go back to doing my hobby as a job full-time.
Great point. That’s always what I think about, when I read about (e.g.) someone quitting their soul-killing corporate job to bake cupcakes or something.
“Sure, you like baking cupcakes *now*, but will you still find it fun when you have to make 1,000 a week, day in, day out?”
(On top of worrying about self-employment stuff like health insurance and taxes and blah blah blah…)
I really struggled with this for a long time – I was envious of people who had a “career” or a calling, who had jobs that defined them – I always thought that’s what we’re all supposed to have and I was a failure if I just had a “job”. Finally got over it when both a life coach and a well-meaning friend kept after me to quit my job and do something more “me”, more creative, and my response to every idea was “That’s…just not practical!” I LIKE having a boring, steady job that pays decently and has good benefits. My coworkers are all, usually, respectful and polite and professional. I don’t dread going to work in the morning though I’m always happy come 5pm. Yes, sure, I could give it all up to make jam for a living but it wouldn’t really be much of a living! I LIKE having a steady source of income and money in the bank and if my job isn’t creatively fulfilling, at least my free time can be and I have a lot of it and the resources to use that time well. If you’re able to make a living with your hobby and continue to love that hobby then that is wonderful but I know myself well enough to know that a) my hobbies aren’t enough to keep a roof over my head and b) I am a little bit boring and that is ok.
I am also entirely at one with my job not being my calling. My boss found it a bit bewildering but once she got her head round the fact that it didn’t mean I was any less professional or good at my job, she finally stopped bugging me about career paths and so on.
I don’t think there’s anything boring about it though! It pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head and allows me to do all the fun stuff like get tattoos, keep horses and go to a lot of gigs.
I suspect very few people actually feel like they have a “calling”. Personally, I also just like working eight hours and then going home to do whatever fun stuff I want.
I got a job connected to something I loved so much that for my first few weeks, I literally cried every day on my way to work because I was so happy. Fast forward a year, and, well…I still like the job enough to stay, or at least enough to be really picky about other jobs, but I can also feel myself becoming kind of unsettlingly bitter, and there are times I’ve caught myself thinking, “Whatever my next job is, I want it to be completely unconnected to anything I love so that it can’t break my heart.”
If you live near one, and LDS employment center can be useful. You don’t have to be a member, but they have volunteers to help with writing resumes and cover letters. They also do interview prep.
Their website is https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/find-a-center?lang…
I know everyone likes to make fun of LinkedIn, but that really is a useful website for the job hunter. Look up the bios for the CEO, the department head of the section you’d be working for, and the HR manager. This will tell you SO MUCH about what to highlight on your resume, because they will all have inherent prejudices about what is most important in their field. Also good for figuring out what tone this company likely finds appealing – more casual, more formal, more academic.
You can also research companies in your area and work any random thirdhand connection you may have. LinkedIn also posts jobs, though this part of the website is not very searchable or sortable – you may find jobs here not listed anywhere else. Especially if you are interested in working internationally.
Ooh, I would not have thought of using LinkedIn that way. You may have actually uncovered some value to that site!
Do what you have to do. I’ve scrubbed toilets. I’ve worked in fast food. I’ve nannied. I’ve stocked shelves. I’ve done manual labor. I’ve washed dogs. I joined the fucking military. But do you know what I’m not doing now? Paying for the college I’m finally going to or dealing with debt. If you want to do things and make money you can. Just swallow your damn pride, be open to just about anything and work on your bullshitting technique.
I can’t count the jobs and schools I’ve gotten into on bullshitting alone.
If you want a general entry-level admin office job, and you have no particular office experience, but you know how to type 100 wpm and navigate your way around Microsoft Office LIKE A BOSS (no, wait, for the purposes of this example BETTER THAN A BOSS) go to a temp agency and take the computer tests. That’s how I got entry-level admin jobs on three separate occasions, in three different cities. Once I took the hour-long “prove you know MS Office” test in 13 minutes.
That’s a good point – a lot of recent grads, perhaps especially grads whose degrees focus a lot on writing, know A LOT about how to get MS Word to do what you want it to do, which is literally exactly how I got the position I have now (I was in the copy room, I made a flowchart, my boss was like, why aren’t you in our word processing department?, and now I make almost twice what I did four years ago)
Doing MS Office tutorials on-line is also a great way to spend time if you are unemployed and job searching. Brushing up on those skills will only make you more marketable!
Tangentially, this is a small detail but an important one: submit your info as a pdf. No amount of content or formatting or whatever will get you a job if the hiring manager can’t open your resume because it’s in the wrong format, and your formatting may suffer if you do it, say, in OpenOffce and they open it in word. (Unless you’re applying for a job that specifically mentions advanced skills in whatever word processing program you’re using, in which case still maybe pdf)
PDFs also look infinitely more professional.
This is tricky. I’d say have both a pdf and .doc on hand. I’ve talked to hiring people who say they despise pdf — they take every resume they get and process it through a program that pulls the relevant information, but a pdf sometimes mixes everything up so, say, your work experience ends up under the references field.
(I personally used pdf anyway, because I liked the look and was aiming towards a specific enough field that I figured the hiring managers would suck it up and deal. But I figure it’s worth it for you to be aware of this point anyway.)
True. (I would say that’s the hiring manager’s problem, but that’s not the kind of attitude that gets you a job). At least, though, it should be as simple as possible and as compatible with other systems as you can make it.
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for the reality check. I’m three months from handing in my Masters thesis and currently spending way, way WAY too many minutes (ahem, hours) procrastinating by just looking at job postings and giving myself a stomach ulcer stressing out about it before not applying to anyone. It’s nice to hear that it’s totally a-fucking-ok to get a not-so-amazing top-notch job straight outta school. And that I should just get over myself and apply already rather than stressing the fuck out. And also, nice touch on the ‘cut the responsibility’ tip. I am a huge culprit of this.
So, I write this comment with the full appreciation that administrative work is important and essential for a company/organization to run well, and can be very rewarding as a career path, and that many Toasties thrive in this area. I have worked as an admin assistant and enjoyed it. But, I think a caveat may be worth putting out there, in terms of how male vs. female recent grads may perceive their own qualifications and hireability just out of college.
This is anecdotal, but when I finished school with a humanities degree (in 2012), I and a lot of the women I knew with similar educational experiences looked around at each other and said to ourselves, “I seem to be qualified for exactly nothing, so I should probably apply for jobs that involve filing work, clerical tasks, or assistant-type tasks because I have done that sort of thing before / that is the sort of work I deserve to aim for.” While many of our male peers looked at themselves and said, “I seem to be qualified for exactly nothing, so I’m gonna take a stab at jobs like Consultant or Financial Analyst or Research Associate or Client Development because I bet somebody will hire me anyway and just teach me how to do that.”
These jobs are NOT better than working in an administrative role, and nearly all entry-level jobs entail a lot of similar, not-fun grunt work that everybody would like to do without. But, those jobs tend to pay more (in certain cities at least), and very often have a clearer track to ending up at a job where you get to do something that feels “real” or entails more responsibility in a few years. If you genuinely have no idea what you would like to work in, but are looking for a corporate-ish job in an office that pays you money regularly, I don’t think defaulting to applying to only/mostly administrative positions is the most strategic thing to do, if you have no real desire to work in this area from the beginning. If you think admin is for you, then go for it! And of course life is complicated and random and where you start out doesn’t have much to do with where you end up with most of the time. But like other commenters have said, there are really all sorts of jobs you are equally qualified-not qualified for that you can do great in. So if you have the luxury of spending time applying for many kinds of jobs, don’t limit yourself to any particular area that you feel is the only type of job you are ‘good enough’ for.
Great point! This is advice I try to keep in mind when I’m feeling close to succumbing to that terrible women’s disease, Imposter Syndrome.
Want to HUGELY second this! Especially if you have some economics training — men with the same training you have are going and making $100k right out of school running models at Wall Street firms. I’m not saying you should do that — it sounds pretty unfun to me — but you should definitely not feel like you are confined to an admin role because of a lack of job experience! I work in the world of public policy and there are a lot of very interesting, engaging, saving-the-world type jobs that need someone with some basic data/econ skills who is willing to work hard and learn. Research and writing well are also incredibly important skills that should not be sold short! So shoot high.
Another boys-do-it and girls-screw-themselves tip: negotiate your salary once you get offered a job! They are not going to take the offer back just because you ask for more money. You might not end up getting what you ask for, but you very well might get something more — and pay raises are almost always on a percentage scale so starting with a higher base pay is very important.
Great point! I absolutely think you’re right that women tend to de-value their own skills and not apply for the same types of jobs.
I have some (male and female) cousins who became “consultants” at big consulting firms right after graduating from college. Which I found kind of amusing because, really, how much can you possibly know at that age? But, yeah, those jobs exist, and they do hire new grads right out of school sometimes, from fairly disparate majors (things you would expect like economics and marketing, but also French, etc.)
Agreeing on this 100%. I made the mistake of doing admin positions first and realized rather quickly on the job that entry level analysts knew no more than I did and while they often started off with a smaller salary (at least in NYC – if you’re a reasonably competent admin, there’s a good chance you’ll start at a salary slightly better than a first year analyst or associate or paralegal depending on the industry), their salaries and job responsibilities ratcheted up faster than you’d ever make in an admin position and sometimes come with a very clear career path that you might want to pursue. It is worth writing the cover letters for if you know that admin is not for you – I went from admin to PR to research analyst and am super happy with where I am now, and it took about 3 years – a year in each position I was in.
But if being in an admin role makes you happier, than absolutely, go for it. It’s a viable career that pays a solid amount of money and can go right up to extremely well paid – the executive admins in my firm are salaries firmly in the six figure mark with much better hours than the ones I have. My pro tip as a former admin: having ANY skill in word processing (styles, ToC, ToA, etc) will put you leagues above a lot of admins and absolutely played a part for fast salary promotions while I was an admin. Read a couple of tutorials online, it’s not too difficult.
I agree with this SO STRONGLY. While you are scatter-gunning your applications around, make sure to aim your scatter-gun upwards as well. Do not limit yourself to what you have absolutely proven that you can do right now- aim also for what you are pretty sure you could do, if given the chance.
There is a common joke in tech (my field) that as soon as a new programming language is released, job ads will start asking for “5 years experience in ((brand new language))”. Job requirements are very, very often inflated & aspirational, do not be afraid to be aspirational also. If a job ad is asking for “familiar with- ” a thing that you can Google a tutorial in, or have ever looked at for an assignment, go for it, is what I am saying. I mean. Don’t lie, but do extrapolate enthusiastically.
I’ve been thinking about this comment ever since I read it, and I’m grateful to you for weighing in. I actually already had a bit of admin-ish internship experience when I graduated college, and that–plus the fact that I love writing/editing and haaaaaate math–made admin roles seem like a smart choice. For me.
But you’re absolutely right that it’s not the only entry-level gig out there, and that it’s got a lot of gendered baggage associated with it.
And you’re also right that it can be smart to shoot for the stars when you’re submitting applications. You don’t want the hiring manager to roll their eyes and say “what were they thinking?!” but if you can build a compelling case for Here’s Why I’d Be Good at This (something your cover letter can really help with, especially when your resume’s still pretty sparse), then it never hurts to try.
Multiple people have said they got their job through someone they knew, but they’ve said it tangentially. I want to really push this explicitly. It feels kind of terrible and certainly requires some sacrifice to the gods of I-don’t-deserve-this, but almost every job I have ever had I 1) got because of someone I knew, 2) was underqualified for on paper, and 3) rocked once I was there. I am 30 and I have a job I love that pays good money (and I’ve had a couple other awesome jobs along the way), and I have never even had a job interview from submitting an application based on an open job search. I’ve submitted to jobs I was completely qualified for (even over-qualified) but never heard so much as a peep back. But I’ve talked to people about what I’m passionate about and they have sent me to other people, who have given me jobs. (My theory is that most jobs go to someone who is known to the organization or hirer already and so being known is the most important thing.) I know that is tough if you don’t know what you are passionate about! But just stick with the talking to people and being open about yourself and your job search.
My first job out of college I got because my brother worked there, who got it because of his college roommate, and at first I hated it (many hours of formatting tables, ugh). But eventually I was able to use that position to figure out what I wanted to be doing more, and what grad program I should go to (not law school!) and why. And from there I was able to move (also through my networks though) to a job I liked a lot better. So my advice would be to do all the things above (have a great resume, write a great cover letter) but also work whatever personal connections you have, hard, especially now when you are looking for something to pay the bills and also give you a better idea about what the next thing might be.
And yes, I know how privileged I am and how terrible it is that more people can’t access these kinds of networks and how this perpetuates racial and class boundaries. But also, it is how the world works right now, so if you know someone who knows someone who can give you a job, take it.
agreed. the connections don’t even need to be iron-clad ones. as i wrote below:
my current job? i was at a birthday party, and my friend’s boyfriend mentioned that his workplace was looking for full-time folks in my position. first time i met the guy, didn’t spend more than two hours with him. but i’m pretty sure him saying, “yeah, my girlfriend knows her, she’s solid” is the reason why i got the job at all.
my job before that? my friend’s mom was getting her hair done and the lady next to her was complaining about looking for an intern. my friend’s mom passed on my name. my future boss had no reason to believe her—they were complete strangers sitting next to each other in a salon. but it worked.
i could keep going. but there is definitely a pattern. sacrifice your pride. tell people about your job search. mention it to your friends, your acquaintances, your hairdresser, your neighbors. they might know someone who knows someone, and that tenuous connection will get your foot in the door in a way that an emailed resume rarely does.
This is such a great pep talk with excellent advice. I think it’s important to embrace the unknown, as panic-inducing as that can be at this stage. You really don’t know where you’re going to end up, or how you’ll get there. Example: I had never even heard of “InDesign” when I started my job 4 years ago, but after being thrown into a Design/Communications role, I discovered I had both interest and (at least some) talent. It’s been a really satisfying discovery, and a path I never intended to pursue.
I’ve been on the hiring-side at both my organization and the restaurant I manage, here’s my tip: for the love of all that is holy comb your resume and cover letter (and any other application materials) for organization-specific details! The majority (yes, majority) of internship applications we received this spring had something wrong with them. Some were addressed improperly, some were clearly originally intended for a different art museum, some had glaring typos, one in particular made it very clear that the applicant had no idea where we were located. It is extremely imprudent to begin your relationship with a new organization with an eye-roll.
Also, I gotta say that my English minor has come in very handy at my job! Granted, I work in an arts non-profit and am not exactly chasing the big bucks, but having the ability to write and edit has been enormously beneficial.
One thing that might be worth looking into and that really catches the eye of businesses/organizations is a technical skills section on your resume. If you don’t know Adobe InDesign/Creative Suite, think about looking up some online tutorials and getting a basic understanding. I graduated with a masters in urban planning, and I’m pretty sure nearly every interview I had was in part obtained because of my skills section and not my education or work experience (which was, it must be said, short and unimpressive).
Hiring manager type person here: this was very good advice except for one of my pet peeves: resume ornamentation. Please don’t add “skills” to your resume unless it’s something that is not at all apparent, and please don’t include “objectives” as if nobody else in the world was interested in a position where they can utilize their skills in a meaningful way. Just list the facts (accomplishments are fine if they are significant). That’s all I want out of a resume. I’m just trying to see if you’re minimally qualified for the position.
I always hated being told to put “objectives” on a resume, and the only value I ever saw from it was with Large Companies who liked them to differentiate between “seeking internship” and “seeking full-time employment.”
THIS. I tell my students this all the time (after oodles of consulting both with the campus career office and with recruiters) and yet I still see “summary of skills” and “objective” at the top. If students insist on including an objective, I force them to make it specific: “To work for X team in Y company on Z project,” not “To gain experience in Q” or “To obtain a job where I can use my degree in V.”
(The objective should never be “to obtain a job.” Employers don’t care what YOU want – they want to know if you have what THEY want.)
I’ve just gotten through a round of interviewing a lot of candidates for three different positions in my department, and I want to second the advice in the cover letter section: don’t just talk about why the job would be good for you. Talk about why you would be good for the job. I think this is mostly a mark of inexperience with job hunting, but we got a lot of cover letters telling us about how these positions are “right up my alley!” Like, that’s great, but are you right up our alley? (ew, the metaphor is falling apart, stay out of our alleys). This goes for during the interview, too. I had someone say four times during a 30-minute interview that the position would be great for them to get their foot in the door. I’m not going to offer this person the job.
Ugh. I had an applicant like this once. She showed up somehow not knowing what position she was applying for and spent a large portion of the interview telling me how she wanted to get her foot in the door, because she would be really good at MY job. Lady, I’m not going anywhere.
omg who DOES that
I should add, best of luck to you, and don’t go into law.
i graduated with a 3.87 GPA from the top public university in the country…with a BA in english. i thought i might want to work in publishing? at least that’s what i kept telling everyone. i had no idea.
here’s what i did:
– i kept working in retail service, like i had been since i was 15.
– i got an unpaid internship at a publishing company and hated it, and hated that i had to take fewer hours at my retail job and therefore had less money.
– i finished the internship, swapped my retail service job for a food service job.
– 3 months of scrabbling to pay my bills on my food service paychecks while searching for something else
– fell into a paid 15-hrs a week internship at an advertising agency—absolutely fell into this nearly by accident. my friend’s mom was sitting next to a lady at the salon who was complaining about searching for an intern, and passed my name along.
– worked food service and part-time copywriting, for 50+ hrs a week, and still was barely scraping by, for three years.
– fell into a full-time copywriting gig, quit food service—absolutely fell into this one by accident, too. went to a birthday dinner and my friend’s boyfriend mentioned that his workplace was looking for copywriters.
– now i have a career path??? ? ??
i don’t know what kind of advice i can give. with the exception of ONE JOB, every single job i have ever worked has come from some kind of connection—even a really bullshit one (see: friend’s mom sitting next to lady at salon, friend’s boyfriend, friend of a friend worked there once, etc). i can’t even count the number of resumes and cover letters i sent off into the ether. none of them had the same effect as some dude i met once at a birthday dinner for an hour saying “my girlfriend knows her?” to the hiring manager. so…it’s butts, essentially
I got my first career-path position by taking an admin job at consulting firm in my science field. I’m not sure how well this would work for everyone, but it worked well for me. Consultants generally try to keep their workload as high as possible, so inevitably they end up with a bit too much work periodically and who can do this entry-level task? MilesofMountain the receptionist can do this entry-level task. Eventually my usefulness at picking up spare tasks became more valuable than my receptionist duties so they moved me up and hired a part-time receptionist instead.
It was also pretty important that I was willing to move just about anywhere in the country, I think. I moved to a middle-of-nowhere town I’d never been to for that position while some of my classmates were pretty emphatic that they wanted to stay in a particular big city and had a much harder time finding anything. I get the impulse, and if it’s really important to you you can do that, but I consider being geographically picky or insisting on staying in a city to be a lifestyle choice that can be pretty damn expensive so you need to consider whether or not that’s worth it for you.
Also, if you’re trying to career plan (which at this point might seem crazy because all you want is a job who can afford to plan? but it might make you feel like you’re actually going somewhere not just flailing randomly) my mom’s strategy has been pretty good to me and my siblings. Look at job postings and find a couple that you don’t even qualify for halfway but sound like something you’d be interested in. Look at the qualifications you don’t have, whether they all ask for database management or event planning or working with youth or whatever, and work on getting those. The jobs you apply for might not be in your field, but a lot of skills are transferable between fields and you can start setting yourself up for qualifying for those jobs you want later.
I have my dream job. (I’m a librarian.) My career path looks something like this. . .
Various part time food services, cleaning, & grocery store jobs in high school/college –> part-time tutoring job + children’s book store internship in college –> terrible, short-lived sales job after college –> terrible admin job with bad hours and bad pay at a place not aligned with my interests + part-time job doing something I loved (working at a children’s bookstore) –> fun library job I loved, but that did not pay well + grad school for my MLS –> current dream job!
Now I’m in charge of hiring people, and I have to say the advice on cover letters is spot on. When I go through applications, the first thing I look for is whether or not the person included a resume and cover letter. Resume + cover letter = top of the pile. Resume of the pile. No resume = Bottom of the pile. That cover letter should tell me why the person wants the specific job they’re applying for, i.e. “I have experience working in a book store, but I’ve always wanted to work at a library, because the library was my favorite place to go in high school.” If you have no affinity for the place you’re applying, don’t waste everyone’s time. I’ve had people show up to library job interviews and flat-out tell me they don’t like books. At least have the good sense to redirect the question and tell me what a movie buff or audiophile you are, if that’s the case!
Also, follow application directions! Does it ask for three references? Give three references, not two. Are you supposed to apply through a web site? Don’t show up and hand-deliver your application instead. I never mind meeting potential applicants in person, because that tells me they’re really interested in the job, but I literally can’t consider an application that’s hand-delivered to me. It has to go through HR. Find out what the application requirements are and follow them to the letter.
“I’ve had people show up to library job interviews and flat-out tell me they don’t like books.”
Wow…. that’s just…….. wow.
This has happened on two separate occasions. That’s why, “Do you have a favorite book or type of book?” is never leaving the set of interview questions.
In retrospect, one of my biggest difficulties in finding a job after school was that I didn’t really know about that many jobs beyond the big obvious ones. Lawyer. Editor. Secretary. Doctor. Chef. I had a vague sense that a lot of people seemed to be going into “consulting” but no idea what that was. I didn’t really know what to apply to beyond publishing (my dream career) and administrative assistant jobs. And I didn’t know that I didn’t know what was out there. The only reason I do now (I work in an arcane corner of fundraising that I had not the foggiest idea existed then) is that I got older and met more people and had more jobs (all in the course of going to library school because I didn’t know what else to do), so I don’t know that I really have any related advice. Maybe I should have actually gone to my school’s career office instead of assuming they had nothing to tell me.
I’m a recent college grad–yeah, I didn’t even know what jobs existed. I did use my college’s career center website (and I asked around in my department of study) and that was helpful. But I admit that I still don’t know what “consultant,” “analyst,” or “associate” means.
Oh my school’s career office had nothing to say beyond consultant, wall street analyst, lawyer, doctor (and doctor they would send you somewhere else). I agree this is a huge problem though, I don’t think you are alone — no one knows what jobs are even out there! Or what they mean! That’s why I think it’s important to just get into a job and see what about it you like and don’t like (and I’m talking not just the content but what type of work you like — social, collaborative, outward-facing work or writing/analysis/eyes on the screen work, one big project you can work on for months or lots of little projects that require switching focus a lot, etc. — which is something almost no one ever seems to talk about. Part of the problem is we don’t even have the vocabulary to describe what we do. My parents still have no idea what I do, even though I’ve told them a million times! So you kind of have to learn by doing and seeing what feels good and gets you excited, and what you have to slog through and should probably try to avoid in future. But no one tells you this! (at least no one ever told me)
Yes! I am a big fan of jobs you don’t know exist, since I have and like a job I didn’t know existed until after college.
Since we’re hiring for an entry-level position in our tiny office right now, I have one piece of advice that will probably seem like a no-brainer, but based on the applications we’re getting, is not: Follow Instructions.
Please double-and triple-check that you have followed all instructions on the posting before you apply. Don’t let yourself be knocked out of the running just because you submitted a word doc when we asked for a pdf, or some similar simple instruction was overlooked.
ETA: Whoops, another commenter included this in their excellent advice already, but as it stands on it’s own I’m leaving it up!
On Friday’s open thread I decided to look at other jobs. Friday night I did a search on Indeed. Saturday I reworked my resume and sent it to a few places, including to my brother-in-law, who’s company is hiring in my area (he works for their offices in another state). On Monday I heard from one place, who got me an interview yesterday morning. This morning they called my supervisor for a referral. Just 30 minutes ago I got a call offering me the job. I asked if I could have a few days to think about it, and was told 24 hours.
What I found out in that call is that the first month I would work through a temp agency and that after 30 days my employment would switch to the main company. The temp agency couldn’t tell me anything about the benefit package that would be offered three months after the switch (so 4 months without benefits).
I told them I would need to think about it. It seems a little shady to me, or at least rude? I think I’m going to hold out for another offer. For one thing, that’s too fast for my brain to process the change, for another, I’d like to know about the benefits before I leave my current position.
This is a really long way of saying it’s ok to say no to the first offer and wait for something that feels right. I tend to make all my major life decisions by feel, rather than logic, because our minds sometimes know more than we can articulate.
I think the most important thing I have learned so far in my career is to work with good people. If you are working with people you like, you respect, and you can learn from, the other important job things will come more easily. Working with good people makes it easy to get promoted, change the trajectory of your career, ask for a raise, and enjoy being at work everyday.
I have been paid lots and I have been paid a little. I have been a Product Manager and I have been a secretary. The times I have enjoyed my life and work the most were not related to pay (of course, pay helps!), job function, or company size. It was related to who I got to work with on a daily basis.
A college education doesn’t guarantee that you’ll never have to work uninspiring jobs. It’s not even supposed to. A liberal arts education is supposed to open your mind, not your career path. What a college education gets you is the opportunity to get out of jobs you don’t like. You may not be able to find any other job than McDonald’s, but when you work at McDonald’s, you can spend your free time searching for something you like more, and eventually you’ll find it and leave. But the highschool graduates (or dropouts) can’t. The road is closed.
You’ll leave McDonald’s to work for an interesting nonprofit, a school, an office with a career path, public service or something else along those lines. Your coworkers without college degrees leave McDonald’s to work at Pizza Hut.
Twelve years ago, I was exactly where you are: graduating from a good university with a double honors in political philosophy and sociology. I graduated into the post-9/11 recession, spent a year looking for work (unsuccessfully! doing all the things these fine ladies have warned you against doing!), and then fled back to the warm embrace of academia and did a master’s degree, also in politics. I had the extraordinary privilege of not incurring any student loan debt thanks to the incredible generosity of a family member, but was otherwise pretty lost and clueless about how to build a career for myself: through an internship, I discovered that the career I thought I wanted made me completely miserable, and I couldn’t figure out what to do next. I spent the next few years stumbling through nonprofit jobs (though inadvertently making some good decisions and avoiding the pink-collar ghetto of administrative assistant positions, HR, and other administrivia kinds of jobs–all critically important roles within an organization, but not on tracks that lead to serious leadership positions). I managed to hook into a management position that I was entirely unqualified for, faked my way through it for a few months until I got my feet under me, and eventually started feeling like maybe I belonged there. Today, I’m the COO at a mid-sized healthcare nonprofit, and while I still occasionally worry that someone is going to figure out that I’m not actually an adult, I love my job and am tremendously satisfied with it.
These days, I make a point of having a social sciences intern every year, usually a young woman whose expressed career goal is “something helping people,” both because I benefited from incredible women mentors (once I actually got into the workforce—the advice I got from academic advisors was generally disastrous) and want to give back and also, selfishly, because there’s something really energizing about working with young people at the beginning of their careers. I give them the kind of advice I wish I’d gotten (some of which is specific to our industry, but some of which can be applied much more broadly), and which is also based on my experience as a hiring manager:
1). I don’t know anyone who holds a senior position in a serious nonprofit these days who doesn’t have a graduate degree. There may be exceptions, but it’s the norm now. If you’re not ready yet, then don’t rush, but the right graduate degree opens doors. An MPH is an excellent degree and jobs that require an MPH are usually pretty well compensated; depending on your interests, an MPA, nonprofit-oriented MBA, or MSW are also beneficial. The advantage of professional graduate programs (unlike my own squishy graduate degree) is that you often have the opportunity to develop very good connections within your field, through field placements and through networking opportunities. Which leads me to …
2). Take advantage of every connection you have and every connection you can make. I do a lot of hiring, and as a hiring manager, recommendations from colleagues I trust carry a lot of weight: job-hunters don’t always realize that hiring can be kind of scary, too; you’re taking a risk on an unknown person, and if that person has been endorsed by someone I already know, the risk is mitigated. If you have the privilege of having connections in the professional world, then leverage them; if not, do everything you can to connect with people who are influential in the field you’re interested in. I do a handful of informational interviews a year with students who are interested in my organization and the work I do there, and have hired or referred several as a result. If someone ever says to you, “feel free to give me a call” or “I’d be happy to introduce you to _____,” take advantage of the offer. For more connection opportunities …
3). Volunteering is an awesome way to make connections at nonprofits. Part of the conceit of nonprofits is that we really want to hear about how we’re special and that you understand how special and awesome we are, and it’s hard to speak to that with any authority without spending some time with the organization. If you volunteer, don’t be fussy about doing direct client work: those client contact volunteer opportunities are pretty limited, and we’re often desperate for people to do unglamorous volunteering like data entry and filing. It’s incredibly common for volunteers to be hired by the organizations with which they volunteer, as long as you …
4). Select the right nonprofit(s). Tiny nonprofits have unstable funding and are overly reliant on unpredictable revenue streams like private donations and small grants. Find nonprofits that have a few hundred employees and some stable government funding, and you’ll find employers who have the funding flexibility to hire regularly.
re: point 4: I work for one of the tiny nonprofits dependent on unpredictable revenue, small grants, and private donations, and it is REALLY challenging. We do okay, but we spend an awful lot of our time chasing money around instead of mission-oriented work. My boss would love to be doing more oral history interviews and artifact cataloguing, but we’re both stuck doing grants requests and begging around for donations instead.
I absolutely agree – but when you're young you can have very strict ideas of what you want in an employer – I just wanted to say that it is sometimes a good idea to let go of some ideals. I would never suggest that you should put your own well being ahead of a job, in my case it has actually worked out that I work in a lower prestige sector but for better working conditions than most of my peers. My brother has had a similar experience where he did a really well rewarded job with a giant evil corporation (genuinely evil) and now that he has moved on to another company he realises that his morals are totally available to be bought and he would go back in a heartbeat.
I think that can definitely be true! I think, too, though, that young people get a lot of advice from people a generation or two older that boils down to "take whatever job you can get right away and work at it until you die," which is not only no longer applicable as far as how long people typically stay in jobs these days, but ignores what we now know about things like workplace bullying and the effects of long-term stress. It's also really hard to imagine just how bad a bad job can be sometimes.
I think, too, that different people have different priorities as far as morals go. I'd probably be fine working for a petroleum exploration company, but working for genuinely nice people at the local Catholic Diocese was a fucking nightmare. Working day to day where you have to literally pretend to be a different person with beliefs you do not hold is a different thing than getting to be yourself day to day but doing something that contributes to an overall goal that you don't agree with. If that makes sense.
Yes! I think we're actually probably on the exact same page.
I would rather be in my job (which bothers me when I think about it on a philosophical level) than one which damages me and my personal well being on a daily basis – I'm not sure I would have been comfortable with that idea as a fresh faced graduate and I think it's important for people to know that, especially when you're not looking for forever jobs (which no graduate really is).
Yes! It's amazing how a chance job placement works out like that. My whole career is based on a temp job I got from a Craigslist ad and never would have considered pursuing on my own.
1) Intern paid or unpaid if you can afford it, people knock it but it worked for me. 2. Try craigslist gigs instead of jobs, less competitive. 3. Join LinkedIn (it sucks I know, but it works in some fields).
I've been thinking about this comment ever since I read it, and I'm grateful to you for weighing in. I actually already had a bit of admin-ish internship experience when I graduated college, and that–plus the fact that I love writing/editing and haaaaaate math–made admin roles seem like a smart choice. For me.
But you're absolutely right that it's not the only entry-level gig out there, and that it's got a lot of gendered baggage associated with it.
And you're also right that it can be smart to shoot for the stars when you're submitting applications. You don't want the hiring manager to roll their eyes and say "what were they thinking?!" but if you can build a compelling case for Here's Why I'd Be Good at This (something your cover letter can really help with, especially when your resume's still pretty sparse), then it never hurts to try.
I’ve been on hiring committees for multiple positions in my (nonprofit fundraising) job, and we were happy to hire recent college grads who knew nothing about the field, because in all honesty, an entry level fundraising job requires literally no skills beyond competent writing and the ability to humor people on the phone. Everything else you learn on the job. Candidates that stood out were able to demonstrate something beyond those two qualities, and for me that was often a service industry job, because it demonstrates a high likelihood that the candidate can put up with stress, think on her feet and talk to strangers. Camp counselor or babysitting-type jobs also worked, because its one of the positions where you can expect an 18-year-old to have had a modicum of actual responsibility. Honestly, those were more appealing to me than someone who had (only) had internships in the field or expressed lifelong enthusiasm for working at our organization. Nobody leaves an intern in charge of things, but a camp counselor?
I say this because I’m sure this situation is not specific to nonprofit fundraising; lots of entry level jobs target people with some core skill (research, writing) and the ability to learn. You just have to demonstrate you have that ability to learn. And I’ll also put my 2 cents in for nonprofit fundraising: There are always jobs open, you learn a ton about both people and financial management (either/both, depending on your position and interest), and (added bonus) it’s often better paying than the rest of the nonprofit sector.