Is It Hell or A Job Application?
"You cannot text with a clenched fist" /Indira Ghandi
6/15/20263 min read
Applying to jobs is a whole different kind of hell.
If you know somebody in the field you want to work in, chances are you will get hired. Even if you have zero experience in that field—maybe except if you wanted to be a doctor. You definitely should be in school before cutting people open.
So all this should technically mean that there is an overwhelming amount of industries that really anyone can work in—and anyone can be trained to perform well there.
Well, that’s only if you know somebody. Because if you don’t, and the people hiring you see on your resume that you finished a different program in college or worked for the past few years in another field, they automatically assume you are not qualified. Very often, even if you finished the correct program at a university and then got stuck working at a bar for a year, you are automatically assumed to belong behind the bar.
Just to be clear, I know I am not saying anything new here. This has been said many times before, and it will be said many times after, because this is simply how this works.
I am not an angry person who never got a job they wanted. I got jobs I wanted (though it’s ridiculous that I often had to go through three interviews and a trial while someone’s cousin got promoted on their first day without even wanting to be there), I worked jobs I didn’t want, and I have also been on the other side of the mess, where I got jobs simply because I knew the right person at the right time.
The thing with all those jobs is that you get three different interviews and only one usually makes sense. The first one is the manager or somebody you're actually going to be working with. But then the other ones are with the CEO or CFO or the ABC or somebody who you will never see again. This is your first and last meeting altogether.
Once I had a meeting with an RVP. RVP. I had to look that up beforehand. It was for a service job. It wasn't even for an office job or some senior-level position.
It was literally just a service job, and one of my three interviews was with an RVP who I'm never gonna see again. I would be very shocked if I ever see that man again. I had to look it up, and that stands for Regional Vice President, by the way, but also Reid vapor pressure or receive versus payment. So I really was not sure. I was like, if I'm meeting with the Reid vapor pressure, that's gonna be very awkward. I don't know if I can hold a conversation. I wouldn't know what to talk about with them.
The point is, there are just so many made-up jobs.
For example, project managers. Or regional project managers. Or vice presidents of regional project management. There has to be somebody in charge, I guess, but I feel like a lot of those people just send everybody their to-do list. And it's like, I can make my own to-do list, thank you very much. "Project Manager" sounds to me like the final boss of to-do lists. I can't imagine they're very liked people. I almost worry about them.
