On this first day of April, 2016, I applied for a job in a manner consistent with my authentic self and completely appropriate for a day that celebrates The Trickster. In other words, I had fun. It is doubtful that anything will come of this application. But it might quite possibly entertain someone in a cubicle somewhere - someone needing a bit of fresh air.
The job market is insanely saturated with people looking for gainful employment. I honestly do not know how one expects to get noticed amidst the barrage of electronic submissions. In the past, I have agonized and strategized to no avail. So I have come to the realization that I need not invest more time and energy into an application than a potential employer invests in looking at one. This seems only fair.
Here is my simplified process for creating a job application:
1) Create a blogger or wordpress site with links to all sites that indicate the breadth of your knowledge and experience. If you do not have sites representing the breadth of your knowledge and experience, then clearly you must develop some. Good luck.
2) In your resume, type only two sentences: "(Your Name) requests you look at this web site: (insert the link to the web site which lists links to all other web sites)." End with "Resulting questions will happily be entertained." Use your own verbiage to make it fresh and authentic.
3) In your cover letter, type the bare minimum of information: your name, what you can do (in one sentence), and your hope to meet someone from the company for a chat.
4) Dress these up with any homemade graphics.
There you have it. No fuss, no muss.
Applying for jobs need not be such an all-consuming and grief-filled process. The more you can streamline it, the more time and energy you will have to apply for even more jobs! And in today's economy, the more times you can circulate your name into the magical cloud of data that is the internet, the better.
Poisson d'Avril!
Showing posts with label job market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job market. Show all posts
Friday, April 1, 2016
Monday, May 20, 2013
Moral Pontifications Regarding Babies and Monies
I sat in the cafe area of Planet Care yesterday eating my dinner: a banana, an apple and some peanut butter. I've run out of money again. I rely heavily on peanut butter and bananas for my sustenance at times like this. It is unfortunate and ironic that I work in a supermarket filled with healthy foods that I cannot afford. Sometimes I laugh at the irony. Sometimes my ire is too great for laughter.
As I looked out the window of the cafe area of Planet Care, I noticed a pregnant woman and a man, presumably the person who impregnated her, get out of their car and walk across the parking lot to the doors of Planet Care. I had an immediate sensation of revulsion in my gut upon seeing this pregnant couple. I examined this revulsion and found myself thinking, "Why would anyone want to have a baby in this day and age?!"
Why would anyone want to have a baby in this day and age.
Suddenly, the realization hit me: I have allowed the cannibalistic mentality of society to consume my thought process. I have, to a degree, lost hope that our world will improve. I have temporarily become That Person Whom I Abhor at any sort of family or social gathering: the Pessimist. The Nihilist. The one who focuses on the destruction of the planet's natural resources, the monopolization of our food supply, the corporate takeover of our government, the unwillingness of the NRA to be reasonable, the vast number of people who are blatantly angry and aggressive who contribute further destruction through their anger and aggression. I have grown angry. And I am contributing to the destruction of the world around me through this anger.
My thoughts have been cycling around the topic of money to the point of obsession. How can I make more? What job can I see myself doing that would pay enough to comfortably sustain me? I've invested money in therapy so that I can overcome the obstacles to my own growth....so that I can get a job that is more in alignment with who I am and what I am, a job that pays me a living wage. I have taken money out of my food supply and put into a professional counselor for this reason.
The stunning realization is that there is nothing wrong with me. I am merely trying to conform to a world whose principles I reject. I have worth, despite the fact that I earn substandard wages. When I have time to write or paint or play music, I am aware of my place in this world. Everything makes sense. When I put time and energy into the pursuit of money (job-hunting), I feel like I've raped myself.
The thing that has become abundantly clear is the need to create a new world for myself. A world of freedom. A friend once told me that we are all slaves to money. Whether you have it or whether you don't, your existence is ruled by money. My goal is to emancipate myself from this mental slavery. My goal is to spend more time enjoying my life by doing the things that I find rewarding and less time chasing money. It is an attitudinal shift. Not a financial one.
While it can be argued that one needs money to do the things that one enjoys, I will argue that one can find a way to do the things one enjoys without money. For example, I was painting with The Greensboro Mural Project one Saturday and a man pulled over in his car and offered free paint. Free paint?! How can that be?! He's a painting contractor. He has a lot of left-over paint from jobs he's done. Rather than take all this to the recycling center, he would like to give it to people who could use it! Imagine that! Free paint from someone who was just going to throw it away!
There is a facebook group called "Friends Swapping Stuff" where people will post the need to get rid of certain items and the need to acquire certain items. Sometimes it works like this: someone will announce that they have a couch they no longer need. They would like to have garden tools. So someone with garden tools approaches them about swapping for their couch. Or, someone who needs the couch finds someone with garden tools and gives that person something that he or she needs and then swaps the tools for the couch. Sometimes people offer things for giveaway and do not ask for anything in return. I got a piano this way. The only thing I had to do was move it.
I want to believe in a world where money doesn't rule. I want to utilize resourcefulness and cooperation rather than fear and competition. While I recognize that money-making will be a part of my existence, I do not want my existence to be defined by money-making. Rather, I want my existence to be defined by the sheer joy of living as manifested through creative acts.
I went on a job interview recently in which I was asked what I would like to see myself doing in a job scenario. I immediately said I'd like to write.
"What else?" he asked.
"I'd like to utilize my networking and promotional skills."
"What else?"
"I'd like to work with the public."
"What else?"
"I'd like to....."
I started to zone out here. What was he asking me exactly? How was I supposed to answer? I was really trying to avoid saying things like "I want to paint vaginas all over Greensboro. I want to make mask and puppet theatre pieces in the park downtown. I want to bring Carl Sandburg's "Rootabaga Stories" to life. I want to be in an all girl cowpunk band that writes and performs silly songs. I want to make movies." I knew if I said these things, I wouldn't get the job. But those are the things I really want to do. So I edited my answers. There was a time when I did not do this.
I had an interview once in which I was blatantly honest. I did not get the job. But I was on top of the world at the end of it. Happy beyond measure. Because I'd told the truth.
To lie to myself and others is to diminish the life force inside of me. Creativity is my Truth. I vow, therefore, to only speak the Truth and nothing but the Truth.
As I looked out the window of the cafe area of Planet Care, I noticed a pregnant woman and a man, presumably the person who impregnated her, get out of their car and walk across the parking lot to the doors of Planet Care. I had an immediate sensation of revulsion in my gut upon seeing this pregnant couple. I examined this revulsion and found myself thinking, "Why would anyone want to have a baby in this day and age?!"
Why would anyone want to have a baby in this day and age.
Suddenly, the realization hit me: I have allowed the cannibalistic mentality of society to consume my thought process. I have, to a degree, lost hope that our world will improve. I have temporarily become That Person Whom I Abhor at any sort of family or social gathering: the Pessimist. The Nihilist. The one who focuses on the destruction of the planet's natural resources, the monopolization of our food supply, the corporate takeover of our government, the unwillingness of the NRA to be reasonable, the vast number of people who are blatantly angry and aggressive who contribute further destruction through their anger and aggression. I have grown angry. And I am contributing to the destruction of the world around me through this anger.
My thoughts have been cycling around the topic of money to the point of obsession. How can I make more? What job can I see myself doing that would pay enough to comfortably sustain me? I've invested money in therapy so that I can overcome the obstacles to my own growth....so that I can get a job that is more in alignment with who I am and what I am, a job that pays me a living wage. I have taken money out of my food supply and put into a professional counselor for this reason.
The stunning realization is that there is nothing wrong with me. I am merely trying to conform to a world whose principles I reject. I have worth, despite the fact that I earn substandard wages. When I have time to write or paint or play music, I am aware of my place in this world. Everything makes sense. When I put time and energy into the pursuit of money (job-hunting), I feel like I've raped myself.
The thing that has become abundantly clear is the need to create a new world for myself. A world of freedom. A friend once told me that we are all slaves to money. Whether you have it or whether you don't, your existence is ruled by money. My goal is to emancipate myself from this mental slavery. My goal is to spend more time enjoying my life by doing the things that I find rewarding and less time chasing money. It is an attitudinal shift. Not a financial one.
While it can be argued that one needs money to do the things that one enjoys, I will argue that one can find a way to do the things one enjoys without money. For example, I was painting with The Greensboro Mural Project one Saturday and a man pulled over in his car and offered free paint. Free paint?! How can that be?! He's a painting contractor. He has a lot of left-over paint from jobs he's done. Rather than take all this to the recycling center, he would like to give it to people who could use it! Imagine that! Free paint from someone who was just going to throw it away!
There is a facebook group called "Friends Swapping Stuff" where people will post the need to get rid of certain items and the need to acquire certain items. Sometimes it works like this: someone will announce that they have a couch they no longer need. They would like to have garden tools. So someone with garden tools approaches them about swapping for their couch. Or, someone who needs the couch finds someone with garden tools and gives that person something that he or she needs and then swaps the tools for the couch. Sometimes people offer things for giveaway and do not ask for anything in return. I got a piano this way. The only thing I had to do was move it.
I want to believe in a world where money doesn't rule. I want to utilize resourcefulness and cooperation rather than fear and competition. While I recognize that money-making will be a part of my existence, I do not want my existence to be defined by money-making. Rather, I want my existence to be defined by the sheer joy of living as manifested through creative acts.
I went on a job interview recently in which I was asked what I would like to see myself doing in a job scenario. I immediately said I'd like to write.
"What else?" he asked.
"I'd like to utilize my networking and promotional skills."
"What else?"
"I'd like to work with the public."
"What else?"
"I'd like to....."
I started to zone out here. What was he asking me exactly? How was I supposed to answer? I was really trying to avoid saying things like "I want to paint vaginas all over Greensboro. I want to make mask and puppet theatre pieces in the park downtown. I want to bring Carl Sandburg's "Rootabaga Stories" to life. I want to be in an all girl cowpunk band that writes and performs silly songs. I want to make movies." I knew if I said these things, I wouldn't get the job. But those are the things I really want to do. So I edited my answers. There was a time when I did not do this.
I had an interview once in which I was blatantly honest. I did not get the job. But I was on top of the world at the end of it. Happy beyond measure. Because I'd told the truth.
To lie to myself and others is to diminish the life force inside of me. Creativity is my Truth. I vow, therefore, to only speak the Truth and nothing but the Truth.
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