The Hunting Season: Warily We Go
PEOPLE are sprawled about me, reading newspapers or sleeping (it's possible to hear an occasional snore). I am on the 5:02 out of New York City, crawling toward Connecticut and home, having just finished another day of job-hunting during my spring break - doing my time, like everybody else, as a walking- but soon running-scared college senior. Unlike some of my friends who are going immediately into grad school, or looking for a temporary job as a holiday from school for a year or two, I am seeking a career. No more school, not now or ever. Here I spunkily am, armed with an A.B. in English, graduating cum relief with a record completely clear of Phi Beta Kappa glories. As it goes, I'm the archetypal liberal arts graduate, completely unprepared for "work" but liberally studied in many areas. (Ah, those courses on film criticism and astronomy!)
And yet I have been long preparing for the business world. With a father who sends typewritten letters as follows: "Dear Sir or Madam: Pursuant to our telephone conversation of the 25th, I have augmented your checking account made deficit by careless spending...." I have executive potential in my genes. My parents' last child is now going the way of all flesh - to the happy job-hunting grounds.
Over spring break I endure the wait in countless offices with countless receptionists talking to their boyfriends on the phone. They jolt me out of reveries about chucking it all and raising wolves in British Columbia with "Mr. Firefly will see you now." I'm ushered into a sanctum filled with pictures of Mr. Firefly playing golf with the boss, or littered with rock paperweights bearing poignant inscriptions of "Dear Daddy, I love you." Mr. Firefly is tall or short, it doesn't matter which, kindly and handshakey and probably nauseated at the sight of yet another scrubbed, fresh-faced senior English major. We conduct the ritual - I sit well in my chair, assertive yet not posing, cocasionally jabbing my hand for emphasis, with good eye contact (as all the manuals say I should do). Mr. Firefly meanwhile slouches behind his desk, walks around the room, looks up at the ceiling and smokes. He seems so nervous about not having a job for me that I almost feel bad for him. After a series of "tight markets, you see," "We'll keep your resume in our file," and "Good luck, you're a great kid," I am out the door and into the proverbial street.
Now back in Hanover, I wonder about it all. I realize why in my underclassman days I found it difficult to relate to seniors. We are a special breed. We visit our Hinman mail boxes three or four times a day. Sophomores and juniors say they hate to sit with us at Thayer because we depress them with horror stories of real life job-hunting. We throw more parties and act crazier at them than ever before, yet there is a sad and tired look around our eyes. When we go home on vacations, our relatives and their friends greet us with "Will you take any job you can get?" or "Now are you sorry you majored in the humanities?"
Hunting season started for many of us this past winter. Recruiters came to the campus and we went gunning for them. One could always spot interviewees because they wore either skirts in - 10 degree weather or three-piece suits with Bean's hunting boots peeking out from underneath. Visions that winter call to mind the term Malcolm Muggeridge has for a life's flailing motions that seem profoundly important but really do not bring us to the truths we seek: theatrics. There was always a touch of high drama during last term as we waited outside the Employment Services office in College Hall in order to be among the first to sign up for interviews with a bank or insurance company. Waiting was just like buying Carnival tickets - only all winter long. Scratching and spitting were common.
Nothing has come from those wintry antics for me except four rejections and a column for the Undergraduate Chair. Since a person often changes jobs several times in life, I have some advice for readers. The job-hunting season calls for some tips on the sport, and here are some tricks this veteran has picked up along the way:
THE WORKSHOP ON JOB-HUNTING TECH-NIQUES: I've been going to these since freshman year - and love them. It's great when the professional personnel counselor tells the group of squirming students before him, "People who get A's become professors; people who get B's become lawyers, and PEOPLE WHO GET C's MAKE MONEY!" An appreciative sigh runs through the audience; for many of us that phrase will serve as a mantra in the hard times to come. But then the personnel expert spoils the good feeling by advising making a resume that is too large and will stick out of the stack of other resumes, or one that is purple with pink stripes.
THE RESUME: One page, concise, pretty. Emphasize the positive; don't put down your GPA if it stands for "Grossly Poor Average." Use action verbs in describing your past jobs - not umy duties included" but "I flipped hamburgers at McDonald's" or "I scanned the water and suntanned my body as a lifeguard." And don't Xerox your resume until the copies are as light as your job experience.
PRE-INTERVIEW STRATEGY: Study up on the firm. Don't tell the Mobil representative you like its tiger symbol or tell the Lockheed man that you think you'd like to work in their Japanese or Dutch offices.
THE INTERVIEW: Filtering down from the Tuck School are stories of the stress interview, where the interviewer, to see how you react, offers a cigarette when there are no ash trays, or asks you to open the window which is, naturally, bolted shut. A friend advises that you should flick your ashes into your palm and then jump through the window in order to open it. None of my interviews has been stressful yet - it was only afterward that I beat my head against the wall in anger and frustration.
DURING THE INTERVIEW: Don't wear jeans. Talk about the weather, avoid religion and politics. If you are a woman, do not say that you are married and can type. If you are a man, tell them you are married and can type.
AFTER THE INTERVIEW: Barrage the firm with daily letters and calls. Contact and recontact every Dartmouth alumnus within 50 miles of headquarters. If all else fails, take over the company's office.
WHEN YOU GET THE JOB: Break down and cry.
I have followed all my own advice, and believe that I will get the job of my dreams someday. Nothing has come my way yet, but I'm not afraid. I have only one term left at Dartmouth but the rest of my life to look for a job. Anyway, it's time to go check my Hinman box ....
