opinion Rough job market encourages adaptation 4
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dailycardinal.com/opinion
Monday, September 14, 2009
QI GU opinion columnist hirty-seven job applications, then eight e-mail rejections and nothing more. This isn’t the worst nightmare of a recent graduate, but a harsh reality facing many college students. Even though the economy seems to be on the mend, the employment rate is diving further. At the university level, job losses may go by hundreds, while working opportunities come in single digits. In this climate, part-time positions, also a top choice for students, take the hardest hit. One reason is that these jobs are more mobile than full-time positions; on the other hand, most of them don’t ask for professional experience, meaning anybody could jump in the application pool. On a late August afternoon,
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Babcock Dairy Store posted six positions on the UW job center’s webpage. Twenty-six email applications streamed in within the next 90 minutes. Students check out the job-hunting site even more often than, say, their Facebook bibles. Stories of success usually come after a long period of trial. One of my friends landed a 10-hour-per-week office assistant position after sending out 45 resumes. I remember the moment she got the acceptance call. “Oh my,” she was unable to contain her smile. “It’s even harder than getting into Harvard!” That being said, hearing nothing from your part-time job is much more frustrating than getting rejected by an Ivy League school. “Well, I should be in, since they are mostly entry-level jobs,” students tend to think. Towards the end of the day, you still see no bold titles in your email account except for junk mail. Are you just under-qualified for handling cash
at a cafeteria? Even after a couple of years in a prestigious national university? Students step into college, ambitious to “make changes.” But the prolonged job hunt simply gets you stuck between what you want to do and what you have to do.
Rather than “an offer he can’t refuse,” job searching seems more like a game titled “apply if you dare.”
After talking to some employers on campus, it appears decisionmaking could be tough for them as well, since an office assistant position sometimes draws over 50 applicants. Even after going through all the requirements and two rounds of interviews, there still might be more than one ideal
candidate. Rather than “an offer he can’t refuse,” job searching seems more like a game titled “apply if you dare.” It is indeed gloomy when both sheer statistics and personal stories plunge you into the jobless swamp. But think about your job application strategy before punching the wall in frustration. Granted, there are a dozen applications sent already, but all of them attached with the exact same resume? The 12 cover letters might only differ from each other in terms of employers’ names. While the internet has simplified our job-application process into a click of the “send” button, it also gives employers a justification for dismissing e-mail bombast. Now it’s the time to drop that “one-size-fits-all” mentality. For every job you’re going for, differentiate the application materials. It can be another item added in the resume or an overhaul of the 20th cover letter. Part of these
changes depend on a better insight into yourself, which is always greatly valued. The rest comes from your further enrichment. Exploration of the campus is an ideal but easily ignored approach. You never know what inspiration to get from distinguished individuals until you go to their lecture series. A consistent commitment to volunteering work also helps expand our perspective, enabling us to see things from multiple viewpoints. Even if after all these efforts the word “job” still looks like unripe fruit, be proud of all the progress you’ve made and the ground you’ve covered, which outweigh anything else. I don’t want to pitch in the abused rhetoric of “best wishes.” Creative hard work brings in many more opportunities than mere “good luck.” Qi Gu is a junior majoring in journalism. We welcome all feedback. Please send all responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.