The Fruitless Career Pursuit
I remember often hearing in my 20s the expression that life begins at 40. It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I discovered how difficult employment is to secure. What exactly is wrong with my resume or should I say resumes? I have about three different ones saved in my laptop.
I have a resume that lists the degrees, certificates, certifications, and publications when applying for jobs within my field. I have another resume that omits my education and credentials and only includes my employment history from my most recent job to the least recent dating back a few years. I have another resume that lists my brief experience working as a temporary data entry clerk as well as an administrative assistant. Even though that experience was over 10 years ago, it’s really the only experience I have in that field, so I figured it would be better to include it than not to and appear inexperienced.
In theory, isn’t experience from 10 years ago better than none at all? And of course I don’t list any completed education or credentials on those resumes because job recruiters would deem me over qualified and I wouldn’t secure an interview. Why out of the many applications I have made in the last few months do I not even receive an email stating that they have no vacancies or openings at this time but will keep my application on file? Yeah sure they will keep it on file; it would end up in their trash bin file. I wish recruiters would at least make contact to offer an explanation why my resume was rejected.
How can you fix it when you have no knowledge that it’s broken? Why not respond to my application with a simple email? I will provide an illustration.
Dear Applicant; According to your resume you have not taught in a decade. We would prefer that you have more recent employment experience. Your resume indicates that the last teaching position you held was 10 years ago at a university in Mexico that nobody has heard of. So for that reason we cannot offer you a position as a substitute teacher, teacher aid, or even as a crossing guard at our school.
Would that be so hard for recruiters? Yes it would hurt my pride a tad, but at least I would have a reason why I didn’t get the job. In my humble opinion, that would be much better than no response with doubts that your application was even received. Then I would move on and apply for another position somewhere else.
On Shark Tank and Dragons Den they offer business advice to entrepreneurs and explanations why they aren’t offering them a deal. Why can’t recruiters do the same for job applicants? I would rather read a response such as: Dear Applicant; We have reviewed your application and discovered that your previous work history is not consistent with the job posting requirements. For instance, the fact that you completed a Bachelor of Arts in French 20 twenty years ago, or that you received an honors Master’s degree from an institution we’ve never heard of is not relevant to the job qualifications.
We cannot offer a trade off because you have good interpersonal skills and are a quick learner. In the event that you see this job ad reposted, please do not take that as an invitation to reapply. If we do not receive any applications other than yours this posting will remain open forever or until kingdom come. However, we do wish you the best.
Ok maybe that last made up rejection letter was a scant harsh. Since I seem to be on a role here I will include another rejection letter example. Dear applicant, we have contacted your references and they all said you were a hot-tempered person with an attitude problem who often showed up late for work or not at all and have no regrets that they fired your unreliable ass. Wouldn’t that be better than wondering if your application ended up in somebody’s spam mail folder? I think so.
Ok one more I promise, and then I will have this issue out of my system for the rest of today at least. Dear applicant; We have received your application and it turns out we are uninterested in the fact that you have self-published and edited 3 publications in the last 2 years that were maybe read by 10 people. We’ve never heard of you and are not going to hire you to write for us.
That last fake rejection letter made me laugh out loud. Shawn laughed at it too when I read it to him. At least there is one way I could look at my bad luck on the job search. I have the ability to write my stories, make others laugh, and encourage some shared storytelling.