The Catch 22 of Employment
This is my fifth or sixth attempt at writing this out. That's mostly a lie, though. I've definitely fumed about this in my brain, but this is my first attempt at actually typing it (because writing is so pre-tech, right?). I've definitely written in my journal about this, but mostly in as few frustrated words as possible, and really only touching on my feelings about it rather than the actual logistics.
What I'm talking about is the Catch 22 of employment that I'm facing these days. Maybe someone else will connect to this, probably a recent graduate. Most of my friends have done well, gotten their entry level marketing or PR or business jobs. I haven't fared as well. Maybe it's because I have a Bachelor's in Hispanic Studies, obscure and seemingly helpful for the real world, but truly useless in terms of "Qualifications" as listed on every job post. Maybe it's because I'm looking in the wrong places. Maybe it's because I'm in denial about the fact that I picked the wrong career. Or discipline. Or place to live. Or maybe I really do need to go back to school, which is yet a whole other ball game.
This self-determining black hole I'm living in is what I have unceremoniously named The Catch 22 of Employment. For those who have know idea what a catch 22 is, read a book, or more specifically, read the book. Or just look it up, it's a common phrase these days. If I were to put a catch 22 in an artistic representation, I would probably insert an M.C. Escher drawing of me pulling my hair out while walking up and down confusing seemingly 3D staircases but always ending up on the same step just upside down. Google him, too. It'll make sense. Right now, my fingers are doing the talking.
Back to The Catch 22 of Employment.
Every few weeks, I get an addiction. It's not healthy or unhealthy (that depends on how you look at it), but this addiction includes me binge-job searching. Binge-watching Netflix is fun, sometimes it's brainless and a waste of time, but it's never painful, dry or relentless. It doesn't make me feel like I should have a serious physical injury or insane itch, it doesn't make my eyeballs stressed out and it doesn't make me want to throw my laptop across the room when asked to write yet another cover letter. No, Netflix doesn't make me do that. The Catch 22 of Employment makes me do that.
Do you have a Bachelor's degree?, it asks. Yes, check that off.
Do you have a relevant degree in ________,_________,___________, or _________? No, but I have similar experience in general. Toss together some imperfect puzzle pieces comprised of seasonal employment, volunteer experience and some school project or course that sort of works but you and I both know it probably won't come up even.
Do you have at least 1 year experience? No, I just graduated in May, but I have similar and relevant experience. I can swing this one. Maybe this one I can slide, stretch it to make it fit.
Do you have 3 to 5 years experience? No, because I was busy getting my Bachelor's.
And then boom, I don't land the job, it's a short email from whatever organization or company I've just applied to a few weeks later, sometimes thankfully a few days later. I say thankfully because anyone that has been in my position knows for a fact that waiting weeks on end for a job you applied for and then don't get is not only incredibly annoying but it also makes you feel like you took 1 baby step forward then catapulted yourself backwards.
It feels like this for me because I spend hours, yes, hours searching for positions that I'm at least mostly qualified for. This takes a lot, because I work in the education discipline but do not hold a teacher's certificate. Instead, I have almost 12 years of youth-related experience, in both educational settings and other settings, but there's never a seemingly appropriate place to put "babysitter" or "nanny" on a resume even though, fellow babysitters and nannies, you know damn well your work is comparable to that of a regular job. Sure, you get movie nights sometimes, get to play in a park, but you're also responsible for one or more small humans who don't always listen, have a tendency to run away or get sick easily or get fingers stuck in small places or have tantrums and you're supposed to be the one responsible.
This is not me complaining about wasting my time babysitting. I'm glad I did it. Every once in a while, I'll meet someone in conversation who truly appreciates the work of a nanny or babysitter, but potential employers just don't see it that way. They don't see where the multitasking comes in, the weight of the full responsibility of another human, ensuring nothing happens to them, that you yourself are making smart choices around them and that they get home happy and healthy to their parents who gave you the responsibility in the first place and trust you with their children's' lives.
Let's take a step back. What did you do with your summers, Kiva, then? Why didn't you get relevant work experience then? Well, friend, I was taking advantage of my youth. Yes, I worked as a summer camp counselor twice, but during my college summers I traveled. I studied abroad, I went on vacations with my family, I did some babysitting and even took a few more courses online.
This is the one that gets me, though. People say I should've held an internship during my summers or during the school year. Maybe I should have. Maybe I would've landed a sweet gig, but I can't go back, so that's off the table. And there's no way I can support myself off an internship or hourly wage if I really want to launch myself into the realm of professionals. What I do have is extensive travel experience. I'm fortunate enough to say that too. Most people don't get the chance to travel so frequently or so exotically or so far widespread. My parents worked hard, were diligent and sacrificed a lot in terms of social life in their younger years so that they could provide a better life for their kids. That better life included traveling, and we were given just that. Initially, it was just family trips. Eventually, it turned into traveling solo or joining programs that allowed us to travel with others.
Just as great as it was, however, there isn't a place for that on a resume or a cover letter. And why would there be? That was a somewhat rhetorical and sarcastic question. There should be a section for travel. Absolutely. If you don't think travel is a career-builder, I honestly don't think you have ever thought outside the box.
First of all, travel in itself, the action itself, provides a tale to tell in terms of skills: time management, planning and preparation and courage. To book a flight, book a hotel room, reserve a car, buy a train pass, pack your bags smartly, get your car checked before a road trip--all of that requires some form of forethought. That's a learned skill.
Secondly, the travel experience: connecting with another population, navigating another place, making do with limited resources and keeping your shit together are all pretty pivotal not just for travel but also for a job. In a job, you might not have to eat only curry for three weeks like I did while in India and Nepal, but it taught me a lot about what I could and couldn't handle, and it taught me curiosity for food style, food locality and the importance of proper sustenance for a specific task (like not eating murgh makhani before going on a hike).
Thirdly, the moments passed and the activities participated in during a travel experience are the things that you come into without and leave with: having jewelry and money stolen, etiquette on trains, trusting strangers to help you out when your cell phone battery dies on the train and you don't speak German and you need to get to this one specific Swiss village, learning that kids love to have their photo be taken. It's these experiences, not the items you come home with, that teach you far more than an internship in your comfortable little bubble. They teach you about humanity, about interaction and communication, about rules and etiquette and law and the whole shebang. They teach you to be responsible, aware, respectful, wary, courageous, independent and a multitasker. Who wouldn't want their employee to have these things, not as taught in a classroom setting but in a life setting?
I definitely could put on my resume my travels, or talk about them in my cover letter, but it always comes off like I'm bragging or showing off when I really want to reveal the value in my travel and what skills I've gained from it. It's just frustrating, if you've got this one thing that's taught you so much and there's not a socially-accepted place to put it down on your resume.
Now that I've shut up about my travels, I'll need to toss a few stories on here. But my point is really more about frustration. Frustration with the system, frustration that my fellow travelers or hobby-doers or extracurricular-participants can't be given the opportunity to express their abilities and skills learned in a non-traditional format.
This Catch 22 of Employment is a real gut punch. It's a real confidence knocker. Anything remotely entry level probably comes with a terms and conditions agreement, also known as the Qualifications section in which it details that, in fact, it is not an entry level position. And some of us can't even justify or back up our non-resume experience and apply it towards that job position.
Someone just really needs to give us a chance.
And honestly, as I wrote this, I felt the tension and frustration dissipate. So I've discovered I like to write about shit. I'm definitely not a poet, a writer, an author, but writing helps me relieve stress. And it's good to know that I can get passionate about something and put it down in words. Because maybe I'm not the only one feeling this Catch 22 of Employment mania. Maybe my friends feel it in different ways, different intensities, different dilemmas. Not everyone faces the same challenges that I do, so this post might seem facetious or ridiculous to some. But you're not here in this coffee shop with me with my overheated laptop staring at 12 different Indeed tabs while you've got Microsoft Word open writing your 6th cover letter with a twitch in your foot because you're frustrated as hell that you're not in the place you thought you were going to be.
I'll leave y'all with this. It's a paragraph out of some book that a friend's mom is reading. It resonated with me, and it'll hopefully resonate with my resume-wielding women out there as it's tailored to them, but I'm sure some of my guy friends are feeling this too:
"Every step will be good in some ways, but almost never in all ways.
High-achieving girls fantasize about their first jobs in ways that closely resemble romantic myths. In the world of Disney and rom-coms, true love happens at first sight and lasts forever. So it should be, some girls reason, with that first job.
Cue the needle scratching on a record, because this will almost never be how her first job will play out. Just like she'll have to kiss a lot of frogs before she finds her prince or princess, she'll land in jobs that are unfulfilling, overwhelming, boring as hell, beyond wrong for her, and everything in between. This isn't her fault. It is a reality of adulthood. Life throws us unexpected curveballs. sometimes there is little more to say.
The reason why this is so hard for your daughter is that in college, every step seemed to have a clear value in and of itself. When I talk with young women suffering at work, many ask the wrong questions. They want to know, Why isn't this job giving me what I need? Where did I go wrong? What she needs to ask instead is, How can this job get me where I want to go next? What is this job teaching me about what I want and don't want?"
Now, if only I could get that job that teaches me what I want and don't want. Ha.
Until next rant, friends.
What I'm talking about is the Catch 22 of employment that I'm facing these days. Maybe someone else will connect to this, probably a recent graduate. Most of my friends have done well, gotten their entry level marketing or PR or business jobs. I haven't fared as well. Maybe it's because I have a Bachelor's in Hispanic Studies, obscure and seemingly helpful for the real world, but truly useless in terms of "Qualifications" as listed on every job post. Maybe it's because I'm looking in the wrong places. Maybe it's because I'm in denial about the fact that I picked the wrong career. Or discipline. Or place to live. Or maybe I really do need to go back to school, which is yet a whole other ball game.
This self-determining black hole I'm living in is what I have unceremoniously named The Catch 22 of Employment. For those who have know idea what a catch 22 is, read a book, or more specifically, read the book. Or just look it up, it's a common phrase these days. If I were to put a catch 22 in an artistic representation, I would probably insert an M.C. Escher drawing of me pulling my hair out while walking up and down confusing seemingly 3D staircases but always ending up on the same step just upside down. Google him, too. It'll make sense. Right now, my fingers are doing the talking.
Back to The Catch 22 of Employment.
Every few weeks, I get an addiction. It's not healthy or unhealthy (that depends on how you look at it), but this addiction includes me binge-job searching. Binge-watching Netflix is fun, sometimes it's brainless and a waste of time, but it's never painful, dry or relentless. It doesn't make me feel like I should have a serious physical injury or insane itch, it doesn't make my eyeballs stressed out and it doesn't make me want to throw my laptop across the room when asked to write yet another cover letter. No, Netflix doesn't make me do that. The Catch 22 of Employment makes me do that.
Do you have a Bachelor's degree?, it asks. Yes, check that off.
Do you have a relevant degree in ________,_________,___________, or _________? No, but I have similar experience in general. Toss together some imperfect puzzle pieces comprised of seasonal employment, volunteer experience and some school project or course that sort of works but you and I both know it probably won't come up even.
Do you have at least 1 year experience? No, I just graduated in May, but I have similar and relevant experience. I can swing this one. Maybe this one I can slide, stretch it to make it fit.
Do you have 3 to 5 years experience? No, because I was busy getting my Bachelor's.
And then boom, I don't land the job, it's a short email from whatever organization or company I've just applied to a few weeks later, sometimes thankfully a few days later. I say thankfully because anyone that has been in my position knows for a fact that waiting weeks on end for a job you applied for and then don't get is not only incredibly annoying but it also makes you feel like you took 1 baby step forward then catapulted yourself backwards.
It feels like this for me because I spend hours, yes, hours searching for positions that I'm at least mostly qualified for. This takes a lot, because I work in the education discipline but do not hold a teacher's certificate. Instead, I have almost 12 years of youth-related experience, in both educational settings and other settings, but there's never a seemingly appropriate place to put "babysitter" or "nanny" on a resume even though, fellow babysitters and nannies, you know damn well your work is comparable to that of a regular job. Sure, you get movie nights sometimes, get to play in a park, but you're also responsible for one or more small humans who don't always listen, have a tendency to run away or get sick easily or get fingers stuck in small places or have tantrums and you're supposed to be the one responsible.
This is not me complaining about wasting my time babysitting. I'm glad I did it. Every once in a while, I'll meet someone in conversation who truly appreciates the work of a nanny or babysitter, but potential employers just don't see it that way. They don't see where the multitasking comes in, the weight of the full responsibility of another human, ensuring nothing happens to them, that you yourself are making smart choices around them and that they get home happy and healthy to their parents who gave you the responsibility in the first place and trust you with their children's' lives.
Let's take a step back. What did you do with your summers, Kiva, then? Why didn't you get relevant work experience then? Well, friend, I was taking advantage of my youth. Yes, I worked as a summer camp counselor twice, but during my college summers I traveled. I studied abroad, I went on vacations with my family, I did some babysitting and even took a few more courses online.
This is the one that gets me, though. People say I should've held an internship during my summers or during the school year. Maybe I should have. Maybe I would've landed a sweet gig, but I can't go back, so that's off the table. And there's no way I can support myself off an internship or hourly wage if I really want to launch myself into the realm of professionals. What I do have is extensive travel experience. I'm fortunate enough to say that too. Most people don't get the chance to travel so frequently or so exotically or so far widespread. My parents worked hard, were diligent and sacrificed a lot in terms of social life in their younger years so that they could provide a better life for their kids. That better life included traveling, and we were given just that. Initially, it was just family trips. Eventually, it turned into traveling solo or joining programs that allowed us to travel with others.
Just as great as it was, however, there isn't a place for that on a resume or a cover letter. And why would there be? That was a somewhat rhetorical and sarcastic question. There should be a section for travel. Absolutely. If you don't think travel is a career-builder, I honestly don't think you have ever thought outside the box.
First of all, travel in itself, the action itself, provides a tale to tell in terms of skills: time management, planning and preparation and courage. To book a flight, book a hotel room, reserve a car, buy a train pass, pack your bags smartly, get your car checked before a road trip--all of that requires some form of forethought. That's a learned skill.
Secondly, the travel experience: connecting with another population, navigating another place, making do with limited resources and keeping your shit together are all pretty pivotal not just for travel but also for a job. In a job, you might not have to eat only curry for three weeks like I did while in India and Nepal, but it taught me a lot about what I could and couldn't handle, and it taught me curiosity for food style, food locality and the importance of proper sustenance for a specific task (like not eating murgh makhani before going on a hike).
Thirdly, the moments passed and the activities participated in during a travel experience are the things that you come into without and leave with: having jewelry and money stolen, etiquette on trains, trusting strangers to help you out when your cell phone battery dies on the train and you don't speak German and you need to get to this one specific Swiss village, learning that kids love to have their photo be taken. It's these experiences, not the items you come home with, that teach you far more than an internship in your comfortable little bubble. They teach you about humanity, about interaction and communication, about rules and etiquette and law and the whole shebang. They teach you to be responsible, aware, respectful, wary, courageous, independent and a multitasker. Who wouldn't want their employee to have these things, not as taught in a classroom setting but in a life setting?
I definitely could put on my resume my travels, or talk about them in my cover letter, but it always comes off like I'm bragging or showing off when I really want to reveal the value in my travel and what skills I've gained from it. It's just frustrating, if you've got this one thing that's taught you so much and there's not a socially-accepted place to put it down on your resume.
Now that I've shut up about my travels, I'll need to toss a few stories on here. But my point is really more about frustration. Frustration with the system, frustration that my fellow travelers or hobby-doers or extracurricular-participants can't be given the opportunity to express their abilities and skills learned in a non-traditional format.
This Catch 22 of Employment is a real gut punch. It's a real confidence knocker. Anything remotely entry level probably comes with a terms and conditions agreement, also known as the Qualifications section in which it details that, in fact, it is not an entry level position. And some of us can't even justify or back up our non-resume experience and apply it towards that job position.
Someone just really needs to give us a chance.
And honestly, as I wrote this, I felt the tension and frustration dissipate. So I've discovered I like to write about shit. I'm definitely not a poet, a writer, an author, but writing helps me relieve stress. And it's good to know that I can get passionate about something and put it down in words. Because maybe I'm not the only one feeling this Catch 22 of Employment mania. Maybe my friends feel it in different ways, different intensities, different dilemmas. Not everyone faces the same challenges that I do, so this post might seem facetious or ridiculous to some. But you're not here in this coffee shop with me with my overheated laptop staring at 12 different Indeed tabs while you've got Microsoft Word open writing your 6th cover letter with a twitch in your foot because you're frustrated as hell that you're not in the place you thought you were going to be.
I'll leave y'all with this. It's a paragraph out of some book that a friend's mom is reading. It resonated with me, and it'll hopefully resonate with my resume-wielding women out there as it's tailored to them, but I'm sure some of my guy friends are feeling this too:
"Every step will be good in some ways, but almost never in all ways.
High-achieving girls fantasize about their first jobs in ways that closely resemble romantic myths. In the world of Disney and rom-coms, true love happens at first sight and lasts forever. So it should be, some girls reason, with that first job.
Cue the needle scratching on a record, because this will almost never be how her first job will play out. Just like she'll have to kiss a lot of frogs before she finds her prince or princess, she'll land in jobs that are unfulfilling, overwhelming, boring as hell, beyond wrong for her, and everything in between. This isn't her fault. It is a reality of adulthood. Life throws us unexpected curveballs. sometimes there is little more to say.
The reason why this is so hard for your daughter is that in college, every step seemed to have a clear value in and of itself. When I talk with young women suffering at work, many ask the wrong questions. They want to know, Why isn't this job giving me what I need? Where did I go wrong? What she needs to ask instead is, How can this job get me where I want to go next? What is this job teaching me about what I want and don't want?"
Now, if only I could get that job that teaches me what I want and don't want. Ha.
Until next rant, friends.
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