2001-10-11 - 3:28 p.m.
Today is National Coming Out Day.
*waves*
HI!
It's so insanely beautiful outside. I mean really. Insanely beautiful. I hear that happens in the fall in New England. ::cue the Reba song:::
I'm compiling, in my head, a list of helpful hints for those of you recently unemployed as we welcome you to the Ranks of the Job Seekers. Welcome!
We've all been having a little party over here following the dot.com crash. It's good to have you new folks on board. I'm looking forward to yet another rash of job seeking advice being posted in the papers and making me feel even more inadequate. FUN!
Just remember this. Life is not about your job. It's really not. If you need Cash, work at Starbucks. Seriously. Think: coffee. Life is not about your job. If you need validation, then. Well. Think again. Life is. It's about sticky frogs and getting your Girl to squeal and getting emails from your Best Friends and learning to Love Hockey.
Honestly. Trust me. This from a nearly-reformed capitalist, who still drools over Cabrios, but who on a regular basis tells Visa via conference calls with Discover and MasterCard... "it's not that I COULDN'T pay you.. it's that I didn't want to buy stamps. Really I need you as an organization to understand this difference. It's going to be key to our continued relationship."
I've nearly got them trained.
The Freaks.
Okee. Here's my short list of job-hunting tips.
* The best one I got from Inkwell. He told me, upon entering an interview... to repeat to yourself... "I'd hire me....." in a creepy Hannible Lector voice. It works. Seriously.
* Play Melissa Ferrick's song, "Honest Eyes" at HIGH frikken volume in your Cutlass before walking into an interview. I don't know about you... but this is HANDS-DOWN the best approach for me. I also like to -- at this time -- acknowledge the wonderful juxtoposition of me in an interview suit, sitting in a 91 cutlass with a rainbow sticker (waves at the national coming out day folks) and leopard print steering wheel cover that proclaims me to be PRINCESS (throws glitter in the general direction of the other DIVAS).
* Update your resume on Monster like every day. Seriously. It keeps it at the top of the searches. And honestly. You need to keep reviewing the resume. It could use some help. Trust me. I found like a THOUSAND mistakes in mine.
* BE SPECIFIC at all times. In your resume, your cover letter, your interviews and your follow up thank yous. Be Specific. B-E SPECIFIC. Seriously. Go through some night after drinking two pints of Your Choice (I like Brooklyn Lagar) and list the most fun experiences you've ever had at your jobs. Like. I sat down and did this... and remembered that I once got an AIRCONDITIONED cab in NYC in July for two penguins visiting from Argentina. THAT was fun as well as an accomplishment. I bring that out at interviews now and it's SUCH a crowd-pleaser. You have no idea. And it sticks in people's heads. So hopefully someday someone will go... "let's hire the penguin girl!" I'm thinking it could totally happen.
* KNOW that they are going to ask certain questions. Like... What can *you* bring to this position? Tell me about your last position? BE PREPARED FOR THIS. This is not rocket science folks. See the above bullet point for ways to handle this. BE SPECIFIC B-E SPECIFIC. The days of being able to spout out random words like "branding" and "value-added" and whatever the dot.coms brought us are OVER. With a capital OVER. We're on now to reality. A little thing we spell S-P-E-C-I-F-I-C-S.
* KNOW that they are DEFINITELY going to ask you "So... Do you have any questions for me?" BE PREPARED FOR THIS. Again. Not rocket science. HAVE A QUESTION! I ALWAYS ask *two*. I always ask... "What sort of person are you looking to hire for this position?" This gives you a handy Cliff's Notes for writing the thank you letter and stressing EXACTLY those points. I also ask... "What's your timeframe for hiring this position?" Because I always want to know that.
* SEND A THANK YOU LETTER after an interview. Good lord. I can't stress this enough.
* After all that... let it go. It's out of your hands. I've been in on hiring processes where someone wasn't chosen because she wore a "creative outfit" and we were pretty not-creative. Which means... IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.
Okee. That's all I can think of right now. Except that you should check the boards *daily*. I went to an interview the other day and the HR woman goes, "We got in so many resumes at one point, we just stopped looking at them."
Ok. That's really all.
Hey. Have a good Thursday.
*snort*
