who are you people with your jobs and such...?

I apologize for not writing about it earlier, but I've been in oscillating states of shock, awe, ire, and depression over what a friend of mine told me last Thursday at a group meeting:

She already has an offer she accepted to work for KPMG upon graduation in May.

Whaaat??  And she brushed it off her shoulders like it was no big deal.  "Don't you have one?" she seemed to say.  I, sadly, yet unabashedly (seriously?) had to inform her that no, I did not have any offers.

I don't think it was hate that began to seethe from my pores, and I'm not sure if it was jealousy, but it was a mixture of emotions that was running through my veins as I looked at her, sitting at her desk, eatin her pizza so daintedly, afraid of getting the marinara sauce on her white sweater.  Don't worry, she could spill an entire pie on her cashmere and it wouldn't matter--her signing bonus was big enough that she could probably buy an entire cashmere factory.

Now, I understad that my friend is in the (unfortunate) industry of accounting and that I am in the (equally unfortunate, but for different reasons) industry of marketing, and that jobs for me will not even be considered until a date far closer to graduation, but it's still like a swift kick to the shins.  Not just that she has a job, but she seems to find it so incredulous that after a summer internship and a good education that I don't have an offer.  It's nice to know someone values me in that way, but I'd rather have it be someone who can actually give me a job, not my entry-level accountant friend.  Though, when April 14th, 2009 rears its ugly head and I'll have to do my own taxes for my entry-level position that we hope I get, paying a living salary, I'll know who to call.

"Hi, is Jaqueline there?"

"Yes, this is she."

"Hi, this is Entry Level Blogger.  Remember we went to business school together?  I'm the one who didn't have the job in September."

"Oh right, how did that work out?"

"Well, I have one now.  Job, salary, taxes, and all."

"Congratulations!  What do you do?"

"I'm in advertising." (let's assume here)

"Oh, that's uh... different."

"Yeah, I was wondering if you could help me with my tax returns."

"Do you even make enough money there to be taxed?"

I imagine it'll go something like that.  God, what a great life I have to look forward to.  I just can't wait to start setting aside money for my "mid-life crisis" fund.  I'm seeing motorcycles, tattoos, and an entire backyard of Chia Pets in the future.

allow myself to introduce... myself...

I thought that it might be nice, before I continue to give you a haphazard look into the world of a soon-to-be college graduate and entry-level worker, to give you a quick background on who I am.  Because we all know nothing is more disheartening than to find out your favorite blogger (or vlogger) is one big, giant fraud.  Not to name names....

Let's start with the basic identifiers, which you might already be able to glean from the few previous posts.

AGE: 21 years-old

ZODIAC SIGN: taurus

GENDER: male

CURRENT LOCATION: new york

FORMER LOCATION: california

MAJOR: marketing

I'd like to keep a certain amount of anonymity, as those fools who send me random myspace and facebook messages (fellas, I like girls, but thanks for the compliments; and porn stars, I don't really want to be your myspace 'friend') kind of creep me out.  So we'll keep my name and school under wraps.  I'm not too careful though, so maybe you can pick up on a few things if you read carefully.

Now, you might be asking, what do you want to do with your life that's making this final year of college rather frightening, and why start a blog about it?

For the first question, I'm interested in advertising.  This past summer I actually landed an internship (I know, who'dve thunk?) at an advertising agency working in the strategy department and I had a blast.  I like both the psychological and artistic intricacies that go on behind what brings an advertisement to the public.  Call me a lover of low-brow art, but advertising does that to me.

To lead into the second question, I like writing.  Ideally, I would be a famous short-story writer who just sits on his ass eating Milano cookies and typing up a fury.  I'm far too practical to put all my eggs in one basket though.  Not to say I don't dream and dabble.  That said, if anyone is giving away book deals, you know where to turn them to.  My love of writing is one of the main attractions of blogging.  Sure, I may suck at times, and I may rock at times, but at least I'm writing, and getting that much closer to being better.  

Another reason why I started a blog is because I know there are many, many other students and otherwise young people out there who share the same anxieties.  Whether you're going into the workforce from high school, undergrad, a master's program, or a joint law degree/medical degree, it's a scary experience to leave the confines of education and begin the process of an actual, 9-5 (sometimes more), taxable income-filled career.  Maybe if others who are going through the same thing stumble upon this blog, they won't feel so alone, and they'll know that someone else is having as ridiculous of a time with as ridiculous of situations.  And, while I'm at it, this is for those who are established and who have careers.  You must remember what it was like to be in this limbo of a position!  So maybe I'll be able to rekindle that flame in you.  And maybe you'll hire me.  We can dream, eh?

So that's a little bit about me and a little bit about how my brain got twisted into starting this blog that you may love and RSS subscribe to, or you may hate and lambast me on your own blog.  Really, it's your choice.  But I think I have something to share, so I'm going to share it.

a note to the readers i hope will frequent this blog...

I'm not sure if anybody is going to read this or not, but I just thought I'd write a little disclaimer in case somebody does happen to stumble here and begin to explore this crater in my brain.

I am relatively new to blogging.

I don't really know how to set up this Blogger business to look the way I want to, and, while I have a lot of patience when it comes to computer things and the Internet, sometimes I'm just baffled by the simplest stuff.  So forgive me if this page changes appearance or has some inconsistencies in appearance for a while until I get the hang of things.

Now, that said, I hope there are people visiting this in the future and continue to visit it.  There are so many people scared and waiting (and biding their time) to enter the real world that I hope they can find some natural company here.

and you're supposed to help me find a job...?

The Office of Career Services.  Your best friend in senior year as you try to find a job.  Supposedly.

I just returned from my school's OCS, and I am thoroughly disappointed.  Should I be trusting these people to help usher me into the world of salaries and the 401(k)?

This is basically how on-campus recruitment goes:

1. Attend career fair

2. Drop resume to employer online

3. Get interview

3a. If no interview received, bid for an interview

4. Interview

5. Receive job (double crossed fingers style)

Now, to be able to drop your resume and complete step two, you must have attended two special seminars offered at our OCS: Recruitment Orientation and Interviewing Skills.  This is understandable, if you are a freshmen.  However, I am a senior.  Not to toot my own horn, but all of this job stuff, this ain't new to me.  I've had jobs for years.  I know how to interview.  And I'm attending a good school.  A business program.  I know how to do these things.  I don't need to be spoon-fed directions.  In short, I'm not a fuck-up.

But, beauaucracy is beauaucracy, and to get to step three, I need to attend these seminars.  Too bad the next ones aren't offered until the deadline of step two.  Now, you might say I should have been more on-the-ball about this whole system, but to that I say nay!  OCS is so far removed from our schooling and any mention of it is in passing.  How was I to know that these requirements were so stringent?  And that, without going through this process, to get your resume even looked at by an HR representative at some companies is impossible.  Believe me, I wish I could drop my resume off in other ways, get interviews at these companies through other ways, but that just doesn't seem to be the way things work in the real world.  And this must be what I go by; I'm not ready to enter the real world yet.  Baby steps, remember.

So, today I go to OCS to get all of this straightened out and see if I can possibly progress normally as step two to step three to step four, instead of dealing with that pesky step three-a.

OCS is supposed to be a professional environment.  I'm supposed to be able to trust them with my post-collegiate livelihood.  And, coming from the background of business studies, I think I can tell a poorly run institution when I see one.  And OCS....  

I get there and I swipe my ID card so the computer can read who I am.  It doesn't work.  I look at the student worker at the front desk.  He looks back, says nothing, then turns his head back down to Blender Magazine.  I manually type in my ID number.  It doesn't work.  I try again, this time removing the first identification letter, as the computer so kindly suggests.  Therein lies success!  The message I get?  "Please inform the front desk attendant of your arrival and appointment."  Why I had to go through the computer to do that baffles me.  So I turn to the student worker, who seems as if I had ruined his day, interrupting the latest article about Hilary Duff's budding music career.  

"I'm here to see Kendra--"

"She's right over there," he says, not really gesturing towards a direction.

"I'm right here," I hear a voice call directly from my left.  I look.  "Do we have an appointment?"  this supposed Kendra says.

"Yes, at 1:45."

"Oh, okay.  Give me... 8 minutes," she says.

Looking back at the front desk attendent, I see he has moved on to an article about High School Musical 2 and when I look back to where Kendra was, there is no one to be seen.  So, I make my way over to the waiting room chairs.

Now, I don't mean to sound like an angry stickler (if the duck quacks), but when your position in an organization involves having appointments with people who come visit you, isn't it common courtesy to look at your schedule ahead of time and a) know when you have a meeting and b) who that meeting is with?

Eight minutes later, Kendra returns and asks me to follow her to her office.  On the way, I notice about 20 new iMacs (at $1200+ each).  Does my university really need to update their hardware every time Apple comes up with some new gizmondo?  I begin to wonder where exactly my tuition dollars are going.  Apparently not to the actual efficiency of our career office, just the visage of efficiency.

Sitting down in her office, she asks, "So what are you here for?"  I reply that I'm having problems with my career account in that I can't reach step two in the process outlined above.  She says, "Well, have you attended both the sessions?"  I reply that I haven't, but that resumes are due sooner than the next ones.  "Well, you have to attend those," she says.  I explain that I understand that, but there are other issues here.  "There's one next Friday," she says.  Yes, I explain that I know that, but resumes are due to be dropped the Tuesday before.  "Well, you can still bid (step 3a)," she offers.  

"But won't that put me at a disadvantage?" I ask.

"No."

"If I drop my resume though, they can pick to interview me from that pile, and if I don't pick, then I can bid.  So if I don't have the first step, my only chance is to bid.  Isn't that a disadvantage?"

"...."

"Isn't it?"

She replies in a robotic voice, as if she were a very, very bad actress: "You won't be at a disadvantage."

"I don't think I understand."

"Let's go up to the front desk to see if they can track down if you have actually attended the seminars."

"...Okay," a bit confused I follow her lead.  Honestly, I'm unsure what else I could have said to make the situation better.  So we walk up to the front desk.

"This student (I don't think she remembers my name) might have taken the recruitment seminars, but we're not too sure, can you look it up for us?"  Expecting him to turn to the computer, I instead see him reaching down to pull up one of those mondo 4" three-ring binders full of pink slips of paper.

"When do you think you went?" he asks.

"Um..." not sure what to say I reply, "Maybe last year sometime?"

And that's when my "career advisor" says, "You're going to have to be a little more specific," then, putting on a baby voice, "See he has that binder there?  Each seminar you sign in with the honor code.  So if you say 'last year,' he'll have to go through every seminar we held last year and look for your name."

And my only question now, at the end of this ordeal, is: what are they doing with those dozens of new iMacs?  Playing Monopoly?

it's a carnivale of potential middle-management positions...!!

I always like being one of the first groups of people at career fairs. Why?  To start, you have the (debatable) advantage of being the premier impression presented to the recruiter.  Second, there are a lot less people to compete with for face time.  Third, you can actually move in the cramped room where there are over 100 companies with representatives working and dining on the corporate card (expense it!).  And, lastly, you get all that shit over with.  

I tell you, the career fair is probably the most awkward time during recruitment.  You’re there, with hundreds of other students, to sell yourself to companies who really are not going to remember you at the end of the day, unless you show up naked (Freshmen: take note).  You’re there with the rest of your interchangeable class, asking the same dumb questions we’re told to ask, getting the same dumb answers they’re told to respond with, you distribute some resumes, you pick up some free goods, and you rarely hear from the companies ever again. 

The last career fair I went to I took very seriously.  I dressed in a sharp suit with a striking shirt and a matching tie.  I had my portfolio notebook with my extra resumes and reference sheets.  I had a smart looking pen and keen eyes, ears, and mouth for conversation.  I gave out 15 resumes, hoping to get interviews and offers for summer positions.  Well, after following up, I got no response from those 15 resumes, and I have an excellent resume.

Therefore, for this career fair, I was a bit more lackadaisical.  Sure, I still dressed in some nice pants and put on my fancy shoes, but gone was the tie and jacket.  If they weren't going to take me seriously, I wasn't going to take them seriously, but it's always fun to pull out those business casual outfits.  Playing the game involves being aloof in that such way, not the tattered jeans I'd normally wear.

I still had my resumes, but only five.  And I knew what I was really going for: free goodies.  Stress balls, backpacks, water bottles, t-shirts, puzzles, soda, food, writing utensils, flyers, sticky notes, and any other crap that happened to be lying around on those employer tables.  Sure, I had no interest in working for Morgan Stanley, but if they'll give me a pen-light and a water bottle, I'll pretend to be into investment banking.  I think any right-minded person would do the same.

So I arrived at our latest career fair right at 11:00am, when doors were supposed to open.  I was greeted by a long line wrapping around the block of my classmates, dressed in black suits with white button-ups and red power ties.  Walking down the line to reach the end, I garnered more than a few stares ("bright blue is no color to be wearing when one is to be in the presence of Goldman Sachs representatives!!").  And then, slowly, we were let into the building.  

After producing my school ID for verification, I was given a map of all the 160-some-odd companies represented, and shoved into the wilderness.  There were three rooms to tackle.  First, I walked through all three, getting my bearings as to who had the best goods and who would be most fun to mess with.  Pepsi had free soda.  Zuirch had backpacks.  Yahoo had water bottles.  And IBM had fake ice cubes with blue LED lights on the inside.  I do believe we've found the winner.

The thing about being one of the first people to arrive at a career fair is that you can see all of the HR representatives from all of the companies waiting for people to come up to them.  Some companies send two reps, and I've seen some send up to seven.  Now that's a little overkill.  If you send seven representatives, it's like saying, "We know we're so cool that we'll have at least seven people at any given time just dying to talk to us.  And we'll probably have a queue, too."  Though, there is something comforting about being a prospective employee, walking down these aisles and being flanked by HR reps, just dying to act excited and enthusiastic about you (yes you!) being their next entry-level employee.

After talking to eight or nine companies, their shtick started to sound the same.  I would ask what majors they have openings for.  If it was not my area, I would feign interest.  They would explain the 2-month, 3-month, or (a record) 6-month training process.  I would look into their eyes and lean forward with a smile and glimmer.  When they turned to grab a pamphlet, I would eye what they had on the table.  I would stare at their finely manicured eyebrows until I could see every individual hair.  And then, when I used all my standard questions and somewhat probing questions ("Are you married?" "Do you have any plans for further education?  Does your company support that?" "How much of what you're saying is in a script?") and I could tell their intonation was getting tired, I said a quick thank you, lunged for the false ice cubes, pen-lights, and sticky notes, shoved them into my Zurich backpack, and made my way to the next clan of human resource representatives.

Around 15 companies and conversations later in my life (and four resumes handed out to actualy potential employers who sounded somewhat interesting and exciting, where I didn't have to feign interest, major, or preferred occupation), I had exhausted all of the goodies and exhausted my endurance for this day's career search.  As much as I would love to, I don't expect to hear from any of the four companies to whom I distributed my resume, in which case I've come out of the experience simply tired, hungry (I wasn't allowed to eat the employer-only food), and with some knick-knacks that will make some great stocking stuffers.

So why continue on with them?  Tradition?  Because you’re supposed to do it?  No... it must be the free goodies.  Believe me when I say I can always use more stress balls.

the beginning of the end...

Summer is over, September is well under way, and school has begun once again.

The Freshmen have invaded, the Sophomores and Juniors have been reunited with each other, and the Seniors well... we're scared to death. Nobody has properly warned us that after four years we would have to go out and get jobs. Or maybe we just weren't listening. Sounds of partying are just so much more enticing.

But we're here. Nine short months until we get violently pushed into the real world. We've never been in the real world before. We entered school when we were five; we went through grammer school, junior high school, high school, and now what is called "higher education." With nearly two decades of straight school under our belts, part-time jobs for beer money aside, the real world is a far off and scary place.

Where do we start? On-campus recruitment, past internships, past jobs, connections, networking, skill sets, creativity, analysis, communication, and work, work, work. This is what we've worked for. This is what we've set ourselves up for. Are we ready?

Are we ready?

Probably not.

And so ensues Senior year, the end of our lives as we know it, and the beginning of our lives-to-be.

a haiku...

twenty-one years old
what the fuck do i do now?
entry level hell