Resume is Life

Let’s put our lives on a piece of paper shall we? Let’s cram all of our education, all of our work, all of our volunteering, and anything else we can long-shot fathom as beefing us up and throw it on some paper. Let’s then send it out to as many different companies as we can, to as many different positions we can. Let’s hope it lands in a nice lady’s hands, sitting at a huge desk in HR, that reads it and thinks, “Hmm, what an interesting young individual.” Let’s hope she calls us in for an interview.

The job market is bleak. So bleak. And anyone who has applied for a job that requires more than a smile knows what I’m talking about. It’s stressful. It’s disheartening. And it takes a lot of perseverance and diligence to finally get where we want, if we even get that. We a lot of times have to lower our expectations. Just because we are about to have bachelors degrees, most definitely doesn’t entitle us to an $80,000 per year salary. Be happy with half of that. Seriously. And for those of us who end up with more, be extremely grateful.

But it’s all part of the crappy corporate world we live in, that our livelihood is dependent on putting our entire professional life on a piece of paper. We are expected to do this, while making ourselves different than the next resume in the stack, making ourselves look interesting and showing just a tad of personality. It’s not impossible, it’s not easy either. It personally makes me want to be a six year old again, where my biggest concern was when I got to eat a Happy Meal and play in the mud.

Good luck seniors.

 

The Level of ‘I don’t want to’

Senioritis struggles are so real. And in full force at that. We’ve only got about 3 or 4 week left, but the level of “I don’t want to do anything school related’ is hitting everyone pretty hard. We’re thinking back, how many outlines, papers, finals, and so on have we taken? A lot. Honestly, it’s something to be proud of… How hard we have worked. How far we’ve come. But let’s be honest, the thought of writing one more stupid paper, or studying for one more stupid final, has us on the brink of insanity. We’re passed the point of caring, we just want to be done. We have so much to do between working our real jobs, finding grown-up jobs, studying, and salvaging a social life, all we want to do is take a nap. At least we can forget about the strug in our dreams.

Senioritis is a new kind of lazy. Because it’s not really being lazy. It’s actually the result of four years spent being the exact opposite of lazy. We’ve just had enough. Our brains need a break. Spring break is more like a tease than an actual break, because the entire week we have thoughts of things we have to do when we get back lingering around making us silently stress out. Then we get back and we have to grind out and work hard. It’s like the last lap on a mile run, and we are sprinting. We must graduate. We must do this. Can you even imagine what it would be like to have one bad grade be the make or breaking point of holding us here another semester? Because I would be willing to bet, we’ve already ordered our pretty little graduation announcements, and our caps and gowns and invited our families to sit together to watch us walk. How embarrassing would that be.

Let’s ban together. Encourage your fellow seniors guys! Don’t let senioritis get the best of us. We are on borrowed time at this point. Let’s get our study on, because at this point we are pros!

20 Thoughts We Have While Job Hunting

Looking for a grown-up job is as scary as it is exciting. In a perfect world, you start by handing your resume to some influential hands, hoping for an “in” to the company of your dreams. If that isn’t an option, you spend hours scouring job listings from different sites and perfecting your LinkedIn profile in hopes of the right someone stumbling upon your greatness. You go over your resume with a fine-toothed comb and even send it to a few of your superiors and professors for an honest opinion. When everything is as perfect as you think you can make it, you start sending out the paper version of you to as many job listings as you can, in hopes of getting one of the hundreds you may apply for. It’s like deciding what you want to eat and realizing there’s nothing in the house. You go to the refrigerator with one idea in mind, it’s not there. You go to the pantry with a different idea, it’s not there– return to the refrigerator with  lower standards. Not to say that you should lower your standards in life, but for your first job after college, we don’t have the luxury of being so picky. So, here’s to the hunt, and 20 thoughts we have while perusing through the job ads:

1. I can’t tell if my resume is really good, or really bad.

2. This is totally a fake listing… whatever I’ll apply anyway.

3. Oh my god. This is perfect. This is the job for me. If I don’t get this I’ll die.

4. LOL at that salary. Absolutely not.

5. Hmm, that seems like the most boring job I’ve ever heard of… I could do it for $50K though. In goes my resume.

6. I’ve read so many postings, I may be going cross-eyed.

7. Paid relocation to Orlando, Florida? Well just twist my arm….

8. Paid relocation to Madison, Wisconsin? HA, moving on.

9. Requires 2-5 years experience. Hmm. I’ll just win them over with my charm. Hopefully I’m feeling charming that day.

10. “Please submit a video resume.” Ugghhhh. Fine. Just let me just make myself look presentable from the waste up real quick.

11. **Remembers raunchy Facebook post from 3 years ago** Crap. Crap. Must go delete before they realize how immature I’m capable of being.

12. Maybe I should just make my Facebook private.

13. How long have I been sitting here? Must be going on three hours.

14. I feel productive.

15. I’m going to look at apartments I could afford when I get my new job.

16. I’ll have the perfect house, and job. I’ll need a hobby. Maybe a dog.

17. Crap. Back on track. Let’s check out a different site.

18. These are all the same postings as the other site.

19. Oh well, two applications is better than none..

20. I really hope I’m not jobless come graduation. I’ll take anything really. **Prays to the job-giving gods**

Senior Stress vs. Regular Stress

Let’s just begin by breaking these two down:

Regular Stress: Stress the average human has to deal with. Examples include work, school, traffic, relationships, etc. Things that add stress on any typical day.

And the latter, Senior Stress: the enormously important, yet extremely tedious and seemingly impossible task of actually graduating on time, and everything that goes with that. So you take all of the regular stresses, and then you add on the definitive element of “If I mess this up, I’m not graduating”. We must turn everything in, we cannot skip classes, we cannot do bad on anything, because ultimately, we cannot fail ANY of our classes, or we WILL be screwed into staying in this earthly hell yet another semester, equating out to another seven months after the spring term ends.

But to put a bow on an already perfect package of stress and anxiety, let’s now add another piece to the puzzle:

It’s the question we, as seniors, dread more than anything else and avoid talking about at all costs, but seem to be asked on a weekly basis, “So, what are you going to do after graduation?” The person asking is always annoyingly bright-eyed and full of decent intentions, curious about your life. Some us have respectable answers, some of us are just trying to get to graduation day without any discrepancies, some of us aren’t emotionally ready to graduate at all.

But let’s say we are, indeed, thinking that far ahead, because let’s be honest: we are forced to. You want to go to grad school? Better have taken that GRE by now, or you better count your lucky stars you can take it by the end of the month and your schools will accept late scores. Tack on the hunt for at least two, decent letters of recommendation, and the money for the application. And after it’s all said and done, and you’ve sent the best version of yourself on paper to a couple of different schools, that’s just for the CHANCE to get an interview for the graduate program. You could do all of that work applying for the graduate program of your dreams, for the heads of the program to sit at their round table laughing at the entirety of your college career and slide your application in the nearest trash can, moving onto the next sorry candidate. Just take a moment to digest that.

I digress.

On the other hand, and I have to say it’s the hand I’m falling into right now, I need a break from school. I’m going to go straight into the workforce after graduation and a two month life-hiatus to ease my mind. But plunging into the workforce is another task in itself, sort of similar to graduate school also. You want to have a job for after you graduate? You better have been networking since your sophomore year of college. You better have had a few internships and some solid work to show for it, on top of your serving job (or of the like) where you actually make your money. You have to have a plan. What company, which position, and why? And don’t even think just because you have that fancy undergraduate degree that you’re guaranteed your 50K salary with paid vacation and sick days. Pump the breaks sparky, we appreciate the enthusiasm, but you’ll be lucky to get an entry level job paper pushing and licking envelopes, barely making more than what you would make if you had no degree. And if you lick enough envelopes, you could get a promotion in the next two years.

Outside of the growing-larger-by-the-minute To Do List, we have the added pressures of not disappointing those that are rooting for us. Our parents, proud and hopeful as we are about to enter the next phase of our lives. Our siblings, looking to us for an example, and giving them something to look forward to and work towards. And our friends, who are just as excited for us to graduate so we can deal with all the pains of adulthood simultaneously.

So cheers. seniors! And best of luck dealing with one of the most stressful times of your life, thus far. May we party like rockstars after graduation.