The Joy of the Job Hunt

Getting a new job is hard.

Being in the same job for years and then, for reasons not entirely in your control, having to go get a completely new job, is tedious and exhausting, aggravating and soul crushing.

The entire process for getting a new job is a mess, in which everyone seems to be using the same faulty template to make a choice in what is ultimately a random gamble, Russian roulette dressed up as something logical and fair.

I need a new job. My fiance works for a shitty company, which made the poorly-reasoned and ego-driven decision that all remote employees have to go into one of their offices three times a week. Despite all studies showing that forcing people to go into a physical office does not increase productivity and is often less profitable for companies than to allow them to work remotely, they’re doing it anyway. Despite the fact that my fiance will only be going into an office, rather than the office where her co-workers actually work, so she’ll still have to communicate with them remotely, they’re still making her do it. They’re making her move from California to Colorado, so that she can sit in an empty office and talk on her computer with her colleagues, almost all of whom are in Texas, and I’m coming along for the ride.

This means that I have to quit the job I’ve been working at for over six years. I was going to have to quit before long, anyway, having gotten my Masters degree last year. I couldn’t very well hang out forever in a job for which I’ve always been over-qualified, especially now that I have a piece of paper proving it. But I wouldn’t necessarily have moved to Colorado as my next move. And I preferably wouldn’t do the move before securing a job. But, here we are. My fiance’s shitty company set an arbitrary deadline she needed to stick to in order to keep her job, so now I’m applying for every damn thing even tangentially related to my field and skillset located in the general south-of-Denver area.

Here’s the thing. I’ve gotten overconfident. I’ll acknowledge that. But I also know that it’s not entirely misplaced confidence. However entitled and arrogant it might sound, I know that I’m better and that based on ability and experience I deserve whatever job I apply to more than most people applying, and likely more than those that get it. Statistically, I know that the majority of people applying for jobs in my field don’t have my experience or skills. Yet it’s been rare to even get interviews, and rarer to move beyond the first interview.

Putting aside any specifics and my arrogant entitlement, the process for hiring people in this country is just silly. The idea that you can decide whether someone is a good candidate for a job based on a one-page outline of their work history is stupid. As is selecting them for a job based on one or a few interviews. People will do or say anything to get a job. They’ll lie and act their way through the whole charade. There’s no way to really catch someone on their bullshit until after they start working for you, by which point it’s essentially too late. You know who’s great at faking and lying and charming their way into things? Sociopaths. There is no better apparent new hire than a sociopath. But once they get into the job, unless it’s in politics or finance, y’all are in trouble. Even then, they might be super successful, but don’t be too surprised if the people around them suffer mysterious misfortunes or spontaneously die.

So maybe that’s the problem I’m having, not being a sociopath. Sure, I act a little more enthusiastic and peppy in interviews than is natural for me, but my chill, genuine nature doesn’t tend to read great on video calls, and being grilled by a panel of strangers in-person makes me nervous. So I need to work on those things. And maybe the arrogant entitlement thing. I’ll work on that too.