MAN APPLIES FOR 300 JOBS AND GETS NOWHERE.

-By Janet Raiffa, Contributing Writer, Member & Recruiting Manager

If you’re getting depressed about your job search and your low hit rate on resumes this month’s “Esquire” may provide some consolation.  While the cover photo of Israeli model Bar Rafaeli clad only in body paint will likely delight 90% of the male population (and 10% of the female population if statistics are correct), the article “Help Wanted” by Richard Dorment should strike a chord with almost all 405ers in the New York area.  In this investigative report Dorment, a 30ish journalist gainfully employed by the aforementioned men’s magazine as an editor, applies for over 300 jobs to test both his own qualifications and the state of the market.  To make a short story even shorter – he gets nowhere.

For his experiment Dorment uses his own unaltered resume which lists seven years of varied experience and boasts an English Literature B.A. from a “good school.”  He steers clear of positions in the newspaper or magazine world and those requiring accreditation or licensing he doesn’t have, but beyond those restrictions he applies to positions ranging from fast track junior executive slots to jobs of last resort.  The roles and companies he pursues can be found at esquire.com/helpwanted and include the following: marketing designer at Nascar, personal shopper at Tiffany, manager at McDonald’s, sneaker salesman at Adidas, security guard at Yankee Stadium, and men’s fashion buyer at Loehmann’s.

Called in for eight interviews, he receives only two callbacks, and no offers; Dorment summarizes his dismal success rate as batting 0.006%.  He interviews with the owner of a trendy breakfast joint in Tribeca and fails at a homework assignment of generating “big, bold ideas” on how the restaurant’s menu can be revised, he is rejected by McDonald’s based solely on the results of an online test, and he cannot successfully sell jewelry to a cartoonishly language-challenged interviewer asking for a demonstration of his skill hawking to potential customers.  After navigating a nearly 2 ½ hour trip to industrial New Jersey in pouring rain, he is dismissed after a ten minute interview by an employer who looks barely twenty-four.  On the more positive side, he becomes a real prospect for an insurance firm but only if he can provide them with the “name, phone number, and household income” of everyone he has ever met, and incites genuine interest from a car dealer willing to pay him $100 a week plus a very modest commission.

Dorment ends up with a bruised ego and ruined Italian leather shoes from his trip to New Jersey, and only one significant piece of advice for jobseekers.  After crafting three different types of cover letters – a hot air one, an all business one, and a folksy one – he is convinced that a folksy introduction yields better results in securing an initial interview.  His final sad summary of his career exploration is that “Today’s market is brutal – it frightens and offends, exhausts and unmoors, and reminds even arrogant men who already have jobs of the countless things they can never be.”  I’d send you an email link to the article if I could, but ironically a report that could provide a bit of uplift or sense of camaraderie for those struggling to survive on unemployment and cutting out frills like magazines, is only available in the hardcopy July issue.

Read all of “Janet Raiffa’s Recessionals” here.

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