Job Searching IS Like 2009 Dating… or something like that.
Some people told me that interviewing for jobs is like going on a string of dates. Considering I went to a college that Rolling Stone magazine publicly panned for having an abysmal dating culture, I was uncomfortable making such a comparison.
After sending a few emails that I deemed as life critically urgent and not hearing a response right away, it clicked. Job searching IS like 2009 dating… or something like that. (PS - those “life critically urgent” emails contained a resume and a question as to hiring timetables). My generation went to college with the text message — a simple device that has revolutionized dating, but has also made us the generation most obsessed with instant gratification. You send a text to a friend to grab lunch in the student center, chances are they’ll respond even if they’re in class. You send that Thursday night 1:30am “What are you up to? Want to watch a movie?” text to your gentleman companion (I know you all know the text in question), and the response, or non response, declared the status of your relationship.
We also were the first generation to graduate smart phones in hand. I watched as members of the Duke Class of 2009 live tweeted their graduation ceremony, where Oprah spoke. Really? Live tweeting graduation? We were a generation to tote lightweight laptops to class, and we checked our email about once every five minutes. And we’re a generation who just can’t fathom job searching without the Internet.
In the world where the 13 year old ahead of me at Jamba Juice has a more impressive smartphone than I, I know everyone receiving my resume is getting it on their Blackberry, their desktop mail, their assistant’s desktop mail. Not getting a quick response honestly gives me agita…
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The majority of my professional experiences have been in various marketing capacities, and I thought that was it for me. I thought I figured out what I was going to do for the rest of my life by the time I was 20. And then I didn’t get a job in it, despite my internships, despite my networking, despite that Duke degree, so after months of searching, I took a position casting a reality show for MTV. And I loved meeting people, thinking creatively, not working traditional hours, and just getting out there. It was the thrill of being social, of outside the box thinking, of creating something tangible each and every day (a tape, filled with all the audition tapes I filled in the candidates’ homes) and the ability to see what I helped to create on television.