Into the Wild...Let The Hunt Begin #1

A Millennial In Midst of the Job Hunt In the Age of Technology...and Online Dating Sites?
After searching the depths of the Internet and newspapers for the perfect job that will bring me out of the world of the lowly graduate student and into the world of the new professional, I exclaimed with frustration, “There really should be a better way to do this!” We millennials are prone to having reactions like that. While I do not often like to consider myself a millennial, at times I succumb to some of the less admirable traits. My job-hunting energy drained for the day, my eyes weary from staring at a computer screen for hours, I shuffled over to my favorite chair in the living room and turned on the TV to stare at a different screen for a while. (I told you: I can resemble a millennial.)

If you turn on the TV for just a few minutes, it’s likely that you will come across some of the eHarmony commercials—you know, those caring, thoughtful Internet matchmakers who like to throw slow-motion clips of couples in love laughing, ice skating, or practicing their aim in a bowling alley. eHarmony claims to find you “The One.” It sounds so easy and so rewarding: answer some questions about yourself (fine print: pay a large sum of money) and potential “perfect” matches are delivered right to your email inbox! That’s when it hit me: Why isn’t there an eHarmony for the student affairs job hunt?

It could be called, eHigherEdandMe, or something more clever than that. Let’s think about this possibility for a minute. An online system that matches your values, interests, preferred geographic location, and all of the other things on your job checklist to all of the available jobs out there in the world of student affairs! This would be brilliant, and it would provide matches at a deeper level than those run-of-the-mill job agent results that you subscribe to, which only return suggestions from a basic keyword search. I mean, we learn about assessment techniques in our field and admit it, you could probably label a stranger an “ENTJ” using the MBTI criteria that is embedded in your brain. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to use that gift of ours to create a system that assesses our needs and wants while simultaneously easing the stress of our job search?

Okay, so maybe my millennial traits have taken this idea too far. Maybe I’m just overlooking the upside to the job hunt. I really am learning a lot by searching hundreds of postings. I am practicing how to better highlight my experiences in my resume based on job descriptions of interest and I'm learning more than I can remember about institutions nationwide.

It’s funny, though. So much of the job hunt resembles the search for love in the age of technology and online dating profiles. For example, a job description is just like looking at the “interests” section on a person’s profile. Do you like doing the same things? If so, move on to the qualifications and hiring details, which are just like the “looking for” section of a profile. Long-term relationship? The job wants you for a full-time, indefinite position! Casual dating? The job is a contracted position—have some fun for a while, then move on. Friendship? The job requires 3-5+ years experience, which you don’t have, newbie. But you can still be friends, right? Look the job up a few years down the road.

There’s nothing worse than seeing a great job description only to discover that it just wants to be friends. That happened to me last night. The job was perfect for me. It was everything I wanted, in a great geographic location, at a great institution that was just the right size, but I wasn’t enough for it. I know I’ll come across these types of postings a lot during my hunt, so I keep reminding myself that I will get there, some day. We all need to start somewhere. Maybe one day I’ll have so much experience that the perfect job that I saw last night will pop up out of nowhere, find me, and say, “Hey, you look great!” Of course by that point I hope I’ll be in a long-term committed relationship with my dream job, so I can say, “Yeah, let’s just be friends.” But I can’t get ahead of myself. First I need to find that perfect entry-level job. (And people think finding a date is tough?) I better get back to the hunt! Here I come, Student Affairs!