Real World: Job Search #3

My Litmus Test for Applying

I found there are way more jobs available than I thought, but does that mean that I have to apply to all of them? At first, I thought the answer was yes. I mean, the whole objective (or is it outcome?) of this search process is to, well, be employed at the end of it. The more options, the better. Then, I started to get a little overwhelmed.

But I had an epiphany: I came up with a solution, one simple test to figure out if I should apply for a particular school: does it pass my Litmus Test?

I started getting into this job search frenzy this weekend. I was on placement websites, Human Resources sites, and looking on studentaffairs.com, Academic 360, and on InsideHigherEd.com (all great websites, by the way). And I started collecting all of these position descriptions, organizing them in folders on my computer. I even created this crazy Excel spreadsheet, with tabs for jobs I’ve applied for, jobs I’m interested in applying for, and jobs I’m not so interested in but will keep on the list just in case.

And so I sat down and wrote my first cover letter and I realized that I couldn’t figure out why I wanted to work at this school. Sure, it seemed like a great position, but it didn’t have that—certain something—that je ne sais quoi.

[Corny pop culture reference: Have you ever seen The Princess Diaries, with Anne Hathaway? There’s this subplot line in the movie; she’s looking for the guy that, when she kisses him, makes her foot pop up off the ground like in an old romantic comedy. She can’t explain why she believes this will happen, and she certainly doesn’t know who it will happen with…but the job search is kind of like that. I want a job that is going to make my foot pop.]

But I digress… I’m staring at this perfectly decent position description, and I started thinking about what would happen if I got an interview with this school. One of the first questions they would inevitably ask, right after “So, tell us about yourself” would be some variation of “So why do you want to work at this school, for this department?” And I realized I couldn’t think of something to say. And if I couldn’t think of something to say, daydreaming in my apartment on a Sunday afternoon in January, what was I going to say in an interview in March?

Thus, my litmus test was born. If I can’t think of anything to say to the question “Why do you wanna work at this school” then I don’t apply for that position. It’s as simple as that. If it doesn’t make my foot metaphorically pop, then I move on to find the one that does. It works for me; it might not work for you. But try it. Why do you want to work at this school, in this job? Can you do it?