Advice on How to Get a Job

​With the beginning of summer upon us, you’re probably looking for a summer job, if you don’t have one already. You may be looking for a job to help you pay expenses, and to get you through high school or college. You may be looking for a job after college. Here are a few things I’ve picked up from reading (e.g., the Martin Yate Knock ‘Em Dead series of books) and personal experience (some of which was “learning things the hard way.” L). No matter how I got this information, I’d like to share it with you and possibly help you have an easier time getting a job than I have had.

Who Are You? Make Sure The People Who Want You Can Find You. Make Sure They’re Glad they Found You.

What kind of person are you? What can you do well? Are you creative? Did you write a short story that won an award? Did you star in your school play? Can you paint, draw, sing, or dance? Are you a fashion or interior decorating wiz? Then make sure that’s up front in your cover letter and resume, and apply to jobs where creativity is needed, such as clothing and furniture sales, advertising and publishing companies, etc. Creative jobs that seem glamorous (e.g., the entertainment or advertising industries) are hard to get into, so you may have to take an unpaid internship and get another job (e.g., fast food, temp work, etc.) to actually make money.  A word to the wise: the super-glamorous employers such as movie studios, TV networks, etc. often hire WAY more unpaid interns than they ever could hire as paid employees. It’s a way for them to get free labor, so if you’re actually looking for a paid job there in the future, you’re REALLY going to have to show that you’re the best candidate for a paid job position by far.

The same goes for people who want to go into law, politics, etc. You may well have to take a low-pay or no-pay job at a government agency or law firm to get the experience you need. Keep your eyes and ears open, and you’ll learn a lot that will help you in the future. Make friends and you’ll have great job and school application references in the future. Again, don’t be shocked if the law firm, government agency doesn’t have funding to hire you as a paid employee, but make sure you do everything you can to make them glad they gave you a chance to work there. Show up early, leave late, ask for work when you don’t have anything to do. Basically, do what you’d want employees to do if YOU were the boss – a theme I’ll repeat throughout this blog post.

Is that awful that you might have to work for free? Yes, but having experience in advertising, entertainment, a law firm, a government agency, a doctor’s office, or a hospital, will “pay off” in the future if you do a good job and make sure they remember who you were. I’ve gotten jobs as a result of my experience from unpaid internships.

What Do You Want?

When looking for a job, you have to ask yourself “What would I do for free or for minimum wage for the rest of my life, if I had to?” Then look for ways to either get paid to do that, or take unpaid jobs that lead to your eventually getting paid to do that. As I stated above, unpaid internships can seem awful, since you don’t get paid and will probably have to take another job to get money, but the experience you get can be priceless. If you want to be a musician or standup comedian, working for a music club or comedy club could give you practical experience in “the industry” that no class can teach. Work for a government agency, a law firm, a doctor’s office, or a hospital would do the same thing.

Hey, even if you’re not planning on going to college or some glamorous industry, working at some lowly position in a place like an auto repair shop, a restaurant, a store, or an office can teach you skills you might not learn in school – customer service, negotiation, etc., even though your high school probably offers classes in typing, “business,” food service, and auto repair. Dealing with people isn’t something on the official curriculum of most high schools, even though it should be.

But I digress – find out what you’d like to do, and try to find a way to get paid to do it, or at least to get free training in that field. You’ll be glad you did! And hey, if it turns out you don’t like a field as much as you thought you did, it’s a lot easier to back out after one cruddy summer internship than after you’ve gotten a four-year college degree in that field…
 
Write a Resume and Cover Letter for the Job(s) You Want.

Write a resume and cover letter, keeping the boss’ interests in mind. What skills would a good employee, especially one in the position for which you are applying, have? What have you done in the past that shows you have those skills? Make sure you mention them in your resume and cover letter. It’s also good to list where you go to school, what your activities, are, and so on, since you’ll have to do them on college applications. I know I’ve used my resume to figure out the beginning and starting dates of old jobs when I needed to for new job applications. It’s nice to be able to pull up the information on your computer or phone (Google Drive, Dropbox, and webmail definitely help when you need to see a document you’ve stored or emailed – I’ve searched attachments to my email to prove I emailed the correct version of a document when a former boss accused me of sending him the wrong version right before I quit – a very nice illustration of why I quit that job J ).

Write a resume where you list your education, skills, and job experience. It’s easy enough – just label one section “Education,” and list where you went to school, when, and what you studied there. List any special training or certificates you have there. In the next section, list any special skills you have that an employer might find useful – what computer skills you have (e.g., software packages, programming skills, familiarity with operating systems, what computer hardware you’re proficient at using, etc.), what business skills you have (e.g., customer service, bookkeeping), what office equipment you know how to operate (e.g., a 10-key machine, a copier, a fax machine). Do you have special talents such as visual arts (drawing, painting, etc)? How about musical, acting, or public speaking talent? List those skills! They will help you in some jobs, and at the very least, make you a more interesting person to the interviewer. The job experience should come last; you should list any and all jobs you’ve had, whether paid or volunteer. The important thing is to show you know how, and are willing, to work.

You probably would like to know how to write an effective resume. Here are some tips:
Use action words – you know, the “active voice.” Don’t write “Responsible for maintaining sanitary conditions in food service environment” – try “Maintained sanitary conditions in food service; inspected conditions and corrected problems when found.” Telegraphic speech, where pronouns, etc. are left out, is fine on a resume. It’s called “telegraphic speech” because it harkens back to the old days of telegraph communication, where people were charged by the word, so they left out unnecessary words. In your case, you want to keep your resume to one page, since most people won’t read past the first page.

Use plain language. I misled you a little bit in the paragraph above. “Maintained sanitary conditions in food service….” Is fine, but you’re really not fooling anyone if you mean “I washed dishes and mopped the floor in a school cafeteria.” The same applies to “I removed organic material from a porcelain substrate using an aqueous solution of ionic and non-ionic surfactants.” A savvy interviewer will either know you mean “I washed dishes,” or at least that you’re trying to hide the truth with complex vocabulary. I’m not saying you should write like a fourth-grader, but you should write in clear and simple adult language, not gobbledygook, “legalese” or other technical jargon.

Your cover letter should point out why you, specifically, are a good fit for the job for which you are applying. If the job is looking for someone who speaks a foreign language, discuss how you’ve taken four years of Spanish and regularly speak it outside of school. If the job requires mechanical aptitude, mention that you’ve been fixing things around the house since you were a little kid, and that you perform automotive maintenance on the family car, etc. Obviously, you shouldn’t list anything that isn’t true, but you should point out things that might be missed on your resume, and how they match the requirements of the job. An employer will  be much more likely to hire someone who shows that he or she actually read the job announcement and responded in a thoughtful and individualized way, rather than just shooting out a generic resume and all-purpose cover letter. The only thing worse than an obviously “canned” job application is one that’s been personalized for the wrong employer – for example, if you’re applying for a job at “ABC Widget Manufacturing, Inc.,” you really don’t want to leave a line such as “What I seek, more than anything, is a chance to prove myself in the entertainment industry by working as a production assistant at All-Star Movie Corporation.” While it will give the folks at the widget factory a good laugh, you won’t get the job, since your attention to detail is lacking.

Make Sure Your Online Presence Looks Professional.

Get a LinkedIn profile – it’s free, and it can’t hurt you to have one, even if there isn’t much on it. Get your most professional-looking picture (that may be your yearbook photo, especially if you’re wearing business clothes in it).  LinkedIn provides you with an online “resume” employers can check when you apply for a job with them. And, as I’ve noted above, it’s good to have a handy reference of dates, times, places, etc. that relate to your former employment and educational experiences, in case you can’t recall them in the moment.

Speaking of a professional online presence, if you don’t have one already, get a Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or other webmail account that’s your real name or a variation on it (I understand that if your name’s really common, say Bob Smith, you’ll probably have to be “[email protected]” or something). As other people have noted, having an email address that begins with “TequilaGirl69” or “Ultra3l33tHax0rBoi” will not get you too many job interviews.

Protect (or Delete) – Ahem! – “Sensitive” Online Personal Data:

And finally, as I’ve discussed at length in an earlier blog entry, now’s a great time to switch your Facebook and other social media privacy settings to “friends only” or something similar so the general public can’t see your party photos or other things you might not want potential employers or college admissions officers to see. Don’t add employers or school officials as friends (or have a “public” social media profile for those contacts, your extended family, etc., and an entirely separate one for your close friends and family), and for goodness’ sake, don’t let people take compromising pictures of you in the first place!

The reality of the situation is that we’re still at a point that employers and schools are free to, and probably will, reject your application if they see a picture of you that shows bad judgment on your part. “What does that mean?” you ask? That means any picture of you (1) naked; (2) using alcoholic beverages irresponsibly if you’re over 21, or at all if you’re under 21; (3) holding what appears to be a controlled substance (white powder, a suspicious-looking hand-rolled cigarette); (4) a rally for a controversial cause; (5) n a Halloween costume that’s in really poor taste (e.g, something that could be seen as racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.).

You really should just delete those pictures from any website or online archive. Keep them on a disk that’s not hooked up to your computer, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, and external hard drives are all great storage solutions for things you don’t want to be “hacked” and released on the Internet without your permission. You should know that LOTS of “private” photos end up being leaked, either by hacking or just technical glitches. You know what happens then? You’ve got a problem, and the website says “Oops! Well, we never promised you complete privacy, which you’d know if you’d bothered to read the terms of service. We both know you didn’t but you checked a box saying you did when you signed up, so don’t bother suing us. Have a nice day.”

I got into an argument with a co-worker at my “day job” about this. She’s my age or older, so we both came of age prior to social media and cell phone cameras being everywhere, but she took offense at my position that realistically, people in poorly-advised cell phone pictures that their employers see are still going to lose their jobs or be denied employment, especially those in professions where they can lose their license for “moral turpitude” (basically, getting caught doing anything most people wouldn’t want their grandma to know about and/or wouldn’t want published on the front page of the local paper). Her response was “The REALITY is that almost EVERYONE has pictures like that out there! And you’d WANT them to lose their job?” Besides misstating my position, I believe that response ignores reality. Cameras existed back when this co-worker and I were teenagers/young adults. I doubt there are any nude pictures of her, and there aren’t any of me.

While it’s much easier for you to make a really bad decision and take a nude selfie, or for one of your “friends” to take pictures or video of you without your knowledge, than it was for me back in the 1980s or 1990s, you do have control over how and with whom you “party,” and most people are going to be able to tell the difference between a posed nude picture and a sneakily-taken cell phone picture. I don’t want someone to lose a job over a surreptitiously-taken nude photo, but let’s face it, if you’re posing for pictures naked and/or with what appears to be a joint and a liquor bottle in one hand while flipping the bird to the camera, most people would just as soon not hire you for a high school teaching job. If you took that picture and put it on your Facebook, especially without making the photo private, you shouldn’t be too surprised if you lose your job or don’t get a job you really want.

Be Proactive – Don’t Wait For Things to Happen.

On a more positive note, be proactive in your job search. By “proactive,” I mean, make things happen instead of waiting for them to happen to you. You can email businesses about job openings (after seeing if they have a way to apply for jobs using their website, of course). You can search for jobs on Craigslist, Snagajob.com, Monster.com, and about a million other online job listing sites. When I was first applying for jobs, email was unknown, and even once I was done with higher education, asking about jobs by email was still fairly unusual (Back in 1995, one law firm wrote me “Usually, employment inquiries are done by mail. Congratulations on breaking the mold.”)   You can even mass-market yourself by calling businesses where you’d like to work and ask who is in charge of hiring.
Don’t be afraid to ask for a job at a store, etc.  “Are you hiring?” is not a rude question. Feel free to ask it if you’re in a business as a customer and you’d like to work there. Most employers would like to work with someone who takes initiative – that is, someone who sees a problem and solves it, instead of waiting to be told to do something about it.  You can even be a little pushier by going into office buildings or whatever workplace you’d like and handing out your resume. It doesn’t hurt to put yourself out there in person. Don’t be obnoxious – don’t go behind counters, reception desks, or into anyplace you can tell the general public is not supposed to be (doing that not only won’t get you hired, it will probably get you escorted out by security).

Once You Get an Interview, Don’t Blow It!

                Show the Interviewer You Are What He or She Wants.

All right – let’s assume you’ve gotten past the resume, cover letter, telephone and door-to-door job search phase, and you actually have job interviews lined up. The first thing you should do is review a point I made earlier – that you want to make sure your potential boss sees that you understand what he or she expects from an employee, and that you’re willing to meet those expectations. Your actions and words should both show that understanding.
In other words, you should understand that your boss’ interests are not the same as yours. Your boss is not your mom or dad. Nobody wants to hire someone who doesn’t understand that principle. You always want to keep the boss’ interests in mind when you’re on the job, and you DEFINITELY want to know what that person wants when you’re interviewing for a job. Think about it – when you hire someone to provide a service for you, do you care at all about that person’s personal life? For example, if you order a pizza, do you want to hear “Yes, it’ll be ready for pickup in about 15 minutes, or we can deliver it in about 30 to 45,” or do you want to hear “Gee, my boyfriend broke up with me today and I’m really depressed, and I really need to study for my AP exams, can you call back later?” (Yes, you could respond with “Nothing helps depression like service to others, so how about bringing me that pizza?,” but that’s another story.)

                Don’t Just Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk!

You’ve probably heard the saying “Actions speak louder than words.” Anyone can SAY they did something, or will do something, but only a small minority of people will actually DO things that are unpleasant or hard unless they’re forced to do them. Many people will lie about their skills to get hired, hoping they’ll learn on the job, or won’t really need those skills, or with whatever justification in their minds. Employers have been around long enough to know that – that’s one reason they’re employers. Employers are going to look for employees who don’t just “talk the talk,” but who “walk the walk.” 

“What does that mean for me, you ask?” I’m glad you asked.  Firstly, your actions should show you’re a good worker. Show up on time for the interview or any other appointment. If you can’t make it to the first interview on time, the boss will assume that you DEFINITELY won’t make it on time when you’ve already got the job and something else pops up. Your appearance matters. Dress a little better for a job interview, or if you’re planning to drop off your resume or make a job inquiry in person, than you would normally. Really, you should dress a little better than people who work at that place do. In other words, a shirt and tie is a good thing to wear to a job where most workers just wear a shirt or a uniform. Don’t go overboard – a tuxedo would look weird if you’re applying for a job at McDonald’s, but it’s a bad idea to show up looking for an office job wearing shorts, or even jeans. Also, dress like you’re going to work, not to a nightclub. If you don’t know what I mean, dress like your teachers at school. That means you should wear slacks, shirt, a tie, etc. if you’re male, blouse and skirt or slacks (maybe a nice dress)  if you’re female. Another way to think of it is “Would I wear this to church, a wedding, or something else I take seriously?” If the answer is no, then don’t wear it to a job interview.

Secondly, watch your attitude. If your body language and facial expressions show that you’re bored, distracted, or hostile, you’re not likely to get the job. Think about it – would YOU want to hire someone who can’t or won’t pay attention, or obviously either doesn’t like you or doesn’t like the job? Of course not. Don’t slump over in the chair. Turn your phone off and put it in your pocket, purse, briefcase or whatever. Don’t pay attention to anything but the interviewer or whatever he or she asks to you to look at, with the exception of your resume or other documents from which you need to obtain information for the interviewer (e.g., dates of employment from your resume).

The same applies to someone who doesn’t seem sincere – why would anyone someone who seemed shifty or dishonest? Eye contact helps to establish sincerity – people really feel that people who look them in the eye are more direct and honest, even though that’s partially true at best. It’s also just weird when someone NEVER looks you in the eye. Look the interviewer in the eye, but don’t stare (seriously – I had an interviewee CONSTANTLY make eye contact with me – I turned it into a game where I’d move my eyes around just to see if she’d do the same). Look him/her in the eye when shaking hands.

Don’t Let Your Mouth or Pen Lose the Job for You.

Even though actions are more important than words, your words are also important. The interviewer will definitely be checking your oral responses to questions against your written resume and cover letter. Anyone can write a good resume, or have one written for him or her, but the face-to-face interview is really hard to “fake.” Here are a few things to avoid, and a few things to do:

Firstly, even if your boss was a complete jerk (as Mr. Wrong Version was in my case), you should avoid mentioning that fact. If you have to mention why you left, a polite, vague answer such as “The job simply wasn’t a good fit for me – the requirements were moving in a direction that wasn’t the same as my career trajectory. That’s why I gave notice, and made sure everything was in place for my replacement, who I helped find after giving two weeks’ notice.” Obviously, if you didn’t do the things I’ve just mentioned, don’t say you did them.  My point is - you should never, never, never EVER, make it look like you’re blaming your bosses, teachers, co-workers, other students, coaches, teammates, or anyone else for your personal failures.

I recall my first official paid job at 7-Eleven. I was technically an employee of the parent corporation, Southland Corp., for the day or so I was trained. As part of the application process, I had to fill out a mini-personality evaluation, based on a 7-point scale – “1” being disagree completely, “7” being agree completely,” or vice versa. One of the questions was “My teachers had it in for me in school.” I answered “1,” since first, it wasn’t true, most of my teachers really liked me, and second, even at age 17, I wasn’t stupid or naïve enough not to know that they’d assume any answer than a complete disagreement would mark me as complainer and troublemaker who wouldn’t take responsibility for his own actions. This is especially true if the person you’re complaining about is likely to give you a bad recommendation, is a course instructor who gave you a bad grade, etc. Yes, it’s horrible if you truly were given a bad evaluation for reasons unrelated to your performance, but any potential employer is going to play the odds, and assume that, like most people who complain about former bosses or teachers, you’re just making up excuses for your own incompetence or bad attitude.

Also, even if you’re absolutely 100% accurate in the bad things you say about a former teacher, employer, or anyone else you might mention in a job interview, you will still kill your chances of getting the job by saying those things, since the employer will assume he or she will be the person you’re complaining and gossiping about when you interview for your next job. “I felt I could better use my talents in another position” is a perfectly good answer, and it’s honest, even if what you’re thinking is “I didn’t want to waste any more of my life being underpaid for breaking my back just to hear this idiot complain about my work, praise himself about how smart he is, and make stupid jokes all day.”

Furthermore, you certainly don’t want to start your career with a lawsuit against you for slander, libel, invasion of privacy, public disclosure of private facts, or violations of the civil law, even if you’re telling the truth.  Some people with things to hide believe “the best defense is a good offense,” and will sue you for “lying” about them and damaging their reputations, even when you both know you told the truth. (Disclaimer: I’m not qualified to be your attorney and I am not giving this as official legal advice. If you have a legal problem, talk to an actual licensed attorney in your jurisdiction…) It would also be awful if your beliefs were mistaken and you really DID spread false information about a person that harmed his or her reputation, even though you believed it to be true.

Secondly, remember the old saying “The three topics to avoid in polite company are sex, politics, and religion.” I don’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t bring up that you volunteer at your church/synagogue/mosque/etc. to help the disadvantaged/elderly/disabled – of course you should! However, you have NO idea about the religious or political views of your interviewer – so please don’t try to preach to your interviewer or assume he or she shares the same beliefs you do. Have you ever had someone come up to you and harass you about why should join their religious or political group or risk suffering dire consequences? Did you want to give that person any more of your time than absolutely necessary to get him or her away from you? Did you want to give that person your money, or even your name? Probably not. An employer certainly wouldn’t. An employer isn’t going to pay you money, let you have access to his or her business property, or do ANYTHING with you if he or she believes you will harass people about your personal beliefs when you are working (or supposed to be working). No one wants an employee who will drive away customers or other employees by harassing people.

There’s another to stay the heck away from politics. I have personal experience with this one – I answered a little too honestly about my political beliefs in an interview, and the interviewer then mentioned that he listens to a political broadcaster on the exact opposite side of the spectrum every morning for 3 hours. I walked away thinking “Oh boy, there’s NO WAY I got the job.” As it turns out, I did, but that’s “the exception that proves the rule.” You’ve probably seen a sitcom or comedy movie where the main character did everything wrong on the interview, answered questions in outrageously rude ways, etc., and got the job when the interviewer (usually the company owner) says something like “I like the way you think- I have WAY too many yes men who just tell me what I want to hear working here! When can you start?” Trust me, it almost never works that way.

In regard to sex: use your common sense. Would you walk up to a random stranger and start talking about your love life? Of course not! (If you would, you have problems and really should stop doing that.) At best, doing so shows you have poor judgment. At worst, it could be considered sexual harassment. Inappropriate talk about sex, requests for dates, etc. is illegal and can cause the employer and YOU PERSONALLY to be sued by people who find it offensive. If you think an employer is going to risk that kind of loss, you are in for a rude awakening.  For the same reasons, you should dress conservatively and avoid flirting with your interviewer (this should be obvious, but if you didn’t know that, now you do). Also, your love life really isn’t interesting to most other people and most interviewers aren’t looking to date job applicants (and definitely shouldn’t be).

Finally, Relax. You’ve Got This.

​If you follow the advice above, you should have a successful job search, and a long and successful career. It’s easy to do the right things, once you’ve eliminated the wrong things. If you’re hardworking and honest, you’ll find a job where you belong, where both you and your employer will be happy. Let me know if this helps you – I’d love to hear from you. Good luck!