I Hate Job Hunting

Try as I might, when I go looking for a job, I can never seem to find one that even remotely fits my criteria of things worth applying to. In their defenses, my criteria consists of recognizable words, achievable requirements, and application processes that do not take forever and twenty days. If Google’s app only took me twenty minutes, why is yours taking me an hour?

But then maybe that’s too much to ask. I get it though, the longer the application the more dedicated the applicant. A friend of mine that worked for Fluor Daniel used to tell me that the best way to get in was to continue to apply. I think I’m five applications in at this point, but it won’t hurt me to try again. Still, how many times do I have to try for these people to notice me? Is there someone in their Human Resources Office who’s job is to count out how many times I apply to their company? And do I have to continuously apply to the same job every time?

And I love how there are five different names for one job. Since when did secretary become non-politically correct? Office Coordinator. Administrative Assistant. Executive Administrative Assistant. Same thing, all of them. Although I will say that Office Coordinator is a multi-faceted title. Coordinator in an of it self. Why not just call it what it is? A Coordinator is a Manager; in order to coordinate something you have to manage it.

I’ll never understand how companies get off asking for 7+ years of experience. If I’ve stayed somewhere for more than five years, they have to be going under for me to move. At that point you’ve racked up so much loyalty points that you’ve begun working toward retirement. You’ve settled down, started a family and have just begun putting your child through school. Very few people are going to have that much experience and just happen to be hopping through jobs at that point in their career. Not at the level these companies are asking for.

If this looks like whining, it’s because it is. I’m well aware that the better the experience the less you have to train someone; lengthy applications account for less surprises down the line; and different companies call the same job different things. It’s all aesthetics. My issue is that job hunting can be the most tedious and draining thing you ever do in your life, but it’s necessary.

Eventually we get to that point in our jobs where we think about growth, and we weigh whether staying in the same position is a good idea or not. We look at mobility of our positions, the comfort of our salaries, the relationship we have with upper management, and we wonder if this is it for us. And then we start job hunting. Maybe not seriously; we might not even apply to the things. Sometimes we just want to look. We count up our skill set and begin to think about the perfect job for us.

But it not until we decide for ourselves that the ideal is worth the work put in to find it, that the job hunt is no longer tedious and draining. It becomes that adventure that moves us from jobs to careers.

I’m still trying to find mine.