job hunting gothic
- The job
posting looks like a great fit. You have the skills listed, and the
responsibilities are relevant to what you would like to do. The requirements
section asks for a PhD in a seemingly unrelated field. It pays minimum wage.
- You upload
your résumé to the website. An error message appears, informing you that only
the following file types are supported: .rtf, .doc, .docx and .pdf. Your file
is one of the document types. You try the upload again. An error message
appears, informing you that files must be under 50KB. You reduce the file size. The first error message appears again.
- Your résumé
file is finally accepted to the website. You continue to the next page, where
you are cheerfully requested to manually enter all of your work and education
experience. If you are lucky, a machine has helpfully used the résumé file you
uploaded to autofill all fields for you. They are all wrong.
- You send in
fifty job applications in less than a month. You wait patiently for replies. When
none come, you look for contact information to follow up with them. There is no
information available. You wonder if the job ever existed in the first place.
- You receive
an email from someone who saw your profile on a jobsite and wants to offer you
a job stuffing envelopes. You have a master’s degree.
- Two months
in, you have not received any viable offers. You start thinking about stuffing
envelopes for a living.
- You are finally contacted by someone: they want to interview you. You do the interview. A second. A third. A fourth. You start to wonder how many levels this process goes through. They give you nothing but positive feedback. You keep doing interviews.
This is exactly what it’s like
