I just finished an article on Resumes from Hell about writing cover letters where she uses a metaphor of a circus. And while I agree that the job search (and sometimes just the "real-world" in general) are a circus, that's not really my beef with all of this.
Why wasn't I trained for this?
When I went to the Career Services office at my university they would refuse to talk to me unless I brought a copy of my resume that they could draw diagrams on and tell me how to make it better. That's great, but I was just in here last week and you critiqued my resume, what can you do BESIDES that?
I learned how to write a cover letter the hard way...trial and error. I still frantically Google search for writing tips everytime I find myself faced with a particularly great sounding job listing where I need to write a cover letter. Why isn't there a Cover Letter 101 offered in college? What about a "How to find your dream job 1" while you're wasting your senior year of college taking Ballroom Dancing and Beginning Drawing to stay at full-time while you take your last undergraduate major class.
It was frustrating for me, an Arts & Sciences major who realized 4 years too late that she should have majored in marketable skills if she wanted a job instead of critical thinking (not that I'm knocking my ASC degree...I love it...but my computer coding best friend has a job lined up already and she has MONTHS until she graduates). And it wouldn't have been a problem if going to the Career Services Office wouldn't have been a fruitless endeavor. They gave me a resume critique and the university's general internship search Web site and sent me on my way. They asked me what career path I wanted to go on and I'm sitting there thinking "I thought I came here so you could help me figure that out."
Don't get me wrong, I love my university, I love the fact that I got a Humanities degree but its frustrating. When I see my classmates who received degrees in Computers get contracts before they graduate or those in the business school get interview after interview because their college has the connections and I feel that I'm an inconvenience for asking for help from my Career Connection office.
*sigh* either way I'm still unemployed. I just hope that someday the university will read this and start up a "How to get a job 101" class, my brother is starting university soon and I don't want him to have to join the circus without warning.
Why wasn't I trained for this?
When I went to the Career Services office at my university they would refuse to talk to me unless I brought a copy of my resume that they could draw diagrams on and tell me how to make it better. That's great, but I was just in here last week and you critiqued my resume, what can you do BESIDES that?
I learned how to write a cover letter the hard way...trial and error. I still frantically Google search for writing tips everytime I find myself faced with a particularly great sounding job listing where I need to write a cover letter. Why isn't there a Cover Letter 101 offered in college? What about a "How to find your dream job 1" while you're wasting your senior year of college taking Ballroom Dancing and Beginning Drawing to stay at full-time while you take your last undergraduate major class.
It was frustrating for me, an Arts & Sciences major who realized 4 years too late that she should have majored in marketable skills if she wanted a job instead of critical thinking (not that I'm knocking my ASC degree...I love it...but my computer coding best friend has a job lined up already and she has MONTHS until she graduates). And it wouldn't have been a problem if going to the Career Services Office wouldn't have been a fruitless endeavor. They gave me a resume critique and the university's general internship search Web site and sent me on my way. They asked me what career path I wanted to go on and I'm sitting there thinking "I thought I came here so you could help me figure that out."
Don't get me wrong, I love my university, I love the fact that I got a Humanities degree but its frustrating. When I see my classmates who received degrees in Computers get contracts before they graduate or those in the business school get interview after interview because their college has the connections and I feel that I'm an inconvenience for asking for help from my Career Connection office.
*sigh* either way I'm still unemployed. I just hope that someday the university will read this and start up a "How to get a job 101" class, my brother is starting university soon and I don't want him to have to join the circus without warning.
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