Why don't they love me?
There are limits to the virtual world, and those limits are most manifest when a potential employer says: come right on down this afternoon so that we can talk about the job. Skype? I meekly respond. When you’re competing with a thousand other out of work, semi-talented writers for the same job, the ability to show up for a spur of the moment job interview can mean the difference between moving on to the next round of interviews or not. Skype just doesn’t cut it.
Speaking of virtual worlds, I’ve applied for dozens of jobs via Linked-In. “Employers prefer candidates with recommendations,” I am told. I have five now. They prefer to be introduced to potential candidates via their network. I have used my network to get introduced. They prefer active tense to passive tense. Well, damn it, so do I. They want can, not could. Will, not would.
Every time I log in to the site, however, I am greeted with a notice of how ineffective my Linked-In profile is. Three people have looked at it in three months: an attorney in California (my cousin), someone in a leadership position at Manchester University (a fellow blogger), and a senior executive in the arts industry in the San Francisco Bay Area (is that you, Ruthie?). What about that recruiter at Wikimedia? Or at Nike? Or at the other companies I’ve applied to? Why don’t they care about me? Am I too desperate?
Is the job search the new singles scene? Should I be playing hard to get? Have I been too promiscuous to catch a good employer? Volunteering services I should have been paid for? Being indiscriminate in my search for a good career? What was it that my grandmother used to say about cows and milk again?