Help Wanted: Except You
Since it’s still early days here on Mighty Forces, I thought I would repost the Medium article that got me on the path to this newsletter and the book that will come out of it. This should give you a good idea of my approach and what I’m trying to accomplish around here. Thanks.
A full two weeks after what I thought was a flat-out amazing job interview, I once got a terse form letter rejection email that closed with this line:
“We invite you to apply in the future for positions for which you are qualified.”
Yeah, thanks.
Such is the candy-coated wonderland that is job hunting.
See, I’ve been around the block a few times. (More than a few.) I know how to write a laser-focused cover letter, and tweak my resume for the job. I know all the standard interview questions, and I have fantastic answers lined up for all of them. I’m presentable, reasonably but non-threateningly humorous, and able to converse intelligently on a host of topics. I have decades of experience in writing and editing, as a reporter, freelancer, and communicator in education and state government.
I also couldn’t get anyone to throw water on me if I was on fire.
What I haven’t already told you is that I’m over 50. (That happens when you have decades of experience.) I’m also looking for communications jobs in a university town, stuffed to the gills with smart, capable 25-year-olds who can be hired for a lot less money, and who can be molded into whatever shape is necessary.
That is not me. At all.
Playing the job lottery
So when a low-level HR first-round screener tells me that they received 120 applications for the job I’m applying for, I already know that my chances of getting to the second round are slim, and getting an offer, non-existent.
They often say this with a little catch in their voice, like they know how painful it must be for me, an old guy who has no chance at this job.
Now I know that this is absolutely not personal. If I were an employer dedicated to a specific niche — waterway management or credit unions or training llamas — I know that I would be able to find dozens of young shiny people with advanced degrees and experience in waterways or finance or llamas. I understand being skeptical of a geriatric generalist like me.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.
Conquering fear
Three times in my life, I rebelled against my normal impulse to never, ever take chances, my basic nature to avoid change at all costs. Three times in my life, I took a leap of faith. Three times, I conquered my fear.
The first time was when I left Michigan after six years as a newspaper reporter. I loved writing but I hated being a reporter, and I felt like a fraud the entire time. So I packed up my crappy studio apartment and moved back to Wisconsin, with no job, not knowing what would happen.
The second time was when I left the Wisconsin teachers’ union, where I had a comfortable job running the intranet system I developed with my colleagues. Management changed and my job was in jeopardy, so I decided to beat them to the punch and leave. Which led to a decade of freelancing, constantly hustling for clients. It was fun, but also exhausting.
The third time, this time, was last summer. I had another comfortable job working on an education website. I loved the mission, I loved the people there. They were family to me in a way that I never had at any other job. But I didn’t want to be spending my time making small changes to computer files for the next decade. That seemed to be, in the final analysis, a terrible waste of life.
I wanted to get back to what I loved, and coincidentally, what I was most talented in: writing and editing.
So I left. Again. And this time, I’m 25 years older than I was the first time. I don’t have the support systems I had then. But everything in me said I had to do this if I wanted what remained of my life to matter.
Stuff happens
Of course, there was also the minor circumstance of having a brain tumor removed a year ago. Yeah, that may have played a small role in me remaking pretty much every aspect of my life.
When I got out of the hospital, a bit worse for wear but still alive, I remembered watching a TED Talk a couple of years earlier where the guy put up a PowerPoint slide with a grid of small boxes on it. And the man said, each box here represents a week in an 80-year-old life.
This caused me to have a slight but very real panic attack, thinking about how many of those boxes I had already filled in, compared to the ones that still remained open. The ones that still contained possibilities.
How will I fill in those boxes?
Crisatunity
There’s the rub, right? These are questions that you’re supposed to be asking yourself at 20, 25, and 30. And the potential tragedy is that I’m realizing now that I never answered those questions. Not yet.
Lisa Simpson: You know, Dad, the Chinese use the same word for “crisis” as they do for “opportunity”!
Homer Simpson: Yes! Crisatunity!
So I find myself with a small crisatunity. Trying to pivot careers after 50 in a field where there are dozens or hundreds of candidates for every job, despite the “no one wants to work!” rhetoric so common right now.
Leading to hilarious misadventures like the time a month or so ago when I got an email from a placement firm that had been super excited about my previously mentioned decades of experience in writing and editing.
The email wondered how I would feel about a tremendous opportunity to take a job filling paint cans at a paintball place.
I am not making that up. How could I?
The way forward
At this point, I know that the way forward has to be figuring out how to create a freelance career for myself, rather than doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I did the freelance thing for a decade, making websites for small businesses and nonprofits after I left the teachers’ union. I wouldn’t trade that time in my life for anything. But in the end, the work dried up and I ended up becoming an employee again. That’s a scary proposition at my age, that instability.
I know how privileged I am. I have the financial resources that allow me to take this leap. I know how many people don’t.
The previous two times I took a leap of faith, it was painful, but I’m so glad I did. Both of those times, I broke out of a cycle where I was stuck and moved myself into something better.
Third time’s the charm, right?