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<p><img src="../../../../work/columns/img/www_subdomain/workinglife.gif" width="194" height="152" alt="the working life by Harry Goldstein">
<p>
<font size="+1">
<b>
<font size="+2">N</font>O
<font size="+2">M</font>ORE
<font size="+2">S</font>TOP-
<font size="+2">G</font>AP
<font size="+2">J</font>OBS</font>
</b>
<p>
<p>Published September 16, 1996<br><p>
<a href="../../../../www_subdomain/work/archive/goldstein.html"><font size="+1">Previous columns</font></a>
<br>by
Harry Goldstein
<p>
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<td><font size="+1">
<p>
<p>
<font size="+2">R</font>ecently, on our way to the gym, Pervis and I started
talking about how <b>this</b> job hunt is going to be different. I've
had a series of jobs that I've taken more or less out of desperation, and so
has he. It all started with the move to New York.
<p>
<font size="+2">T</font>he only way to live in this city is to have a full-time job
or several part time gigs; the savings you bring along from home to sustain
you through an initial job search don't last very long. Before long,
The Rent Factor sets in and you're snapping at the first decent job
offer you get. I cashed in on the word processing skills I had
developed as a temp and ended up working for a vice-president of
trade sales at a children's book publisher. When I went looking
for my second job, I had been sucked into the romantic notion
that I could do anything to support my fiction writing -- and I did,
taking an office manager job. I got canned (but <a href="../../../../www_subdomain/work/columns/goldstein/960415.html">loved it</a>) a few months later and
eventually wound up in my current position, paying my dues in the world of
magazines.
<p>
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<font size="+2">Mindlessly shooting my ASCII resume off into oblivion won't do.</font>
</td>
<td>
<font size="+2">J</font>ust to ease myself mentally and emotionally into the current job hunt, I answered classified ads from the paper -- which was exactly how I'd found all my other
jobs in New York and the same way Pervis found his way into the cubicle
next to mine. Then I shifted my focus to the Web, firing off resume after
resume and never hearing anything back. Two hundred resumes later, I had
to step back and ask myself what I was doing wrong and what, exactly, it is
that I really want to do. The next job can't just
be something to get me by until I have some kind of work epiphany -- it has
to be THE ONE. Mindlessly shooting my ASCII resume off into oblivion is
obviously not going to get the job (done).
<p>
<font size="+2">N</font>ow this may seem like an inordinate amount of pressure to put on
myself, but the fact is that everyone comes to a key moment in
their working life where they have to decide if they are going to
actually build a career -- a succession of jobs in a particular niche where
your skill-set increases with each successive position, until you
find yourself in a job that sustains your interest at a fairly
decent wage. The other choice is to "settle" on a stop-gap, which is the way I went when I took my office manager job. Three years later, I know I have to
work someplace that I care about, that challenges me, that I can learn
from -- where there is enough variety to keep me from going face
down at my desk.
<p>
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<font size="+2">We won't find The Dream Job by responding to classified
ads.
</font>
</td>
<td>
<font size="+2">P</font>ervis and I gestured freakishly as we discussed our dead-end jobs and made our way down the sidewalk to the gym -- putting our hands to our throats in a strangling motion, finger guns popping off in our mouths. We ended
this dance of frustration with the special sidewalk hari-kari, a
full backwards abdominal thrust followed by a 720 degree
corkscrew to the pavement. We agreed that the romance of
subsisting by any means necessary just to be in New York was no
longer a worthwhile pursuit in itself. We need the Dream Job (or
something damn close), but we won't find it responding to classified
ads; that tactic is only marginally better than being a totally passive
job hunter, the kind of person who checks his messages
frequently, hoping that someone's trying to find him.
<p>
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<font size="+2">We have to become shameless in some
fundamental way.
</font>
</td>
<td>
<font size="+2">B</font>y the time we hit the treadmill, our objectives were clear.
Becoming networking fiends is the only way Pervis and I are going to climb to the
next rung on the career ladder. We have to become shameless in some
fundamental way, utterly unafraid of approaching complete strangers
on the recommendation of a friend of a friend of a friend. One
otherwise lame book on "achieving total career satisfaction"
("Love Your Work and Success Will Follow," by Arlene S. Hirsch)
points out that by not networking, you eliminate 75 to 85 percent of
potential employment opportunities. This only confirms what
Pervis and I have learned the hard way -- and what we have to do to
get where we need to be.
</font>
<p>
<hr><p>
<p><a href="mailto:hargold@mail.idt.net">Harry Goldstein</a> is a writer and editor living in Manhattan. His work has appeared in Utne Reader, American Book Review, Promethean, AltX, word.com, and other periodicals.
<font size="-1"><p>© 1996 Harry Goldstein, All Rights Reserved
</font>
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