Yeah, big surprise here. I saw this one coming a few years ago.
Back in 2007/2008, I applied for those summer associate positions at various banks. It was for the summer of 2008, which is just when the recession really hit, so you can guess how that went. I was contacted by one bank, BNP Paribas, via email to complete some sort of online “psychological screening.”
I never heard from them again, so I guess I failed.
Companies that thrive in a recession:
KMart/Wal-Mart/etc.
TJ Maxx, Marshalls, etc. (btw, I loved TJ Maxx long before the recession. As far as I’m concerned, their expansion is the best thing that came out of this crappy economy!)
The Dollar Store
McDonald’s
The makers of Ramen noodles and other cheap food
The makers of Ambien (who can sleep anymore?)
Any others?
There are other “missing workers” too - the college and graduate school graduate who were never counted as part of the workforce. They are not eligible for unemployment pay, since they weren’t laid off from a job. I wonder what the REAL unemployment rate would be if everyone was counted. I wish there were a way to find out.
Over the last three years, nearly 5 million U.S. workers have effectively gone missing.
You won’t find their photos on the backs of milk cartons. The Coast Guard isn’t out looking for them. No missing-persons reports have been filed. These are jobless Americans who have grown so discouraged by…
The other problem is that many people won’t hire candidates they deem “overqualified”… they sometimes interrogate job seekers “how do we know that you don’t leave as soon as the economy gets better?” (My answer is that you don’t. The employer has to take that risk, just as the employee has to take the risk that the company won’t go under. But if I said that during an interview, I would be assumed to have an “attitude problem.”)
A LONG list of companies who have laid off/plan to lay off lots of people. Depressing, but funny commentary.
A while back, I saw an ad online seeking an MBA student to write blog entries about business school. I threw a few samples together and applied but never heard back from whoever posted it. It only occurred to me later on that they were probably seeking something more along the lines of this: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/mbajournal These people seem to be, for the most part, true believers that they are following the good and righteous path by furthering their education. They use buzzwords (which any normal person despises) and appear to be absurdly perky and bright-eyed. It must be from loads of espresso, because any b-schooler (I use that horrid hyphenate mockingly, I swear) knows that it’s never too soon to start preparing for the inevitable corporate drug tests and quit the hard stuff before even taking the GMAT. Just kidding - from the looks of these people, they’ve never been offered drugs or even attended a party. If they did, they had two beers and left by 11 pm, in order to be a good little productive soldier at work the next day. But, I digress. I assume that I was not offered the “MBA blogger” position since my writing samples sarcastically made fun of the institution, my classmates, “career services,” and pretty much everything else related to business school. (Or they just didn’t like my writing, but I’ve chosen to ignore that possibility.) Silly me, I thought that they might want a fresh perspective rather than another mealy-mouthed sycophant proclaiming that meeting a bunch of other middle-class buttoned-down people who are virtually identical to each other “really opened my eyes” (I have no idea what this means, but it seems to be a very popular thing to say on the business week site). Also, I guess that publishing anything remotely critical of business school would probably force them to risk losing advertisers, especially since 90% of all web advertising appears to be paid for by shady-sounding “distance-learning programs” (AKA online classes - University of Phoenix, here I come!) Anyway, here are my cynical writing samples. Enjoy! Recruiting 101 All MBA students at my school must attend a mandatory workshop before applying to any jobs designated as “on-campus recruiting” positions on their website. This generally applies to students who are closer to graduation than I am, but I signed up for the workshop last week just to get it over with. Well, that was an hour of my life that I’ll never get back. First, there was a little speech about the importance of cover letters. Then we were treated to a presentation that epitomized the phrase “death by powerpoint.” There was actually a slide titled “How On-Campus Recruiting Works,” which included the scintillating bullet points “We find employers” vs. “Employers come to us.” My second favorite slide was the one with the Excel for Dummies graph that the presenter could barely explain. She said that one line represented full time jobs, and the other represented summer jobs. The various months showed increased and decreases in hiring, and she stumbled though some half-assed theories about the dips: “Well, hiring always drops around the holidays…but there was a drop in April, and I don’t really know what that was about…” Haven’t these people heard that if you don’t have anything to say about the graph/chart, you really shouldn’t include it? Finally, after listening to instructions on how to apply for jobs on the school website in excruciating detail, the discussion topic turned to the importance of networking and how most jobs are found through networking rather than the internet anyway. All in all, it was a waste of time. But I took a (paid) day off work for this, so at least I had the whole afternoon free after the torture was over. Networking So every semester my school has two or three graduate student socials that all grad students are invited to. Although most students here are in the MBA program, there are also a few smaller programs for Arts & Sciences. Needless to say, I have not met any of them. This event was no different, as the dozens of business students in attendance vastly outnumbered the few scattered students from other programs. The general tone of the event seemed geared toward us as well, especially since presidents of several student organizations gave brief speeches encouraging us to join their clubs in order to boost our resumes. Overall, it was an enjoyable evening – free (very bad, but free nonetheless) wine, an Italian buffet (ditto), and mini quiches. I had a chance to catch up with some friends and meet a few new people. After the presentations were over, the party had livened up and everyone seemed to be having a good time…when we were interrupted by an announcement. Someone from the Graduate Career Center stood up to reiterate the importance of networking, and to remind us that we should network with everyone we meet in hopes that s/he will someday help us get a job. “Your classmates are your best resource! Network with them!!” she exclaimed. I wanted to tell her that was exactly what we had been doing before she had interrupted us… Types of grad students We’ve all read those forwards about different types of coworkers or college students. But what about grad students? They’re older and (allegedly) more mature than college students, but they’re not sitting in an office all day like most corporate employees. Here are some clichéd categories to get you started when you feel like judging a fellow student: The MIA group member – If you’ve taken at least one class in an MBA program, you know all about this guy (or girl, but I’ll use male pronouns for simplicity). He joins your group for the semester-long project and then proceeds to remain silent when you are all discussing ideas. The only contribution he makes is to correct the spelling of his name on the cover page, but he’s nowhere to be found when everyone else is deciding who should present various sections in class. He skips finals week to leave early for Taiwan/Bangladesh/Prague/Cozumel but is sure to email you upon his return to inquire as to whether “we” got an A. I would hate this guy, but I’m too jealous of his tan and how he gets away with this stuff while the rest of us slave away in the library past midnight. The career student – Self-explanatory. This guy already has master’s degrees in two other subjects, but decided not to pursue either of those fields for some reason. He’s pushing 30 and has never held a paid job, something that does not seem to bother him at all. Am amusing subset of this population are the “fuck humanity” types, people who worked as teachers/social workers/Peace Corp volunteers for a year after college and decided that since helping people is a lost cause, they might as well make some money instead. These people are the least sympathetic and most cynical ones you will meet in business school. However, they usually drink heavily, which is always a redeeming factor. The human calculator - Makes Rain Man look like a slacker. Can figure out complex equations in his head, and makes you wonder why he’s not at MIT or something. Typically has no knowledge of current events or weather, and shows up for class wearing argyle socks with Birkenstocks. The bullshitter - There’s one (or many) at every school. This is the guy who says he studied for the midterm during his twenty-minute commute to school. Yet he always gets good grades, leading you to believe that he’s lying. Same type of person who’s always talking about a great party that happened the night you were out of town, despite that fact that there is no photographic evidence on Facebook. Has a mysterious “consulting” job that allows him to use IM all day, mainly to update you on the greatness of his life, his new summer home, etc. The second-guesser - The person who asks you about all of your exam answers the second you leave the room after handing in your blue books (or scantrons, if you go to my school which also provides us with high school-type desks.) Sometime they accost you in the hallway, sometimes they send you a text message, but either way, these people are intent on getting the answer to their critical inquiry: “What did you put for number 4? What about number 19? Did you count the fixed assets on the balance sheet?” Upon which, I must choose one of my stock answers, either “How the hell should I remember?” or “It’s doesn’t matter, since we already handed it in.” Never mind common sense, these people are on a mission to find out every correct answer and figure out their own grade as quickly as possible. However, they have no way to figure out how the professor will curve, so the joke’s really on them.
Note: this was written last year
This morning (okay, afternoon. My idea of “morning” is “after I wake up,” which usually occurs around 11 am or 2 pm or whenever I get around to it) I applied to a number of jobs. I selectively identified opportunities that sounded like they matched my qualifications, emailed resumes, and waited. As I was about to send one last email, my cell phone rang from its place on my dresser. I stood to answer it, thinking “I have been summoned. Yeah, yeah, I know you love me. Clearly someone knows greatness when they see it! I wonder which one of these employers realized after a brief glance at my resume that I would be the answer to their prayers.”
It was a wrong number.
