Round One

I’ve just traveled another few thousand miles, landing in a small town in the northeast. Yes, London to the middle of nowhere. Or well, not nowhere, just somewhere quite different. Instead of another person’s flat staring back at me as I gaze out the window, I see the vibrant colors of a New England fall.

They don’t tell you what happens after – after you’ve finished those late nights, those hours of cutting wood, clicking a mouse, photoshopping the hell out of your renderings. They give you some generic advice, some handout that tells you to use action verbs and make sure your resume can be reproduced quickly on a Xerox machine. They build you up to think that your education has meaning, value. That people will respect your investment, your commitment. They don’t tell you that, well, life after school makes you want sometimes wish you could stay in school forever.

I dread the job-hunt. The process, the protocols, the minor fact that you feel insignificant. It’s amazing to feel as though everything you’ve ever done is, in fact, worthless. To realize that what you strived so hard to achieve at school will be glossed over, and likely, thrown away.

Round one down. Statistics as follows:

[10] resumes sent

[1] response

[1] no

Yes. It is a beginning. Only a beginning. And 10 resumes…I know, not a stratospheric number. Yet. So more resumes will go out, more rejections will undoubtedly come. And I can handle that. I expect that. I just can’t imagine it being that difficult to at least acknowledge that you aren’t interested. Can’t you just say No? In this day of emails, when in fact you are requesting material ONLY through email, can’t you just hit the reply button and say, NO? I don’t need soliloquies, heart-felt explanations for my incompatibility with your firm. I just want an answer. And answer that allows me to move on to the next round.