Each day I get an “Afternoon Update” email from the Chronicle of Higher Education and though not all the featured articles are riveting, there are a few that always catch my eye.  They tend to be articles that deal with power and privilege in the education system and just state something straight up absurd like, boys don’t like to read or something.  Last week there was a fascinating article on the creation of Fat Studies as a discipline.  Reading some of the comments elicited by the article (like along the lines of- we shouldn’t be studying fat people- they should be studying us!) was perversely illuminating.  Today, there was an article titled “U. of Minnesota Takes Heat for Proposal to Gauge Future Teachers’ Sensitivity” that irritated me no end.  In fact, it irritated me so much that I’ve decided to blog about it (The most interesting blog posts to me are ones that either offer advice or discuss irritants- hence my obsession with career blogs and blogs commenting on power and privilege and hence, my blog).

This article talks about how a “Race, Culture, Class, and Gender Task Group” (boy I’d like to be a part of that- or should I say person I’d like to be a part of that) asserted that teachers should be able to position themselves culturally and understand how power and privilege functions in society.  Now, this doesn’t irritate me.  In fact, I think this is a fabulous statement and there should be more discussions concerning how teachers represent their disciplines as it can change education.  I remember when I was abroad on Antioch’s Comparative Women’s Studies in Europe program (one of the most amazing and eye-opening experiences of my 22 years of life), every time we would go to a museum our program director would remind us to consider from where the objects we were staring at came.  Pretty much, most of the stuff we were looking at was straight up stolen.  And yeah, some might think reminding students of this fact before they take a museum tour is a bummer but it changed the way I looked at the artifacts and viewed museums in general.  And that’s a good thing.  That’s my mind developing and becoming more critical and that’s what education is all about. 

I also remember sitting in a Bates Anthropology class on the first day of the semester and my female professor saying that we could refer to her either by her last name or her first name but before we made that choice we should consider what we call our other professors.  She stated that she noticed that many students addressed their male professors using last names and female professors using first names.  She said if this was the case for any of us, she’d like us to use her last name.  What!?  Making us think about gender norms on the first day of class!?  Bad ass!

So yes, I believe teachers have a responsibility to think critically about themselves so that they may help guide their students in doing so.  But noooooooooo, of course this is not okay.  Of course people said this was “unconstitutional and morally unconscionable” and “a severe affront to liberty.”  You’ve GOT to be kidding me.  What’s unconstitutional and morally unconscionable is the amount of racism and sexism that exists in this nation!  Being asked to consider one’s social position and one’s privilege is not a severe affront to liberty.  Is liberty having the right to be ignorant to the point that you may oppress others in your daily interactions?  I’m all for being what you want and thinking what you want as long as it’s not systematically hurting anyone else emotionally or physically but I’m sorry- not recognizing your white privilege hurts people in ways that you can’t even see- BECAUSE YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE IT. 

So, like Ali G and Ice Cube have said, “Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”  That’s all I see this issue being- this is about asking teachers to check themselves so they don’t wreck themselves or others.  As a teacher you have a responsibility to make sure your classrooms are safe spaces for all students.  And you do this by looking deeply at yourself and at the subjects you are responsible for teaching to others.  If you don’t, then sitting in class is no better than reading a crappy middle school history textbook that talks about how white dudes got things done back in the day.  No thanks.

Shhhh,

Steph

Thanksgiving was very different for me this year.  I want to say less stressful as I remember last year’s Thanksgiving and how I was desperately writing my thesis however, truthfully it’s not.  I still slept poorly, plagued by anxious thoughts about “all the work I have to do.”  I still enjoyed eating delicious food because I’m sick of the food I always eat at home.  Last year at this time I had to finish my coursework satisfactorily and graduate.  This year I need to find a job.  Equally as daunting.  But things definitely still felt different and I did not feel like I was back in school.

1)    I had a week off.  Four days after Jordan and I arrived at his house, his sister arrived home from college.  She had from Tuesday night to Sunday morning at home.  And she skipped a few classes. We had from Saturday to Saturday, and we didn’t skip anything- no classes, no work.  That was nice.

2)    Coursework never pauses, the job search does.  In school there are always things to be done and even on weekends, emails are being exchanged among lab groups and students and professors.  However, when you’re searching for a job, you know Thanksgiving week is a pointless time to attempt to network.  No one’s around.  And when they do check their email they’ll sure as heck not answer your request for an informational interview.  That all waits until after Thanksgiving.  So I stopped worrying and stopped contacting people.  I figured it could all wait a week, especially since people wouldn’t be responding anyway.

3)    There is no pre-Christmas rush.  Remember scrambling desperately to get all your work done before the semester ended and Christmas rolled around?  Well the new fiscal year for many organizations/institutions begins in January.  That means not many people are going to be hiring in the time right after Thanksgiving and right before the New Year.  This was yet another reason to relax over Thanksgiving- there’s no use pushing out applications that probably won’t even be considered anyway because you don’t know anyone at the organization to which you’re applying.

4)    (This one’s kind of sad) I was SUPER depressed to return to my real life.  We had an electricity bill waiting for us and I had a job rejection letter waiting specially for me.  Yikes.  Instead of returning to a fun college campus we returned to an apartment where we debated whether we should turn on the heat.

Yes, I enjoyed my Thanksgiving.  Yes, I would say it was better than most because I really appreciated my time off as actual time off.  Though being a post-graduate can be very stressful, I’m learning to take time away when I need it.  And that’s a huge lesson, one that’s almost impossible to learn when you’re in school.  And learning this lesson allows me to watch The City and eat pumpkin cheesecake at 1 in the morning without worrying that all the stimulation will keep me awake.  Not bad.

Here are some photos from my first post-college Thanksgiving.  We had an insane amount of food and a lovely place setting.

Shhhh,

Steph

I traveled to Chicago with Jordan this past Saturday to visit his family for Thanksgiving.  We arrived on Saturday and decided to do some grocery shopping so we would save money by not eating out constantly.  Of course one of the indispensable items I had on my grocery list was oatmeal for our breakfasts.  For me, a vacation by no means is a vacation from oatmeal for breakfast.  And what I learned this morning from making oatmeal is that tips concerning how to be successful in the workplace can double as tips on how to nurture a successful romantic relationship.  Do as you would in the office at home.  It works.

This morning I headed upstairs before Jordan and began making my breakfast.  When he came upstairs he voiced his plans to make oatmeal.  He then began to empty the dishwasher.  “I’ll start your oatmeal for you since you’re busy,” I said.  He thanked me for starting everything for him.  “You always make great breakfasts,” he told me earnestly.

And let me tell you, I do.  In fact, his compliment incited me to think about all the great breakfasts I had prepared for him since we moved in together- omelets, massive egg and cheese sandwiches, English breakfasts complete with beans and fried ham and toast- I was a regular Julia Child for a 24 year old man with a lightening metabolism.

As I was thinking about all the great breakfasts I’ve prepared for him, I realized that if we broke up, those breakfasts would be gone.  Back to Raisin Bran for him.  My breakfasts were one way that I was making myself indispensable in the relationship.  By virtue of his dating and living with me, I was providing him with a service that he could not provide himself in the same way.  And this led me to realize that romantic relationships are eerily similar to workplace relationships.  You are in a relationship with the company/organization/person you’re working with.  And in order to solidify your place in that relationship, you need to prove that the services you provide are indispensable.

Now, I know equating my relationship with my boyfriend to a person’s relationship to their employer sounds callous and cold hearted but really, it’s not at all.  It’s just logical.  Think about it: one of the key tips for excelling in the workplace is to make yourself indispensable.  My lavish weekend breakfasts are one way that I make myself indispensable in my romantic relationship with Jordan.  With every egg-over-easy I’m showing him that I increase his quality of life.  Washing smelly towels- check.  He wouldn’t wash his towels by himself (not as frequently as I do at least) as every man I’ve ever spent considerable time with has always had incredibly stinky towels.  And when they do laundry, towels are not something they deem worthy to be cleaned.  I can’t understand.  So, washing the towels are another way I make myself indispensable.  He’d be wiping himself with a disintegrating rag of mold if I weren’t around.  Talk about that for job security.

Fortunately for Jordan, he makes himself indispensable in many ways as well.  And that means we have more of a chance of staying together as we both provide what each other needs in appropriate and timely ways.  There are things Jordan does for me and that I do for him that just wouldn’t be done in the same way with someone else.  Like going to museums where we talk about how everything we’re looking at was most likely pillaged and stolen.

Now, say I’m the employee and Jordan’s the corporation.  And say that my breakfasts are my ability to communicate comfortably with my co-workers and my stinky towel washing skills are my project management skills and constant drive to support the company goals.  Just as I’m making myself indispensable to Jordan, I’m making myself indispensable to my company.

And what does this mean?  They decide to move in with you/ you get a sense of job security.  Jordan won’t break up with me on a whim- the company won’t be quick to fire me during a budget cut because I make the great breakfasts/ create the great company reports.  Heck, maybe I’ll even get promoted…

Shhhh,

Steph

With all the cover letters I’m writing and all the times I’d rather forget where I stammered through an explanation of what I was interested in career-wise and why, I’ve come to the realization that I need to learn how to brag. I have been having a supremely difficult time talking up my accomplishments and abilities. It’s no surprise however, as I am a woman. And though people in general find it difficult to brag without coming off as a jerk, Peggy Klaus, a writer and communication coach affirms that women are least likely to emphasize their accomplishments. It makes sense really, as women just seem to have more difficulty speaking up in many situations (think about in the classroom, the workplace, etc.)

I knew I was struggling in my inability to brag and that it was affecting my job search. I had to get over my hesitancy to speak positively about myself. To toot my own horn, if you will. So, I turned to the books. I checked out two from my local library: You Are the Message by Roger Ailes and BRAG!: The art of tooting your own horn without blowing it by Peggy Klaus. You Are the Message had the creepier book cover (a bald white man who looked like a smiling Alfred Hitchcock) so I chose that one to dive into first.

I read You Are the Message for about oh… three minutes, chortling in disgust a few times, startling Jordan who was watching “The Wire.”  (I “watch” it with him, which means I sit with him in the living room when it’s on and read a book or surf the internet because it gets too scary and violent for me to look at the screen. Sometimes I even have to run away and cry. Yes, “The Wire” has made me cry in the bedroom. But it’s a great show and you know how I know? Because when I rush out of the room and cry, Jordan stays and finishes the episode. Must be some show.)

Anyway, I chortled in disgust because this book was absurd. This man began just by talking about how he coached Ronald Regan to greatness. Ew. I didn’t want his advice- I’m not particularly fond of Ronald Regan for a few reasons (think one of the numerous crushings of the ERA and the backlash against feminism)- and I didn’t like the way this man was talking about himself. I didn’t like his bragging style. So I slammed the book down dramatically on the futon for emphasis and returned it the next day.

Now, Peggy Klaus- she’s different. I like her. I’m not done reading but I’ll tell you what I’ve learned thus far: create a bragologue.  A bragologue is a list of everything you’ve accomplished both personally and professionally over your lifetime. After you’ve taken some time to create your bragologue, you can pick and choose the best parts from it and weave it into your own personal brand story.

Now, you’ve heard me refer to a brand before.   Brands are important. Whether you’re a person or a blog, a brand is what makes you memorable. And you want a good brand, a brand that makes you appealing to those to whom you want to appeal.

So my advice today? Follow Peggy and create your bragologue. With its help you should be able to create a brand story that takes a good middle ground- it’s not Roger Ailes saving the day and making Ronald Regan president (that deserves another resounding ew), but it’s also not 22 year-old Stephanie who when asked in a job interview if she’s ever worked with teenagers and she hasn’t though she knows she’d be great at it- panics and offers an answer that is unremarkable and forgettable AT BEST. Sigh. The real world is tough. Sometimes I wish I could just write a paper instead of having an interview.

But I can’t. And I’m motivated. And a self-starter. And I enjoy taking on projects myself and learning new skills. And I’m going be all this and more and learn how to toot my own horn. And maybe I’ll get a job. Or I’ll just become a life/communications coach. Sometimes I can’t handle myself but boy, I can plan for others!

Shhhh,

Steph

This past Friday I had an interview for a position in which I am extremely interested. To prepare myself the morning of, I woke up, did yoga, got dressed, made breakfast, and scoured a few of my favorite blogs for interview tips and inspiration. In my early morning research on interviews, I came across two separate understandings of the purpose of the first in-person interview.

The first in-person interview is usually arranged by phone (or sometimes email) by the person or the assistant of the person with whom you’ll be meeting. Often times you meet with more than one person during an interview so be prepared to remember their names- you’ll want to send each a personalized thank-you letter after the interview. In my experience, someone calls first to feel me out on the phone- maybe asks a few basic questions to make sure I’m not crazy. If the phone conversation goes well, then you are often invited for the first in-person interview. It is important to focus on this first in-person interview as this is the first chance you have to really make an impression in person. It will also determine whether you move ahead in the hiring process. So basically, the first in-person interview is incredibly important and therefore, it is integral that you know how to prepare. This is why being confronted with two different ideas of the purpose of an in-person interview was anxiety producing for me. How could I prepare if I was unsure what the purpose of the interaction would be?

In my research, I found that the first understanding of the in-person interview is that it is a way for your potential employer to get to know you better as a person. This view emphasizes that the employer already knows you’re qualified for the position from your resume and cover letter. People who understand the in-person interview in this way look at it as the employer trying to get a sense of if they’d like to work with you. Essentially, are you likeable enough for this person to hire you? This means you must work to appeal to the individual who is interviewing you.

The second understanding of the in-person interview is that it is set up so the employer can question you further about your qualifications. This view sets up the in-person interview as a time where the employer can get a better sense of the work experience you’ve had in the past and how it shapes you to perform in the particular job in question. Essentially, the in-person interview is a time where you as the potential employee must elaborate on your skills and experience and connect these qualities to the position to which you are applying.

Both understandings of the purpose of an in-person interview are anxiety producing. One emphasizes that you need to be likeable, and not just a generic likeable, but a likeable that appeals to your specific interviewer(s). The second emphasizes how during this time you must be able to prove your suitability for the position, and not only that you are a great candidate for the position in question, but that you are the best candidate. Neither is easy to do. So, as I considered these two different understandings, I wondered which one was correct. Should I focus on being incredibly likeable, or should I focus on emphasizing the skills and attributes that make me uniquely qualified for the position? The conclusion I came to was unfortunate but (I think) correct: it’s both a chance for the employer to see if they like you and to see if you are the best candidate for the position. The key to successfully navigating this environment, you ask? The answer: you must be the human cover letter.

To be a human cover letter, you have to come off as likeable, professional, efficient, and you have to be intelligible to the person interviewing you. Like your cover letter, you must look good. No typos and no putting the wrong name or organization in your cover letter! You must seem passionate about the position.

You also need to be able to express your qualifications for the position clearly in an in-person interview. Like your cover letter, you must offer real-life examples of these qualifications and provide evidence of your skills in your past positions. You cannot simply say you’re the best- you need to show it and your sentences must make sense. And like in your cover letter where you had to show it in writing, in your first in-person interview, you must be prepared to show that you’re the best verbally. It’s more difficult than you think.

So my advice is two-fold. In preparing for the first round of in-person interviews, remember that you must be a human cover letter. You must feel out your audience and make your character appeal to your interviewer. You also must come prepared to verbally hash out why you’re the most qualified for the position, examples and all.

The next few posts I write will concern how your cover letter should serve as a metaphor for how to act during your first in-person interview, tips you can utilize to ensure your likability with any audience, and tips on how to toot your own horn without sounding like that photographer who lives in Williamsburg who you met at that party on Saturday whose chosen topic of conversation was himself to such an extent that you fantasized about ripping his handlebar mustache off so he’d stop speaking.

What I continue to learn about in-person interviews as I experience more and more of them is that you must play many roles and play these roles delicately and authentically. It is difficult to be likeable even if you’re Tom Hanks when you find yourself in an in-person interview. I mean, you’re nervous and a lot is riding on how the interview goes. It is also difficult to express to the interviewer the ways in which you are qualified in a clear, insightful, and succinct manner. This takes practice, and it takes realizing that you must embody all the aspects of your cover letter. Again, you must be the human version of your cover letter.

And lastly, in-person interviews are like the SATs. It is not only about if you know the answers to the questions, what it comes down to is if you can answer three-hours worth of those questions.

Shhhh,

Steph

As a recent college graduate, I believe my blog to be quite valuable when it comes to job application materials.  Rather than hiding it from potential employers because I’m afraid they’ll dislike me from my writing, I’m putting it out there and making it a key piece of my employment persona.  This blog can help describe my employee capabilities as it proves: 1) I think about things and 2) I know how to use the internet.  And though sometimes coming from a liberal arts school like Bates can cause one to forget, not everyone possesses these skills and attributes.  Yes, not everyone can think critically or use the internet, difficult to imagine for some, but true. 

Because of my resolution to include my blog in the job application process, I find I have a heightened interest in blogging.  This means I talk about blogging with others and think about how I can make my blog better.  In an attempt to increase my blog notoriety and readership I recently signed up for a career networking website called Brazen Careerist.  It’s a social networking group for people under 30 and it allows you to create a profile and link to your blog if you choose to do so.  In exploring the site for the first time, I came across a blog written by a recent female college graduate and the post offered career advice.  I immediately labeled this faceless blogger as my competition and began to furiously read her entries.  Each post was basically her listing the information she had compiled from other sources.  Helpful?  Maybe.  However, it was lackluster to say the least.

Now, I don’t want that to be me.   I want notoriety (I mean who doesn’t, especially looking for a job in this economy) but I don’t want to be associated with a crappy blog.  I want my art to imitate my life, I just want my art to imitate the aspects of my life that people will find interesting rather than totally bizarre (like the fact that I have a number of sleep accessories- eye mask, hot water bottle, socks, two smaller pillows, and one large pillow- that require a significant amount of organization before I can even try to go to sleep).  I would never write a post about how great it is to sleep with a hot water bottle or the benefits of going to sleep with socks on and slipping them off halfway through the night because that’s useless and boring, though a legitimate part of my life that I embrace.

To avoid the horrible possibility that my blog might be ranked among those that are utterly useless and on top of that, poorly written, I’ve been doing research on the steps one needs to take to make one’s blog visit-worthy (You can take the woman out of the liberal arts school research environment but you can’t take the liberal arts research habits out of the woman).  It is astounding how many “how-to” manuals are out there that address the larger populace’s feeble attempts to create a successful blog.  What I’ve noticed in my wider reading is that there are a number of trends in the advice given.  The trend I will address in this posting is branding.

So what seems to be the consensus is that in order to have a successful blog, you need to concentrate on a specific topic and create a brand.  A brand-less blog often times means a directionless blog.  Directionless blogs have a hard time maintaining readership because most bloggers read specific blogs for the information they’re provided about a certain topic.  Unless you’re a stalker, directionless blogs aren’t pleasing to read.

This got my thinking about my blog brand.  So I’m a sometimes bitter, heady, feminist, post graduate, attempting to find work in a terrible economy.  My initial blog posts were about Bates events and life as a Bates student.  Now, as the exclusive Bates “Volunteer Graduate Blogger” as I think I’m called, I write about my life as a post-graduate.  But that topic seems to be a bit wide.  So these days I’ve been trying to narrow it down. 

Recently, I’ve been writing about navigating the career world as a Bates graduate (with a few posts here and there commenting on issues of power and privilege or what I did over the weekend).  I think what I’ll continue to do is explore other blogs that discuss the work world and try to keep to this topic as is.  The topic is relevant; it lets me speak about a number of things like making small sacrifices or various resume tips.  I’ve just got to stay on top of this topic bandwagon- just as my sentences tend to go haywire at times, I’m sure my blog posts do as well.  But no longer as from now on, I’m establishing my brand.

To end, I’ll talk about the site I was exploring that prompted me to write this post.  It recommends that you have keywords that link to your brand/ blog topic in your domain name.  I obviously didn’t get that memo as my blog domain name is stealthysecrets.wordpress.com.  Well, nothing can be done about that.   I guess I could argue that trying to find an entry-level job in this economy requires a large amount of stealth but really, I just used to keep a lot of arbitrary secrets because I’m an only child and would try to protect my privacy in any way I could.  Then, somehow gained the nickname “Stealth” in the local Connecticut Stop and Shop when I was 16.  I know this because my old Stop and Shop card belongs to Stephanie “Stealth” Howson.  Now, I shop at Hannafords.

Another slight brand issue is that this website recommends that one brand one’s blog with a header image.  I have kittens in sleeping bags.  It could be a deep metaphor to signal the post-graduate struggle to find grounding but really, I just like cats and thought the picture was way cute.  Maybe part of my “brand” will be that everything is not completely well thought out.

Shhhh,

Steph

Everyone always complains about how work makes them fat.  They claim it’s because they are working so diligently, they don’t have time for physical activity or to eat well.  While that may be true for some, it never seems to hold true for the people that actually make this claim.  The people that actually make this claim mostly could have the time to do a little physical activity or eat well if they scheduled it in.  But that’s difficult, I know.  Especially because many offices always seem to have food in them and it’s not carrot sticks and green tea let me tell you that.  And there often is an office culture that surrounds food, office parties, birthday celebrations, congratulatory gifts- they all involve unhealthy food and they happen constantly (I like this link because in the first sentence the article basically blames women in the workplace for the unhealthy food options at work.  Like all we do with ourselves when we’re not at work is bake cookie bars for our nuclear families and then bring the leftovers to work).  You may not always want to partake in the food festivities to preserve your health but as I learned today, sometimes small food sacrifices in the workplace can reap rewards.

Working full time seems to suck away all your available time for personal upkeep.  Weekends become the time to do the errands you didn’t have time for during the week.  Like this weekend I’ve got to take my car in to get the scratches I gave it assessed by a body work specialist.  It’s crazy how quickly my free time gets booked now that my weekend is only two days long.  And forget going to the gym- you just want to stay away from the car you sit in each weekday morning and evening defending yourself from crazy Massachusetts drivers.  My life isn’t even the most hectic example because I don’t have kids but I’m what you get for the purposes of this explanation- I work 9 to 6. 

My job is relatively close to home so I leave at 8:30 and get home around 6:30.  Listen, I understand what it’s like to get home and feel exhausted.  I have a difficult time sleeping some nights, and often I lie awake listening to Jordan mumble and occasionally defending my face from his sporadic arm movements (a bigger bed is on my wish list).  This means that sometimes I don’t want to get up in the morning.  But I do get up, and get this- I get up at 6:15 so I can do an hour of yoga before getting dressed, eating breakfast, and heading to work.  And get THIS- I pack my lunch the night before.  Now this is in part because I am health conscious and don’t want to consume the Fisherman’s Basket which consists of fried little pieces of “seafood” (they serve this at Bates every now and then) but it is also because I don’t want to spend $7 on fried bread in a basket.

But anyway, people complain about work making them fat.  I can see it.  I work at the front desk where all I’ve been staring at all week is big glass bowl with Halloween candy in it.  Today (Friday, a week after Halloween), there is one, lonely, fun-sized package of Starbursts in it.  Now, I know this glass bowl well as I’ve watched it constantly get refilled throughout this entire week by co-workers who are parents and don’t want their kids to eat all the candy they collected on Halloween.  If I knew my parents were stealing my hard-earned candy to bring to work I’d be pissed but that’s another issue.  The issue at hand is that everyone constantly ate candy this week.  I mean constantly and I mean everyone.  The FedEx guy, the Staples guy, a young man from the Prudential office across the way (I debated if I should let him have the fun-sized Snickers because maybe our offices were enemies or something but I let him take it after making a sad work/young person joke about needing sugar “at about this time”).  After this week I can see how work could be bad for one’s health.

And then today we celebrated someone’s birthday which meant there was cake.  Now I love cake, but I’m a cake snob.  I like good cake.  And often times store-bought cake isn’t what I would define as good.  The frosting to cake ratio is always off with way too much frosting to make the cake enjoyable. 

But yes, there was cake and at first glance, my cake-snob radar detected too much frosting.  Plus I wasn’t that hungry as I had just eaten my delicious prepared recession lunch.  But you know what?  I took a piece of cake.  And I ate it all.  Including the frosting.

And then you want to know what happened?  I got asked to come to the office Christmas party.  Yes, I got invited to a Christmas party for the office at which I am temping.  I have only been here two weeks, I will not be here by the time the Christmas party rolls around, but no matter.  I got invited to the party anyway.  I think it was because I ate the cake.  I assimilated.  And I got a party invite out of it.

So let’s take this little incident as a career metaphor.  Eat the birthday cake- you’ll get invited to the party.  Involve yourself, make a small compromise, and you might reap the benefits.  I did.  December 10^th baby.  I can’t wait.

Shhhh,

Steph

CORRECTION: @LissainSC on Twitter pointed out that Generation X and the Baby Boomers are not the same group of people.  Generation X is the group of people born right after the Baby Boom ended, we’re talking late 60s and 70s.  Thanks for clearing that up!

It’s quite obvious that the world is changing, I mean it’s been consistently changing since its creation/inception/however you want to call it.  However, it seems as if today our changing world is more of a hot topic than ever and a large number of these conversations concern technology- how it’s changing our emotional and mental constitutions, our physical bodies, the way we interact with others, and our quality of life.  Generation Y, also known as the twentysomethings, are often viewed as one of the prime causal factor in these technological restructurings. 

Now, whether twentysomethings really are the driving force behind these shifts can be debated but I can’t deny it, I do like this conversation topic.  What I like about it is that it makes me feel popular.  The world is talking about me- the Generation Y- the twentysomething who tweets and blogs and makes friends over the internet (and meets them in well lit public spaces of course).  I am essentially getting told who I am and what matters to me by newspaper articles and radio broadcasts based off research done by confused Generation Xers and the Baby Boomers who don’t quite seem to know what to make of my generation.

It’s all very exciting- the notoriety my generation is receiving and the binary structures that are being constructed to differentiate us from Generation X.  One public space where this Generation X/ Generation Y binary is constantly affirmed is within the working world.  Now, I love the working world and looooooooove to talk about it constantly so it makes sense that I love that everyone else is talking about me in the work world.  And I believe some pretty interesting things are getting said.

One reason that Generation X can’t seem to understand Generation Y in the workplace is that the twentysomethings want different things from their work life than their parents.  I tend to agree (for the most part) that what people value at work, they value in their personal lives and vice vera.  One’s work life and home life are never as separate as one would like them to be.  I think Penelope Trunk puts it best in her book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules For Success when she titles a chapter, “The New American Dream Is About Time, Not Money.”  Here, she highlights that cars, homes, and nuclear families aren’t what the twentysomethings are after.  This leads many Baby Boomers to label us as lazy and without the ability to understand what “real” work is.  Trunk states that twentysomethings aren’t as unaware and lazy as we are made out to be- it is just that twentysomethings have different dreams that match these different (constantly changing remember?) times.  Our dreams are about being true to ourselves and expressing ourselves in meaningful ways in all sectors of our lives, including the work place.  This makes sense to me.

Now, I’m not saying that my parents weren’t concerned with being true to themselves, they absolutely were and continue to work towards actually their truths today.  However, I do think there has been a shift in the understanding of how one can function in the work world.  Generation Y has come to expect that we can live out our personal values and express ourselves in our personal lives as well as through our work.  Work is no longer just a place to make money and move up in the corporate world.  To people of my generation, work today is a place, yes to make money, but also to continue to live out the principles we value in our personal lives.

Call it idealism but most of my colleagues at Bates spoke about wanting to do something with their Bates degree to effect transformative change.  In fact, I’ve actually been recruited to head up the Development Office of my old roommate’s nonprofit once she gets it started.  Generation Y is redefining what success means and our definition, though still mired in monetary amounts (money has always been a status symbol and I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon), relates more to our feeling fulfilled more than simply making a living.  We want to have personal lives, we want to enjoy ourselves, and things are simpler in some ways than they were for our parents.  Though exponentially more difficult in other ways don’t get me wrong.

I began writing this post unsure what I wanted its take-away message to be, I was just interested in the generation gap concerning notions of success and the work world.  Now, by the sixth paragraph I know what I want to say- I want to urge all the twentysomethings to embrace this redefinition of success.     I also want to urge all the Baby Boomers who call us lazy to stop and think about it- ahem ahem Hillary Clinton.  They’re just projecting.

I’ve felt lost in the past, wondering where my values and desires fit into the work world.  Now I feel better knowing that we are in a time of complete change and that my generation is leading this change.  The work place is shifting because the work force is shifting and we twentysomethings need to have confidence in the fact that there are careers out there that correspond with our values and life goals.  I’m okay with the way I define success, and the next time I read something about how entitled I am because I’ve grown up in a culture of instant gratification I’m going to write a letter saying that if this were in fact true, I would have had my dream job (or heck, just A job) five months ago.  Now THAT would be instant gratification.

Shhhh,

Steph

You know how often times blogs will preface an entry with a “Warning: Spoilers Ahead!” label if they’re going to give away parts of a TV show or something?  Well, I feel as if I should begin this post with a “Warning: I Was Spoiled and Now I’m Not and That Makes Me Bitter” label.  Consider yourself warned.

Being an unemployed graduate has taught me (more like forced me to learn at times) a lot about a plethora of things pertaining to surviving on a day-to-day basis.  Two days ago I completely scratched up the side of my car while attempting to navigate my landlord’s dumbly designed driveway as I was trying to leave for work.  That little incident forced me to look into the subject of automobile body work, a subject I know nothing about.  Another life matter that I have had to get hip to as of late is health insurance.

When I first graduated  I was on a private COBRA plan in Connecticut that was insanely expensive.  Like one month’s rent expensive.  So with the help of my mom I switched to a Massachusetts plan- a cheap one.  The cheapest non-subsidized (Non-subsidized means I pay totally out of pocket, the government isn’t helping me at all) plan I could find in fact.  And it seemed okay at first- I went to a doctor who was covered by the plan, she seemed nice enough,  she renewed my prescriptions, and I left without a co-pay.  Nice no?  Well, fast-forward to when I want, no wait- NEED, my prescriptions, and a pharmacy worker at CVS tells me that neither prescription is covered.

 “Okay” I say, “Well I’ll just pay out of pocket.  How much?”  (Yeah right I’ll pay out of pocket.  Little did I know..)  The lady then tells me, “Okay, $250 for one and $100 for the other.”  Say what!?  That’s $350 a month!  That’s a lot of money to keep my bronchioles’ chronic inflammation at bay (I have asthma and need a special inhaler that squirts steroids into me each day.  I better not try to become an Olympic athlete or anything.)  Needless to say, I couldn’t pay that and the day I find I can pay that amount for a little inhaler I’ll be sitting pretty.  Or I’ll be desperate.  (Though the new “covered” inhaler I got is Bates colors- garnet and grey.  I say “covered” because it still cost me $100, which is why I’m searching for a new plan).  But anyway, yes, I needed a new plan and I needed it right then.

So, my liberal arts research skills kicked in and I went online to surf the web for a less expensive way to stay “healthy”.  I came across a subsidized plan for which I could be eligible through Massachusetts.  So I filled out that application and had all the materials required for each section EXCEPT the employment section.  Of course it’s the employment section that gives me grief, it always is. 

Anyway, because I am technically working, though it’s temporary, I had to fill out the employment section which required copies of two of my most recent pay stubs to prove to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that I am below the poverty line.  Unfortunately, I don’t even have all the documents I need to prove I have no money.  Get this- you need PAYSTUBS to prove you have no money.  How does that work!?  Well anyway, I had to type up a little note explaining my predicament.  Then I decided I would be better off giving someone a call- the Commonwealth Care help line probably could help me.  So I call.  And a very mumbly man picks up and seems disgruntled that I have a question.  And he says he can’t help me (though the website says he can and I’m a product of the 21^st century so what the interweb says, goes) and that he’s going to transfer me.  And then he just leaves me on hold!  He doesn’t even have the courtesy to hang up on me- I would have rather had him do that so I wouldn’t have stayed on the line for 6 unnecessary minutes.  

So, I sigh and call back, making sure to press a difference sequence of numbers just so I don’t end up with the Health Plan Scrooge again.  This time I reach a kind man who basically tells me to do everything I had already done- write a little note to the healthcare Gods explaining my bizarre employment predicament.  So I included my little letter, sent off the application, and we’ll see what happens.  I hope I get this new coverage because my prescriptions will be oh-so-much-more affordable (I think).

But, moral of this story, there are two: 1) Don’t always go for the cheap.  Sometimes the cheap gives you your inhaler for the price of two cashmere cardigans.  And don’t always trust the people who should know this information (like doctors) to actually know it or actually care.  You’ve got to be on top of things in the post-graduate world.  I find that many people don’t like to help me out or make things easy for me unless it’s my parents because they love me or Jordan because he loves me and I cook the dinners.  2) Educate yourself.  I know health insurance and health plans have been all over the news lately and one can get sick of hearing about it.  However, it is a big deal.  And listening to NPR passively while you’re cleaning the bathroom doesn’t automatically mean you understand the workings of health insurance plans.  Trust me, I know.

So, to help you out I’ve compiled a few resources that offer the basics of health insurance.  They’ll help you understand a little of the jargon and might make you feel a little more calm with your impending entrance into the real world where medicine seems to be REAL hard to get.

What President Obama has to say about all this: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

A useful glossary of terms courtesy of Alabama’s Department of Insurance: http://www.aldoi.gov/Consumers/HealthInsExplain.aspx

And of course, what list of links could be complete without Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_benefits

Shhhh,

Steph

Recently I made the decision that I needed to revamp my resume after reading the advice provided by a few blogs and career books.  Apparently, my resume wasn’t doing enough bragging.  I read that recruiters usually only take about 10 seconds to look at a resume and if they don’t see anything that catches their eye in those 10 measly seconds, they move on.  Ten seconds.  That’s not a long time at all.  It sometimes takes ten seconds for my eyes to focus.

After learning that morsel of information I figured that if I only have 10 seconds to impress the people reading my resume, then I better change the document a bit.  I by a bit I mean rewrite the whole thing.  I didn’t want anyone spending their 10 seconds looking at the fact that I greeted visitors when I was a receptionist.  I mean, that’s what receptionists do- greeting visitors is pretty much implicit in the title of receptionist.  If you’re a receptionist, you greet people.  Therefore the greeting section (among others) had to go.

Basically the rule of thumb I used for my resume revamping was this: don’t list your duties, but highlight your accomplishments.  Now, it is extremely difficult to actually successfully do this on a resume for a few reasons.  1) You may not think the work you’ve done is quantifiable.  Well, it is.  You just have to think creatively.  For example, when I began fundraising for the March of Dimes in 2000, I started with a list of about 100 donor prospects.  Most of them ended up giving money.  In my eight years fundraising for the MoD, I managed to retain about 80 of the original donors.  That’s an 80% donor retention rate.  There, I quantified my fundriaising work.  2) You can’t think of any ways in which you have excelled at the work you’ve done.  You never accomplished anything at that summer waitressing gig during your junior year.  Well, chances are you did excel in certain positions- you just have to discover where.  I realized that when I was a receptionist for a law office over the summer of my sophomore year (yes, greeting visitors and answering phones),  my employer asked me to come back to continue to work during school breaks.  This was an accomplishment.  I had done a good enough job as receptionist at the office that they wanted me to continue when I had free time.  That shows that I did my work as receptionist effectively.  So that is what I put on my resume rather than “answered phones and greeted visitors.”  It sounds a lot more attractive doesn’t it?

I think what can be so difficult about the whole application process for a college student is that a job application isn’t a class assignment.  The cover letter isn’t a paper on Nietzsche’s concept of the herd mentality and it certainly shouldn’t be written that way.  You are selling yourself in an application but in a different way than you sell your point in humanities papers.  Your resume and cover letter are documents meant to facilitate the sale not of your idea but of yourself, to others.  Resumes are meant to emphasize the main points, cover letters meant to connect how these main points make you the best candidate for a position, and both documents should leave the employer wanting to know more.

My resumes and cover letters were not doing this.  My cover letters tend to be long- way too long.  It is the case that the shorter something is, the more likely someone is to read it all and really pay attention to it.  This is especially true in today’s job market where companies and organizations are receiving hundreds of applications for any given position.  They don’t want to read a lot nor do they want to see a lot of dense text.  This is why many career coaches recommend bullet points in your cover letters and keeping both the resume and cover letter short-and-sweet.  I haven’t tried the bullet approach yet- I’m still trying to cut the length of my cover letters in half- but it makes a lot of sense.  Give the employer the information s/he wants to know and make it easy for them.  They’ll like you for that and perhaps you’ll reap the benefits later.

Just remember the bottom line for resume revamping- resumes should list your greatest accomplishments, not your duties, and these accomplishments should be in plain sight.  Make each line fantastic and meaningful.  Nothing should be mediocre because you’re not.  And because that one mediocre line may be what the recruiter reads in their 10 seconds of scanning.

Don’t be afraid to brag, put this stuff out there for all to see.  You’re selling yourself remember?  And no one sells a product well if they don’t believe in it.  Yes, I know I sound like a Disney movie but you must believe in yourself.  Creating great job application materials isn’t easy, it takes a lot of work and numerous revisions but it’s totally worth it.  I mean, the whole point of all this is to get a job no?  Unless you’re a masochist with a trust fund.

Anyway, I would recommend taking your resume (if it exists, and if doesn’t, make one now because there is no decent reason to put this task off) and looking it over.  Remove all the duty jargon, get rid of complete sentences and erroneous words, and begin promoting yourself.  If you’re a Bates student, take your resume to OCS and have someone there look it over for you.  Scan the internet for ideas on how to say certain things in resume speak.  Write it, return to it and change it, and then return to it and change in some more.  Chances are your resume will be unlike anything you’ve ever written before.   And that’s a sign that you’re doing it right.

Shhhh,

Steph