on the market/on the hunt

job searching, dating, and how it feels to be up for grabs in a pseudo meritocracy.

As of today, I’ve been in pursuit of a salaried job for over three years post grad. As a college senior, I imagined by 25 I’d instead be ongoing battle in the dating pool. But with all the ghosting, scams, breadcrumbing, “putting yourself out there,” waiting, lost hope, and adrenaline spikes, dating and job hunting feel eerily similar at this point.

Untitled. Pinterest.

When me and my friends swap stories of my job search and their first dates, it sounds as if we’re all sat at the same tiny, tall stool in a dimly lit bar across from a human-sized wad of unpredictability. We’re told by the comfortably cushioned folk surrounding us, “It’s not you,” and that “The thing you’ve been waiting for will come along.” Sayings that at first feel hopeful in their truths, but dull in its resonance as more time passes without.

I used to wait up on texts from dusties. Now, I’ve spent the last three or four nights in a row crying and anxiously checking my email for job application updates that inevitably wouldn’t be sent at such a late hour. When I finally fell asleep, I had at least two job-related nightmares. One of them included the horror of a full-time offer shapeshifting into an internship after I started in office on my first day. I woke up, in real life, to an entirely unbolded inbox. For some sort of post-nightmare salve, I reread promising emails I starred about opportunities from weeks prior. Except it wasn’t so comforting as I tried to uncover what I could’ve missed between the corporate pleasantries and radio silence in the business days following.

The funny thing is, when I first started applying for full-time roles at 21, I didn’t feel pressured to keep up with the glossy titles of other grads and 20-year-old internet strangers. I wanted an average, stable office job that would support me financially as I used their desktop to steadily search for my “career job.” Despite my royally written cover letters and cheery daytime television-like interviews, nothing ever bit. Not even my alma mater. Each time, I was disappointed, but I also didn’t take it personally. I wasn’t the only new grad facing unemployment in the thick of the onset Coronavirus pandemic. As time crept by and higher ups claimed the job market, like life, to allegedly be “back to business as usual,” I knew better that the long-term effects of the pandemic raged on; a fact that remains more than evident amongst us job seekers.

You can work hard and smart in the pursuit of a job, and it winds up being the things out of your control that make or break your chance. Whether your application was sent in early enough to be seen before the influx, an external-facing job posting wound up being internally hired, or a job got completely scrapped mid-interview because of company budget cuts, it truly is “not you.” It seems no matter the diagnosis, finding gainful employment boils down to a single strand of luck. There are even times I can attest to landing jobs due to that strand of luck. But after all this time spent falling down and getting back up again, I’ve begun to think, what if it is me?

Brad Holland. Pinterest.

I think this to myself, even with the knowledge that it’s by design the system makes you feel at fault for any lack of success. I don’t feel I’m to blame for my lack of a salaried job. I feel defeated. When I was in my first, second, and third months on the job market, there were certainly things I could have done differently, better even.

So I sent cold outreach, warm outreach, and planned coffee chats. I applied to at least four jobs a week. I designed and redesigned my portfolio. I accepted underpaid and overworked gigs in the meantime to help pay my bills.

Year one, month one, two, three…

I expanded my search nationwide. I changed my focus from full-time to freelance when those opportunities worked more in my favor. I was always on LinkedIn. And after TikTok told me so, I stopped using LinkedIn.

Year two, month one, two, three…

I broadened my experience to admin, sales, content writing, online customer service, substituting, moderation, ghostwriting, research survey participation, and sent my re-tailored resumes into the void of application portals.

Year three, month one, two, three…

Until I’d given so much of my time, skills, courage, energy, and savvy that there remains no more of myself I am willing to give that doesn’t feel too deep a sacrifice. There is nothing in this I wish to conquer, nor to win. I shouldn’t have to. I want to live. And I want to live fully.

Choy Moo Kheong (Singaporean, b. 1950) Blue Whispering Day 2022. Pinterest.

Between writing this, crying, working, and searching simultaneously, I’ve been thinking a lot about the language and state of being “on the market” in the way that I talk about myself and the current season I’m in. When I hear or say the phrase, it harkens back to dark images of my ancestors stood on the auction block, forced to lay their humanity up for sale. It reminds me that history is still embedded into our collective present reality of laboring. This then brings me to the language and state of being “on the hunt,” which evokes a sense of predatory exploitation for the sake of success, a “hunt” that I refuse to perpetuate.

What I’m grateful to have discovered within myself on this tumbling cycle is no matter what happens in my career journey, my intrinsic value and deepest desires do not lie in what I must do to afford a living. While I still keep career goals and aspirations, it is not what I dream of.¹ My dream is to be present for my loved ones and my community, to see new places outside the U.S., to cook good food, to feel pretty, to stretch regularly, and to be outside often.

Job searching has a way of sucking you in, deeper and deeper until you look up and everything around you is dark, and you’re alone. In these moments, it can feel like your whole life has become a perpetual chase towards a light that only grows further and further away. I don’t have much hope, promise, or faith in the job market as it stands, but I do for me and you.

Well, except for the person who scammed me out of resale tickets for JoJo’s (Too Little Too Late JoJo) book signing at The Strand. I don’t want to talk about it.

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1. Unless it’s a nightmare.