By Jack Mulcahy
When I sit down for the first time with a job seeker, the first
question I ask is, "How do you want this resume to position you?" In
other words, "What kind of job do you want this resume to aim for?"
Usually, my clients have a fairly good understanding of where they want
to go, but every so often I encounter someone who says, "I'll take
anything."
Such an answer is understandable in these troubled
times, but it's both misguided in terms of resume-writing and it's a
ticket to misery in overall life. I know the latter from personal
experience. As the son of parents who had lived through the Great
Depression of 1929-1942, when it came time for me to finish college and
find a career, the message I got was, "Take whatever you can find and be
glad you can get a job." What about a career? I asked. What about
something related to my Bachelor's degree (English)? "Get a job, and
stop this nonsense about a career."
The purpose of this column is
not to weep and wail at my misfortune. After all, I was a grown man when
I graduated. There was nothing commanding me to listen to my parents
any more. But I did. And for the next 40 years, my professional life was
miserable. The work I found could not have been further from who I was
and what I wanted. It took me until 2009 to find a career writing
resumes that connected to my true self. And I felt as if I'd died and
gone to heaven.
So when people say, "I'll take anything," I tell
them my story. I tell them about all the years of feeling like I didn't
belong, and of feeling somehow like there must be more to life than
getting up to go to jobs I hated. Along the way, I was fortunate enough
to find mentors, both male and female, who helped guide me through the
twists and turns, and who taught me many of the valuable skills that
make me who I am today. So in spite of the awful jobs, I had
considerable luck, and I can look back and see that there was a purpose
to my wanderings in the dark.
But don't ever decide you'll take
just any job, unless you're literally starving. Then take that
"whatever" job to pay the bills but hold out for something better. Keep
looking for that job that connects to you, and when that brass ring
comes along, grab it with both hands and don't let go. In the long run,
you'll be glad you did.
"If you just try all the doors, one of them must be the door into summer." - Robert A. Heinlein