The Lemon Life | online magazine offering a fresh perspective on post-grad life.

An Historical Document
Words By: Brian Levy
Image By: markhillary

 It is 1989 and the world is a mess.  There is a new American President and an economy deep in recession due to eight long years of deficit spending and trickle-down economics that never quite trickled.  So, while it is the right of every generation to believe, with all the intensity and sincerity it can muster, that the circumstances of the world they encounter as newly hatched “contributing members of society” are entirely unique, either advantaging or disadvantaging them in ways never before experienced, the reality is that like all history, it has all happened before and is all destined to happen again.

Twenty years ago, I was birthed into a working world that looked quite a bit like the one facing today’s recent college grads.  A world in which a rare (but not unique) confluence of global events and cultural shifts had placed the future leaders of the world, so full of promise, on the doorstep of mediocrity.  Burned by society.  Doomed by events beyond their control.  Owed big time.

In an effort to be helpful, I have reflected on my initial job-hunting experiences to compile this brief, annotated guide to finding a job.  In New York City.  In 1989.  So, sadly, it will be of little help to you in finding an actual job.  But it may, however, make you feel that your circumstances are not quite as dire as they could have been.

First, let’s set the scene.  George Herbert Walker Bush is the President of the United States, the Internet is just the germ of an idea in the minds of some nerds at UCLA, and I am armed with the three tools required to find employment: a typewriter, a telephone and a copy of the New York Times.

In those days, the way to get a job in the New York area was to comb through the classified ads in the Sunday New York Times.  You’d begin with Accountant and make your way through Zookeeper searching for any listing for which you might be remotely qualified–and which did not involve manual labor or selling vacuum cleaners.  That pretty much narrowed the field to clerical jobs.  Not quite what you had in mind, but it’s New York and you’re a highly intelligent college graduate.  Three months as the admin for a mover and shaker in advertising/publishing/broadcast media/high finance/etc. and he or she will be begging you to step up to more responsibility, more prestige and, most importantly, more money.

Here’s how the process worked:

1. Wake up at 11am on Sunday morning after a long night of drinking cheap beer with your other unemployed friends.  (So far, pretty much the same as 2009.)
2. Set aside the Classified section of the New York Times and devour every other word that was fit to print that day, including the marriage announcements, obituaries, and the non-fiction book reviews. (In other words, stall as long as humanly possible.)
3. Muster up just enough self esteem to meticulously scour the Classifieds for jobs that don’t make you immediately contemplate suicide or the Peace Corps. (No offense.  I’m sure the Peace Corps does great work.)
4. Type a custom cover letter to the anonymous decision maker in each ad.  (”To Whom It May Concern: I have always dreamed of a career in the fast-paced world of plumbing fixture manufacturing.”)
5. Collapse in a heap of depression-induced exhaustion.  (It’s Sunday, after all.)
6. Climb out of bed on Monday just long enough to mail the cover letters and resumes. (Remember, this involved an actual typewriter, actual stamps and an actual visit to the actual post office.  I’m not joking.)
7. Sit by the telephone on Tuesday and Wednesday waiting for anyone to respond to your inquiries. (No cell phones, so you actually had to sit by the phone.)
8. Receive call-backs from overly chipper employment agency drones inviting you come visit them on Thursday or Friday to “talk about the job.” (If you were lucky.  If you weren’t, you went directly back to step 1.)
9. Shower. (Usually for the first time since before step 1.)
10. Put on your one decent suit and trudge from employment agency to employment agency, not to “talk about the job” but rather to take a seemingly endless battery of life-sapping, soul-leaching, self-esteem-draining aptitude tests.  (During my first job search as a college grad, I was forced to take a wide variety of spelling, grammar, typing, and personality tests.  I often imagined exchanges between those reviewing my test scores: “This test says he’s a borderline personality with anti-social tendencies.”  “Yeah, but he can type 90 words a minute.”)

If you passed the tests and the high-school dropouts from the employment agency liked you, you were referred to the actual employer for an interview.  Then, and only then, would you have the opportunity to speak intelligently with another human being about your strengths and weaknesses, your 5-year plan for global domination, and your ability to make coffee and copies at the same time.

Using this method it took me roughly two dozen typing tests, a handful of actual interviews, and nearly eight months to find a job.  Sadly, it was a job that required no intellectual thought, came with an annual salary that wouldn’t even buy you a Kia Sportage today, demanded an obscene amount of alcohol consumption, and ultimately, delivered a promotion I just couldn’t bring myself to accept.  But that’s another story.

• It Could Be Worse