#to with most academics and professionals but he literally responded in three MINUTES and i felt like shitting myself

[davidtennantpussytulpa]

i appreciate a quick response but it also scares the shit out of me how fast my PI responds. like FUCK!!! i wasnt prepared to deal further with this for at least a couple hours

[studywgabi]

Learning the Hard Way

How on-brand of me to be ghosted, not by a boyfriend (impossible, as I've never even had one to be ghosted by), but by a professor, on two (2) separate occasions. I'm currently technically a college sophomore in my high school's early college program, so I'm two for two, and hoping to keep up my perfect score next year. As I reflect on the triumphs and sorrows of the first bloom of my youth, I invite you to join me on this journey to seek that elusive bird of innocence and memory.

Dr. #1:

English 101, my very first quarter of college when I was 16. What I had was support: financial, academic, and emotional, but what I didn't have was common sense. I failed miserably and I emailed him obsessively over winter break trying to get an incomplete on my transcript instead of an F. He never replied. In 3 weeks. To any of my 15 emails. It took much longer than it should have, but eventually I got what he was trying to say. By that point, winter quarter classes had started and I added a remedial English class late.

I completely understood: it was winter break, he was with his family, and it's not his job to solve my problems. But all I wanted was a response, whether positive or negative, so that I could move on.

Dr. #2:

Present-day, winter quarter, Math 95, one of my last few graduation requirements. I found out my major's requirements had changed late in fall quarter, and again, spent weeks trying to get in contact with a professor. His class was full, so I was asking him to overload me. When the deadline for professors to add students to their classes was in a few days (three weeks into the quarter), I got my academic advisor involved and asked her to send the professor an email. Still no reply. She said my emails weren't clear enough and that professors usually only responded to emails from their current students anyway.

Finally (around the seventh email), I resorted to (and I'm not proud of this) sweet Southern belle style threats: "Dear Dr. #1, Good morning, sir! This is Daniella Castillo again, I just wanted to follow up on adding Math 95 this quarter. I just checked and I saw that I was removed from the waitlist and that there are now two seats available. My ass would be honored to sit in either of seats, sir. All other Math 95 times conflict with my other classes, so I would really appreciate it if you would please give me your permission to add this class, so much so that I would sacrifice a goat in your worship. I know it is the second week and if you are no longer adding students I completely understand, but I respectfully ask that you please confirm that with me either way so that I can make a plan for my academic future. I know the beginning of the quarter's a busy time for you, my lord, so please let me know what you decide so that Ms. Advisor and I can be out of your fabulous hair! I hope you had a great start to the quarter and I look forward to hearing from you! Happy New Year!"

That worked! He replied: "Go to the advising center. The math department runs all of its permission codes through them." Verbatim, no greeting, no sign-off, and zero Southern pizzazz.

My dad is a college professor and he's literally Jane Bennett, the kindest, most beautiful teen girl in all of Meryton. Yeah, it's a bit (a lot) pathetic, but I sat on his lap while I cried over this. I mean, they were deciding whether or not I graduated. It was weeks of just waiting, ruminating, losing sleep, not knowing what was going to happen to me while trying to keep up with everything else that was going on. I agonized over every email, spent 45 minutes writing two sentences, consulted other people to make sure they were polite and professional and clear enough, re-read them a million times after I'd already sent them, prayed that someone would just give me some information about what was going to happen to me instead of ignoring me. And now, I'm such an idiot that I want to double major next year, and go to grad school, and get a Ph.D. (I hope). Is this my normal for the next 20 years?

College: the best years of your life. Go Titans!

[valenshawke]

Me vs. My Boss - Part 89798427987

My relationship with my boss is interesting.

I spent so much time in school that I really never had a boss before, even when I was someone’s research assistant. With my mentor at undergrad, when I was his research assistant, I didn’t need to have a boss, I just worked hard because I totally appreciated the things he did for me. For those last two years in college and three years in Columbus, he fulfilled that father figure I hadn’t had since my dad died. And while we never really spoke about anything deeply personal (except my rejection letters for grad school), he did provide that professional/career/financial guidance I feel like my dad would have. It was his advice to me when I was on the job market (academic, public, and private sector) that I found the most reasonable. 

“Whoever makes the best offer to you first, go with it. You’d be suffering upwards for 5-7 more years if you commit now to being a part-timer working 3 campuses.” 

He was the only one that offered me any career advice after I defended my dissertation. Not even my advisor/dissertation chairperson could. But, admittedly, she and her husband (also on my committee) felt really bad about my situation when I graduated (in a more favorably market, I could have stayed 1-2 more years and gotten something). They also cop to not having done enough. But hey, I got a real job with benefits.They were ecstatic.

Which brings me to my actual factual boss. 

Hooboy.

When I got to my job, he was still only one of my two group leaders. Group leaders occupy a weird position of not being managers but having some managerial authority as delegated by their (and my) Deputy Director, who is my actual manager/boss. 

Nice guy. 

Nice guys don’t always make for good managers. In fact, they make for pretty rotten managers. 

In the boss/employee relationship, I don’t need to be friends with my manager. I really don’t give two shits. Can I be respectful? Yes. Can they be respectful? Yes. Can we be professional in dealing with problems? Yes. Is there a time to raise your voice in anger? Sure. 

The problem with my boss is he’s been acting like the good cop since he was promoted. Now. there were some shady office politics (nothing illegal but between the people) going on in my office in the two years before I got there that set the stage here.

His allies among the employees for my first year here were, me and the two guys that I sat next two. 

Those two guys left for jobs at HQ, which I understand.

This leaves me.

The next two years, become a harrowing experience.

He is not a good manager.

But on a personal level, I like him. He’s a guy you could go out and have a few drinks with, watch football, and have a good time.

As a manager...

I protected him twice. 

How? I warned him on something because of something he had to one of my coworkers. He worded things so poorly even though I know his intent was, “Don’t be belligerent,” which my coworker was by refusing an assignment. Because my coworker literally HAD no assignments. 

But he worded it in a way that could have been actionable. I literally told him to walk with me out of our building and I explained it to him. 

He and our director continued to handle it poorly. But fine, that coworker ends up leaving to another department and out of our hair. Goodbye forever. [Side note: This same coworker actually asked for my number before I left. I responded with, “Why, you want me to do your work at another agency?”

After saying that we were friends, I responded with, “You are literally the worst person I have ever dealt with and I never want to see or hear from you again.”

I was literally in my 30 minutes of the day before I went on vacation and to San Diego Comic Con. 

I stopped by my actual friend’s office and my soon-to-be former coworker was there, apparently crying not understanding why I hated them so. When I do 60% or more of your work, that’s why].

Which brings us to the last 10 months.

I can’t and won’t say much but I will say that part of how I operate at work is generally this: Keep your head down, don’t talk politics, don’t talk religion, and make no physical contact with people. That last part is unless I KNOW you really well or your someone I HAVE to shake hands with (big deal with at HQ), do not fucking touch me. 

But I see a lot of things and hear a lot, having a large headset makes people think I tune out when I’m listening. 

But you know what? The truth, as I saw it, made this thing I won’t say much about really a non-starter. But it’s still stressful.

I even literally try to console my boss who feels bad about us being called about it. 

Now, that said, in the summer of 2015, some family problems rear their ugly head the weekend before I am supposed to run my first training school at this agency. There are some serious questions as to whether or not I can teach that Monday.

He set it up where if I can’t be there, my backup (who had actually done this project last year and knew the stuff) could do it.

I managed to run the school. Not well mind you, I know my standards.

He had my back.

I appreciated that.

I have his.

Until you start JERKING ME AROUND AND ASKING ME TO GROVEL.

On Fridays, I have the privilege to work at home. I earned it and in  the two years I’ve been doing this, all the metrics show I actually do work and get more done at home cause I have almost no distractions. 

I also have situational times due to mitigating circumstances. Remember the eclipse? There was going to be a protest downtown that day, right in front of the building and the building managers wanted us out.

Today, they’re putting in a door in some office space behind my work area. Building contractors want no one there for safety reasons.

My director has already indicated I could telework that day. 

But communications breakdown. 

I ask my boss Tuesday, what the deal was going to be. 

He say he’d know tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes.

He knows I have to leave at 3 PM everyday since I maxed out on credit and they won’t give me comp.

I want an answer. 

I actually go to his office like 4 times that day (which is normal). 

He avoids that issue. 

He wants me to ask and beg.

I am literally not having it. 

2:45 comes and my group leader says he’s willing to ask. I tell him no and even point out he’s not in his office and hadn’t been for awhile. 

2:55, still hiding. Even our Account Tech thinks I’m teleworking and is shocked when I tell her I don’t have an answer.

At this point, I just flip my shit.

I put myself on the leave calendar under sick leave (cause I have 4 people at the office wondering about my mental health at this point because I had been on edge for a two weeks). And, honestly, I was sick of being at my office and seeing people. As my friend at work said, “Yeah, sounds like you need a vacation.”

Sick leave doesn’t require any approval. I can use it without approval whenever. I don’t like using it but it’s handy sometimes. 

3 PM, I leave not before telling my group leader to tell our boss to fuck off (”I cannot tell him to fuck off, Michael.”

“Just tell him I left pissed.”)

I come home. 

And, well, situation here makes my day WORSE.

On my way back I get a text from my boss asking if I’m okay cause now I’m on the calendar on Sick Leave.

So, I actually GO BACK to my office. But I’m off the clock. 

My group leader is rather shocked I’m back and I explain to him the thing at home. At this point, he just looks at me like, “Shit man, you’re hit at all sides today.”

I end up taking him, his wife (group leader on the other side of the office), and one of the account techs to dinner just to kill time before my work friend crashes dinner with us.

But that was about 1 hour of me being at the office before we go to dinner. My boss is still there.

I walk out of the my office (our layout is weird) to go the vending machine cause I need a soda and would use the can to fill up on water. My boss is walking over to my group leader’s office as I’m heading out to the hallway.

“Oh hey, I thought I heard your voice-”

I turn around

“YOU AND I DON’T NEED TO TALK TODAY!” And I give him that wide eyed smile like I really want to pick up the chair and fling it at him.

And I walk out to get my soda.

Now, I have to walk around the office a few times mostly to calm myself down and find someone to kill time with. I actually walk past my boss twice and he tries to say something but I ignore him.

So, we go to dinner. Have some BBQ chicken nachos and a couple of racks of ribs. My group leader is happy, it’s free beer.

Beer is disgusting.

Anyways, at dinner my group leader tells me that he actually stopped my boss from trying to talk to me because he didn’t want to get between us. I then tell him the incident where I almost got between my boss and another coworker cause I reasonably believed my coworker was gunna throw a punch at my boss.

Anyways, “Well, I was gunna tell him he could work from home tomorrow.” 

It’s almost 6 PM when that conversation took place. 

You wanted me to beg and grovel.

Nope.

Not today.

We don’t have enough work to let me work some comp? You guys can cover? Okay. Here’s two more days to my vacation.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

How To Be A Man In 2018: Have It All, Do It All

http://fashion-trendin.com/how-to-be-a-man-in-2018-have-it-all-do-it-all/

How To Be A Man In 2018: Have It All, Do It All

The original Renaissance Man – “a person with many talents or areas of knowledge” if you ask the Oxford English Dictionary – was Leonardo da Vinci. Painter, sculptor, writer, scientist, inventor, engineer, mathematician, musician, anatomist, botanist, geographer, cartographer: Leonardo (‘da Vinci’ just means ‘from Vinci’) was the definition of well-rounded, the ultimate multi-hyphenate who came up with both the Mona Lisa and the helicopter, among other things.

Less famously, he was also in terrific nick. According to his Renaissance biographer Georgio Vasari, Leonardo’s “great strength could restrain the most violent fury, and he could bend an iron knocker or a horseshoe as if it were lead”. Thus he adhered to the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy that a healthy mind should be housed in a corresponding body.

The idea of a Renaissance Man comes from Leonardo’s day when the revival of interest in classical thinking flourished in Italy, then spread across Europe and lasted until the 17th. The short version goes like this: you can do it all. And more than that you should do it all, or at least try. Embrace knowledge in all its forms and develop a skill set as broad as you can.

Leonardo da Vinci and William Shakespeare were some of the earliest exemplars of the Renaissance Man

The Blueprint For The Modern Man

Renaissance Man is not a term in common parlance today, for reasons both obvious and less so. In the modern world, we’re encouraged to specialise from an early age, narrowing down our school subjects even before we enter the jobs market and monomaniacally plough a lone furrow ever deeper. Mindful of becoming a jack of all trades, we silo ourselves in the hope of becoming master of one.

Having been out of fashion, there are indications though that the Renaissance Man may be undergoing something of a, well, renaissance. Today, though, he’s more likely to be termed a ‘polymath’ or an ‘expert-generalist’ – the latter term coined by Orit Gadiesh, chairman of management consultants Bain & Co, and defined by her as “someone who has the ability and curiosity to master and collect expertise in many different disciplines, industries, skills, capabilities, countries and topics”.

The reasons for the rebirth of the Renaissance Man are, like his skill set, manifold. But a significant one is that our definition of what it means to be a man today, Renaissance or otherwise, has expanded far beyond the archetypal three Ps of Protect, Procreate and Provide.

“The expectations for men have undergone such a dramatic change in such a short space of time, and it’s a pretty complex picture now,” says Tim Samuels, the Renaissance Man-sounding documentary maker, broadcaster, creative director and author of Who Stole My Spear? How To Be A Man In The 21st Century. “Many men still feel burdened by the age-old expectation to provide and define their identities through work, which is a real stress in today’s unpredictable and unfair economy. But at the same time, we’re becoming emotionally far more literate than ever before, which is great for being a hands-on father or supportive partner. So we’re a strange hybrid: emotionally literate cavemen.”

Unevolved Neanderthals, meanwhile, are deservedly in danger of extinction. “When we look back in 10 or 20 years, it will hopefully be seen as a watershed moment in our collective understanding of what it means to be a man in the 21st century,” speculates the New Masculinity Report published by trend forecasting agency The Future Laboratory. “The eruption of the #metoo movement in 2017 has shone an inescapable light on the damaging behaviour many men exhibit towards women. Beyond finally holding these men to account, however, #metoo’s ultimate success has been to force society at large to address whether masculinity is inherently broken.”

The #metoo movement has shone a light on the damaging behaviour many men exhibit towards women

From Mad Men To Dad Men

It’s no longer sufficient for men to be strong and silent: they have to speak about their previously repressed emotions; as well as providing, they also have to be present. And they are, relative to what they used to be, at least. A 2016 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that men in 11 wealthy western countries now spend an average of 59 minutes a day engaged in childcare activities, up from an embarrassingly small 16 minutes in 1965.

“It’s hard to talk about ‘men’ as one homogenous mass,” says Samuels. “There are so many different versions of masculinity now. Some men are happy to emote, others will still run a mile from saying anything vulnerable. I was in the rust belt in America recently talking to blue-collar guys who’ve been ravaged by the collapse of industries and the spread of opioids, where there’s still a real sense of traditional masculinity in the air, even if it’s turned desperate and toxic. Just 30 miles away in the cities it’s all yoga and trans rights.

“So there’s no one size fits all. But I sense there is a general move towards men being more expressive and able to say and do things that would have been alien to their fathers and grandfathers.” That’s an expectation and responsibility, but also an opportunity – if we’re prepared to take it.

Women’s childcare hours have also gone up, from 54 minutes a day in 1965 to 104 today. Despite making up at least 40 per cent of the workforce in 80 countries, according to the Pew Research Center, they’re still doing more than their fair share of family stuff – this despite some men having time on their hands.

The New York Times reported in 2010 that 82 per cent of the layoffs triggered by the economic downturn were men, who were over-represented in hard-hit industries such as construction. But while women who became unemployed doubled the amount of childcare they clocked up, unemployed men barely increased theirs; instead, they prioritised looking for new jobs, plus slept and watched TV more.

Men in wealthy western countries now spend an average of 59 minutes a day engaged in childcare activities, up from 16 minutes in 1965

Can We Move On?

Old core directives die hard: in a survey of 1,000 UK men by website The Book of Man, 79 per cent of respondents agreed that old-school masculinity has to change, and 65 per cent believe that stereotypes are dangerous to society. Yet just over half feel that they still need to conform to those alpha male stereotypes.

The 2017 Harry’s Masculinity Study, commissioned by the shaving brand and carried out by University College London, found that “the strongest predictor of mental positivity is job satisfaction”. Interestingly, men in London considered family less important than the rest of the UK, which tallies with the stereotype of city types as more career-driven.

Either way, work is clearly still fundamental to most men. Which leads to the first argument for being a Renaissance Man (or expert-generalist polymath). In a tumultuous job market, being able to turn your hand at different things gives you more options. With robots coming for jobs like the Terminator stalking Sarah Connor, by acquiring new skills you can hopefully future-proof yourself against obsolescence. And the World Economic Forum forecasts that one of the crucial skills for those men still left in the workplace by 2020 will be emotional intelligence or ‘EQ’, as The Future Laboratory’s report highlights.

But being a Renaissance Man isn’t just a mechanism for surviving: it’s a way of thriving. Insight and innovation often stem from seeing across different fields. Turtlenecked Apple founder Steve Jobs drew on his knowledge of design and even calligraphy to create products that weren’t even first in their respective categories, but that resonated far beyond those put out by any mere tech company.

More pragmatically, as business cartoonist Scott Dilbert illustrates and frequently discusses in interviews, not many people can stand out by becoming world-class at any one thing. Elite status is by its nature an exclusive club. But by being good at, or having knowledge of, two things that don’t often go together – business and cartoons, say – you can be a top dog in an underserved niche.

According to a recent survey of 1,000 UK men, just over half still feel that they still need to conform to old-school masculine stereotypes

Time To Thrive

The evidence is more than anecdotal: academic studies show a link between ‘multiple-giftedness’, creativity and making it rain Nobel prizes. But professional and commercial imperatives aside, you owe it to yourself to become a Renaissance Man. By expanding your horizons, you’ll increase your memory and ward off cognitive decline. You’ll unseat prejudices and amp up empathy. (A broad mind is by definition not small.) You’ll be a hit at dinner parties. Irrespective and above of all of that, you’ll enjoy it.

But with traditional expectations to provide still extant and new ones like childcare on top, how exactly are you supposed to find time to master all these disciplines? (Not for nothing was being a Renaissance Man the preserve of the well-off.) “Great question,” says Samuels. “I think, in theory, it’s easier for men to ‘have it all’ than women as we instinctively have less guilt about not spending quite so much time with kids. But it’s so hard for either gender to strike that balance with today’s economy and lifestyles, especially in the big cities.

“You probably need real control over your work life so you can be flexible, not have a hierarchy or boss that saps your sense of self and have the time and energy to be a really present father, partner etc.”

Being a Renaissance Man can sound like a full-time job on top of the one you already have, if not several. But ask yourself honestly if you haven’t got a few thousand seconds a day that could be dedicated to something more edifying than scrolling Instagram or watching Love Island.

And to get all Buddhist for a minute, the point is not to achieve mastery in everything (which is a relief, because that’s impossible). It doesn’t matter if you suck at the guitar or can muster pidgin Spanish at most. What matters is that you try, which is also the only way you’ll get better. Self-improvement is a never-ending process. As a wise Renaissance Man probably said, in text against a stirring picture of a mountain or sunset, the journey is the destination.

6 Modern Day Renaissance Men

Barack Obama

Cast your mind back to a more enlightened era when US presidents displayed intelligence and humanity. “It’s a cliché, but Obama did seem to convey that he was a really devoted husband and father while managing to do the day job, pursue his ideals and squeeze in some sports-watching time,” says Samuels. As well as historically going into bat for millions of Americans without access to healthcare, Barry was also the first commander-in-chief to run a pick-up basketball game at the White House and, with his stonewash jeans and Asics sneakers, helped propagate the DILF (dads in latest fashions) trend.

Donald Glover

There’s another Donald in America with a diverse CV and a talent for making headlines, but let’s concentrate on the one everyone likes. Glover is a writer, actor, musician, comedian, producer, director, activist and father. He pinballs from one discipline to the next, gaining plaudits for every aspect of his work. (We also named him the best-dressed man in the world in 2017.) Glover credits his wide artistic output to an even wider set of influences.

Tom Ford

The fastidious Tom Ford studied art history at NYU but dropped out after a year to act in commercials; he eventually graduated from design school Parsons in architecture, although he also studied fashion in his final year. With just two years at clothing group Perry Ellis under his calfskin belt, he took the then-faltering Gucci from the brink of bankruptcy to a $4.3bn powerhouse, at one point simultaneously helming Yves Saint Laurent, before setting up his own massively successful brand. If there’s anything he can’t do, it’s not directing, screenwriting or producing movies: witness A Single Man and Nocturnal Animals.

Elon Musk

Having established four companies in four disparate industries – Paypal (software and finance, so really two), Tesla (transport), SpaceX (er, space) and SolarCity (energy), the real-life Tony Stark should by rights be named ‘Elon Sweet Smell Of Success’. Asked how he’s able to grasp esoteric subjects such as rocket science, he replied, “I read books” – as many as two a day in his late teens. Musk taught himself to code at age 12 by building a computer game called Blastar which he sold for $500 and went on to earn degrees in economics and physics. He’s now worth $20bn.

David Beckham

It might seem counterintuitive to classify someone pilloried for his supposed lack of intelligence as a ‘Renaissance Man’. But David Beckham is not only a powerful influence on the way men look, but as a doting father unafraid to exhibit ‘feminine’ qualities (or clothes), how they act too. When so few sportsmen from these shores explore other cultures, he’s the first Englishman to win titles in four countries. Consider how he’s parlayed being good at football and photogenic – not unique characteristics – into enormous commercial success and cultural sway, then try and tell us that he’s not smart.

Dolph Lundgren

An ostensibly leftfield choice, but bear with us. No lunkhead, Lundgren won a Fulbright scholarship to study chemical engineering at the Big Bang Theory-level MIT, but dropped out to pursue acting. He was scouted in a New York boxing gym – to become a boxer – but then-girlfriend Grace Jones and others dissuaded him; at the time, he was one of the top ten in the world at Kyokushin karate. The well-preserved Swede has a penchant for Tom Ford suits and swears by the medicinal qualities of the traditional Italian liqueur Fernet Branca.

How To Be A Renaissance Man

As Leonardo once said, “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.” With that in mind, the quickest route to becoming a Renaissance Man is to take a leaf out of Warren Buffet’s book. Quite literally.

The billionaire investor spends five or six hours a day reading to beat the markets, so carve out at least one of yours to do the same, whether you spend it on ticking off a list of 100 great novels, or non-fiction such as Yuval Noah’s Sapiens or anything by pop-physicist Carlo Rovelli.

Audiobooks consumed while commuting or doing cardio totally count, as do documentaries or TED talks – assuming that you don’t drive to work, that is. Podcasts (try ‘Stuff You Should Know’, ‘99% Invisible’ or ‘Waking Up With Sam Harris’) are another great way to reclaim dead time. Many universities and other academic institutions also release podcasts of their lectures on iTunes U, so you can effectively take a course for free.

Or for some enlightenment IRL, enrol on a part-time degree. Sign up for a regular class in martial arts, life-drawing or both. Equally, you could volunteer, which is proven to help your own depression risk and blood pressure; teach yourself a language with an app such as Duolingo or incorporate exercise – a smart drug, antidepressant and fountain of youth rolled into one – into your schedule, no matter how busy. You’ll feel like a new man – of a different, more vital age.

[tracey-greene]

Today’s topic, ‘How to best transition from school to the Professional work force’

Fernando Sandoval, VP Public Relations at Careful-Design in San Francisco, Ca wrote:

“Tracey, I would like you the address the challenges for recently graduated moving from an academic setting to their professional career. Understanding of course that their pathway has already started as they pursued their education and hopefully had an internship or two along the way. Also studies indicate it it taking longer and longer to graduate and much more debt is incurred by them.”

I have been real busy the past 2 weeks and neglected my blogging.... ( this will never pay bill one, but it keeps me from losing it on the people I work with.... the ones I don’t understand anyway. :) ) But Fernando, brings up a great point.

To address this question I want to first illustrate the current job market scene for you all.

Imagine a manager of a group ( that used to be 10 people but is now 3 people ), who is juggling phones, constantly being pinged to go to meetings, and at the same time trying to carry the weight for the lessened headcount in their group. 

But today is a great day for this manager.... Let’s call the Manager “Old man Pickerill” So today is Old Man Pickerill’s day, senior management gave him a headcount to fill on his team. He and his team will be able to work in a less stressful environment.  Now they have to hire the right person.  He calls up a recruiter that is almost as good as me.......We will call the recruiter Rick Famangna. Well Rick does his best and gets 6 resumes over to Pickerill asap... But the firm’s HR dept also sends him resumes from other recruiters... Now there are 57 resumes on Old Man Pickerill’s desk.  He has literally 5 seconds to scan every resume. before the next interruption.... 

Now let’s try to figure out the mindset of today’s college graduate.

I spent all this money, I finally have the degree, where are the jobs I was told would come when I picked this major out of High School? How come no one is approaching me to ‘Take their career opportunity’? I have a degree. This was / is a field that is supposed to be growing, right? I have a lot of loans and they are not going to pay themselves.

This is the environment of today’s job college grads and hiring managers.

Here is a email that was sent to Manager that was a friend of mine, from a college graduate that couldn't find a position in their field for over a year.... The resume of the grad was attached in the email and is referenced in the email reply from the manager.

Hi Manager, My name is So and So , I met you at a family party or two over at family friends house. They suggested I speak to you regarding my current job search and struggle to connect my resume to the Finance Industry. I've attached my resume to this email for your review. I understand the family friend reached out to you regarding lending me career advice. I have to say, I dropped the ball in reaching out to you sooner, because of self nervousness and doubt over my experience in the industry. I know you are very busy but I would greatly appreciate even 20 minutes of your time. Best Regards,

So & So.

Right off the bat we see that So & So isn’t hungry about their career trajectory.... They used connections to network and then failed to capitalize on them as soon as possible... Why would someone extend themselves in this current job market for a person that can’t be bothered to reach out in a timely manner?  - Food for thought.

Here was the reply the Manager sent to this College Grad after reading the forwarded resume. Keep in mind that the manager is solid, but like most managers in today’s job market, they are not going to sugar coat what they see.... To be super honest, most the time managers will not state negatives in candidates directly to them... So there is a lot of insight in this below section.

No problem So & So. I think you have a number of obstacles that you need to think through before you move forward with your career and some of this might be difficult for you to hear and accept.

First, you are a millennial and everyone hates millennials. On its surface its sounds funny because it has become a generally accepted cliché among people over 30 who feel your generation is entitled, lacks a legitimate work ethic, and is waiting for opportunities to just pop up.

That is what I took away from your resume. It reads like you did the bare minimum. College - check, Academic Activities – check, worked three varying jobs in less than a year, check… But why would I consider hiring you and for what position? Honestly, if you were hiring for a position and this resume came across your desk would you call them in?

Second, you are seriously messing up the easy stuff and this screams lazy, incompetent millennial. Here are a few examples:

1.       Oversea (in or to a foreign country, especially one across the sea) vs. Oversee (supervise (a person or work), especially in an official capacity),

2.       Sentence grammar, which includes a subject, verb and predicate and ends with punctuation,

3.       Consistency – if you want to do the bullet point thing, don’t do it sometimes and not others,

4.       Trying to embellish your resume with redundancies to fill space (do you really need to list Athletics Marketing Intern under Professional Experience AND Academic Activities?),

5.       Trying to sound educated, but sounding dumb. (Fluent working proficiency in Spanish) If you think that is grammatically correct, the  University owes you money back, and

6.       Being lazy compounds the effect of doing dumb things. Have you not found a professional mentor? (e.g., professor, former boss and/or family member) Were you too lazy to have them review this document or did the thought never cross your mind?

As a hiring manager, I am offended you wasted my ‘badwordshere’ time reading this document… I have ten other things I need to get done before I leave, have not made it home before 7:30 pm in the last two weeks because I’m understaffed and, when I finally get approval to hire someone, this is the ‘badwordshere’ that is submitted. This is who is reading your resume in less than 30 seconds…

So, by now, you may be slightly offended. I hope I have your attention. Stop and take a second. Ok, now really stop and take a second because you need to hear this…

So & So, No one in the business world gives a  ‘badwordshere’ about you and they do not owe you a single ‘badwordshere’ thing. It is your responsibility to proactively prepare for each and every opportunity and there is no guarantee that the opportunity will come. You can only do your part.

With all of that said and, provided you are still looking for guidance, I will work with you incrementally as long as you put the work in and meet me half way. This will be a process so do not expect immediate results. But, if we do move forward, you better be worth every ‘badwordshere’ ounce of goodwill my Friend used to get me to respond to this email…

I need you to do the following:

1.       Find 3 positions/titles you think you want by the time you are 30 years old,

2.       Research these positions and identify salary expectations, skills and certifications required, and

3.       Summarize the prior working experience these positions require and maintain a list of common words (acronym or slang) relevant to the industry/position. (hint: websites like indeed have positions posted that list this type of information as requirements).

Get this to me by Friday night and I will look it over. If the effort is there, we can schedule a call to discuss this weekend – deal?

PS – Never swap updated documents without disclosing it. It comes across as sneaky and not like you are trying to improve…

WOW............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Forward this to a manager you know.... Or to a Parent with a teenage or college age child. The Manager was SPOT-ON ! 

All of my managers feel the same way with kids coming out of school. I can go into a list of traits or resume attributes that make it difficult to take new candidates seriously but let me general and blunt. 

80% of College Graduate job applicants are Lazy and Self Entitled. 

I know that rap lyrics tend to get through to this generation so I will quote De La Soul, 

Welcome to reality, see times is hard People try to snatch the credit, but can't claim the card

Your parents think your special, maybe your friends think your special. Everyone else in the world will only tolerate you for what you can provide them. Please take this as gossip.  If you aren’t hungry and hustling, you will not do well in the current job market.

Now, Ask yourself these questions.

Did you go to a good school?  

Did you take on an internship while at School?  

Did you actually understand your the classes ( in detail ) that pertain to your desired career position?

Can you go into detail describing what you learned and were able to take away from the above classes mentioned? 

What have you done above and beyond just taking courses that a hiring manager would be interested in?

Does your resume speak directly to the job requirement? 

After reviewing the job requirement and your resume, can you honestly think of a reason you would hire yourself if you were the hiring manager?

Resume:

If you are still having a hard time and you have answered ‘yes’ to a majority of the above questions, then it comes down to your resume not reflecting these traits. Which is a great problem because this can be fixed quick and in a hurry. Ask a mentor or someone you respect in the field to review your resume and give you very detailed tips.

Job Opportunities:

Look at each job as an opportunity. Also ask yourself will this job Eventually take me where I want to go ( think in 3 year increments ), when reviewing the job requirement and during the initial phone interview. Don’t be so quick to think a job is below you ( this is a major trend with Millennials ). Understand that even when you get the job, you are constantly being evaluated for future opportunities. That being said, always put forth your maximum effort and quality of work. This should be a given without me coaching you to do it, but if that isn’t the case, then do it because you will take yourself out of the running for future career growth. 

Lastly, build your network and build your professional self. No longer can you just put in the 9-5 at your firm and expect to be carried on to the next level of your career. Take time after work to figure out how to be better at what you do? Go to meet ups, write a stupid blog ( - ) ( - ) ?  Or whatever will give you the one up on your competition.

Recruiters:

Get on 2-3 recruiter’s email list in your field ( especially when you have a job ) because they will constantly keep you aware of where your particular job market is going... You don’t want to hear your skills and experience are outdated when you approach a recruiter or firm for a job when you need it... 

Fernando, I hope this addressed some of your concerns. Thanks for the question.

Sincerely,

 Tracey Greene

TechExec Inc.

Director of Executive Management & Technology Divisions

O: (914)-235-5901

E:Tracey.Greene@TechExeconline.com

Blog: http://tracey-greene.tumblr.com/

[porchready]

“I think your height is okay”

Grace says –>

Okay, here we go. I’m usually a pretty private person when it comes to relationships and social media. But here I am to tell you that for my most recent challenge, I tried something that I’ve always been a little skeptical of: online dating. Although I had never used dating websites or apps before, the idea of meeting up with people from the interwebs fascinates me. I should say that I am in part fascinated because I can completely understand the appeal of looking for a partner among strangers. I am in my mid-twenties, and in my professional, academic, and social lives, I meet many, many more women than I do men. On top of that, I’m at a phase in my degree program where I spend a lot of time working independently, so I’m not really meeting many people in general – male or female. So, recognizing how unlikely I am to meet single men in my day-to-day life (never mind single men who have any particular traits I’m interested in…), I figured I’d set up a few profiles and see what my generation has been up to all these years.

I set up profiles on three sites, though I mostly just use the one that requires the least effort (that’s the spirit, eh?). I have to say that so far, the experience has been largely a positive one. First, it was an interesting exercise to decide how to present myself to a group of total strangers. Even more interesting, I think, is seeing how others take on the task. Some profiles are relaxed, self-deprecating, and funny; some are let’s-settle-down-right-now serious; some not-so-subtlety indicate an interest in casual hookups. A number of profiles reflect arrogance or attitudes of mistrust, or suggest issues in past relationships. In these latter cases, I can appreciate the honesty, but I sometimes wonder about the motives and stories of the people behind them and of the people who respond to such profiles. I think about how the internet mushes us all together – people of varying expectations, experiences, motives, and desires – in a way that we wouldn’t otherwise come into contact. Given that offline, we mostly meet and retain contacts based on shared interests, values, backgrounds, and so forth, to me, the idea of injecting pseudo-random contacts into social networks is fascinating.

On some of the sites and apps, your profile asks you not only to describe yourself, but also to articulate what you are looking for in a partner. That was, and continues to be, another interesting exercise for me: distilling what is negotiable from what is not. Personally, my faith has been a particularly complicated aspect of this, as the field narrows quite a bit when I restrict the pool of eligible mid-to-upper-20s bachelors to just those who describe themselves Christian in their dating profile. This is before, of course, requiring Christian identity to intersect with other qualities I am looking for. For now, I’m passing on self-described atheists and going case-by-case on the rest. My reasons include: what does “spiritual but not religious” even mean?; considerable heterogeneity among people of any religion; and the permissible fluidity of beliefs for everyone, from any position. This stuff is hard.

Now, once my profiles were up, I started to realize something that I didn’t expect but should have seen coming: the online dating experience is intensely gendered. The model of who-messages-whom can differ by site, but on the site I use most, all I’ve had to do is fill out my profile and then filter through messages in my inbox. (Any clue why that’s the site I use most?!) Really, it is bizarre to me that I can be this lazy while men sort through profiles and try to come up with customized one-liners. I feel maybe a bit guilty for perpetuating this gendered experience through my preferential use of this site and my failure to initiate conversations. Yet here am I: a lazy, bad feminist.

Okay, and speaking of customized one-liners sent to this lazy, bad feminist, you should know that you get some real gems from time-to-time. My favorite so far has been a message from a young man who assigned a more literal meaning to my username than I had intended. The message appeared beside the man’s very serious profile picture; he is young and blonde, with a stern face. After looking through a list of messages from other men asking about my travels, my interest in public health, my degree program, and so forth, I clicked on this message to see:

“giraffe?

I think your height is okay”

I laughed out loud, just imagining the guy in that picture looking with a puzzled expression at my 5’8″ frame, and then saying those words to me in real life. Maybe you had to be there. Trust me, it was funny.

Now, this may sound a little scandalous to those who have never used a dating app, but another thing that has been new and strange to me is this idea of going on dates with multiple people in a short period of time. I think the general expectation with these sites and apps is that everyone’s shopping around, and you assume non-exclusivity until otherwise decided. I can see how that makes sense, considering that you’re really not invested in anyone you’re meeting for the first time. Given that the second date rate is likely very low, it would be extremely inefficient to talk to people only one at a time… and isn’t online dating sort of a means of increasing efficiency? Still, it does feel weird!

I have met up with some people offline, and I am relieved (though for story-telling purposes, maybe a touch disappointed) that I have nothing crazy to report. I treat the dates pretty casually and stick to coffee or drinks when I’m the one to suggest a place, as I think that in most cases, it takes just a few minutes to screen for second-date interest. Really, though, even when it’s clear that a second date isn’t on the horizon, the dates haven’t been any more awkward than grabbing drinks with a new colleague, neighbor, friend-of-a-friend, etc. Because of these dates, I’ve also checked out a couple of new places and stepped away from my laptop a little more. Those seem like healthy things to do no matter the reason.

I’m sure that I, like most people, will become more cynical about this whole thing over time. But at least for now, meeting strangers from the internet has been a rather interesting and even comical new thing in my life. Online dating lives on in my mind as an interesting cultural practice, though one which is mercifully less awkward than I (as a dispassionate observer) had assumed... and I am at peace with my participation in it.

--

Okay Mom, for your challenge, I’ve got a question for you. Avid skeptic of all things as I am, I’m currently reading a book called The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. In it, Keller, a pastor in New York City, discusses arguments in support of and opposition to Christian beliefs. Inspired by some of what I’ve been reading in there, I want to ask you: To what extent have your beliefs about God changed throughout your life? Does the God you believe in now resemble the God you believed in during your childhood and early adult years?