Work is...

...often what we use to define ourselves.
"I'm a student."
"I'm a writer."
"I'm a teacher."
"I'm an engineer."
"I'm a marine biologist."
"I'm a rocket scientist...and a brain surgeon!"

I'm unemployed.


In a culture that constantly defines itself by what it does, who are you without work? It's easy to start to think that no one wants you or that you must have nothing to offer, but that is far from true. Coming home from college on Easter break and now for the summer, I began to understand just a bit of this anxious, worthless feeling as I filled out application after application (I think seventeen or eighteen in all). Not even the temporary agencies have any semi-steady work available around here for college and high school students. It was a miserable past few weeks for me, also knowing that my parents wanted badly for me to get a job for the summer. They don't want me to have to pay off thousands of dollars in student loan debt when I graduate. But what do you do when people never call you back? What do you say to the people who stare at you blankly (or worse, with an annoyed expression) and tell you that they aren't hiring? Here are a few things that I've learned over the past few weeks as a college student looking for a summer job.

1) Set small goals for yourself. Don't start with "I'm going to get a job today." Start with "Today, I'm going to write my resume and get a list of references for myself." Then move onto looking through want adds and hoofing it around town. (It's good exercise!) Ask for applications. Fill them out. Hand them back in. Pray.
2) Um....PRAY. Pray that God would show you how to make the best use of you time and that He'd lead you to the place He wants you for the summer.
3) Stay busy, even if you're not working currently. Recently, I've been able to get some painting done, a relaxing occupation that I sorely missed at college. I've also been writing and catching up on lighter reading after a year immersed in sometimes difficult but usually enjoyable British literature. Go for a walk, work out, visit old friends. Just don't sit around the house if you can help it.
4) Call people back, especially if you know they're actually hiring and not just letting you fill out an application because they feel sort of sorry for you. I'm sorry to have to break it to you...but people won't always remember you and need to be reminded that you exist and that you want work.
5) Keep your cool, and be polite. Even if someone isn't hiring now and seems surly when they inform you of that, don't burn that bridge. They might lose an employee in the next week and think of that college student that stopped by looking for work. I got a wide range of responses when asking for work. I got "Yes, we're hiring. Here's an application." I got the kindly "No, we're not hiring right now, but you can fill out an application anyways!" I got the still kindly but dismissive "Sorry, not right now." And sometimes, I just got a flat, tired "No."
6) Make good use of your connections. Because I now have a job working at an ice cream shop where my little brother has been working for the past year, and I never expected to have him training me on how to use a soft serve machine. Also, when I stopped by a month ago to ask about a job, they weren't hiring, and I've stopped in three or four times to check up on my status as a potential employee.
7) Choose to look at these weeks (or months) as a learning experience, not wasted time. None of these potential employers has wasted your time by not hiring you if you learn from that experience. You waste your own time by not seeing the value in every situation.


Best wishes for those of you still searching!
- Jess