One of the worst things the average person has to do, whether in college or outside of it, is getting a job. It is something that I personally loathe doing not because I'm lazy but because it's such a discouraging activity. Let me tell you why.
1. Qualifications
The biggest qualification that you need to have in order to be appealing to employers is job experience. Why? Because they don't wanna spend the time or money to train you. So if you've never had a job before, which can be said for a fair number of people, you've already lost like 85% of opportunities. The worst part of all of this is that you can't ever get a job without experience, but you can't get experience without a job. Soooooo...... Why is this the primary factor in determining eligibility? If this was the defining metric, literally no one would have a job ever.
2. Post Application
You've finally applied for a job. Yay! You've put your heart and soul into your resume and you've given the most impressive piece of writing for a cover letter than you ever have in your entire life. So with this in mind you figure that you'll certainly get hired! Until reality hands you a nice slap in the face.
2.1: Response
You've applied for the job so you figure the person will reply to you in a decent amount of time (like say 12-24 hours). But then days go by and you're wondering if they're just considering your application. However, you figured an email back saying "hey we got your application and it is being processed" or something along those lines would at least make you feel somewhat decent about your life. But then weeks go by and you've come to the conclusion that they just took your application and either threw it in the garbage or deleted it.
2.2: Interview
So lets say you actually made it through the initial "shoot down your hopes and dreams" stage of the application process and they actually call you for an interview. Now you're pumped up. You've got a nice dress or suit ready for this. You've done your hair, painted your nails, worn the best perfume/cologne you've got, prayed to whatever you believe in, and made music out of your heartbeat. You go to the interview and you blow it out of the park. You did so amazingly well, but unfortunately your chances of getting hired are still at best, 50/50 or worse depending on who else they've interviewed.
2.3: Decision
Well there's only two ways it can go. Either you got the job or you didn't. If you did, you feel like you've just struck gold and if you didn't, well let's just say you probably won't be pleased.
3. Other options
So let's say you've been rejected. Instead of letting it bum you out, you're going to apply for even more jobs. By the time it's all said and done, you've applied for like 20 jobs. In all honesty, not every single one of those people will actually even email you back. At best maybe 25% of them will and that's not terrible quite frankly. But it is somewhat discouraging. Why? Because let's say that out of those 20 jobs, you get 5 responses back. They ask you for availability because they have specific needs as far as shifts are concerned. Now you could put down an entire swath of times for them to pick from and then they either tell you "sorry you don't meet our needs at this time" or someone else just got it over you because they look more appealing. So the average Joe who's trying so desperately to get a job so that (insert identity here) can actually get job experience is stuck on the side of the road with nothing.
Thanks a lot job system. You're totally "unbiased" in the 25-page long documents you show us with your fairness standards bull crap.
