Before coming to Duke, my employment history was comprised of two back-to-back stints at a Plus-Size women's underwear store and a shoe store. Here at Duke, I've had two work-study jobs, neither of which requires much more skill than literacy and the ability to operate a water cooler. As instructive and rewarding as these jobs have been, "Underwear Experience" and "Extensive Water Cooler Skills" don't look very appealing on a resumé, which is why, I guess, I've been having more than a little trouble finding an internship for this summer.
The search started out all right. I went to the career center and had the fine folks there tell me my resumé sucked, a lot, twice. They fixed it. On the third draft I started emailing publishing houses, magazines and newspapers that had posted jobs online. At first, I was optimistic. I only applied for paid jobs, in New York City. I narrowed my search to jobs that listed a summer commitment of 4-6 weeks, maximum. And I only applied to places I had already heard of. I emailed about five different people and waited for their replies, which I assumed would be desperate and begging. About a week went by.
I received one email back, and only after sending 10 or 20 'friendly follow up' emails that the career center handbook recommends. Granted, my friendly follow-ups went a little something like, "Dear Employer. My name is Denise. I have no people skills, computer skills, or interest in working more than 3 or 4 days a week for less than $10 an hour. Hire me!" However, I was still slightly taken aback to receive just a single reply, saying, "We are seeking other interns. We don't want you. We think you are useless. Go away." So I broadened my search a little.
My second batch of resumés went to paid and unpaid jobs alike, in the Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island areas. I emailed two guys in California who wanted someone to write for the middle-aged men's magazine they were putting together. I sent a letter to some kind of New York City immigration support service. They were putting together a pamphlet for immigrants, were based in the Bronx, and were running out of someone's shed. The immigration service didn't reply. Actually, no one replied.
I decided what I needed to do was fix up my resumé a little. Instead of saying that I'd spent two years working in an underwear store cleaning dropped bags of pantyhose off the ground, I changed things around to read, "Two years facilitating purchases and assisting in redesigning layout in underwear store." Measuring people for shoes turned into, "Generated, reported, and secured accurate shoe sizes for patrons and managed their purchases." I played around with the font. I added "good speller" to my list of skills. I sent out more copies to even more employers. Then I waited.
In the meantime, it seemed to me that everyone from Duke was getting an internship or already had one. And it also seemed like everyone else was going to work at Microsoft or J.P. Morgan or the White House or something. What, I wondered, were the kids who didn't want to be doctors, lawyers or bankers, who couldn't design computer programs, and who actually needed to be paid over the summer supposed to do? Where's the career advisor for the unemployable, lazy kids with unhelpable, fundamentally crappy resumés? If I didn't get an internship, would that mean that I was never going to get a real job? Was Duke a waste of $160,000? Weren't employers supposed to be throwing me money and job offers, desperate to hire someone from Duke? Doesn't it say that in the brochures somewhere?
Before I had time to demand a refund from Nan, I made a call to one of the newspapers I had sent my resumé to. I asked, as per the career center handbook, whether or not they had received my email, and if they had any further questions for me. "Oh, yeah, from Duke. Denise Nippl-ee, right? or Nawpooli? Sure. When can you start?"
And just like that, the most unemployable person at this school got an actual internship. The point is, don't be disheartened. If someone will hire me based on some manipulation of the career center Action Verb list and shoe sales experience, anyone at this school can get hired.
And if not, S.A.S. Shoes in Tanger Mall on Long Island will be seeking help, no fancy-schmancy resumé needed. All they really require is proficiency with a water cooler. And if you can't land that job, well, no pun intended (well, maybe slightly intended), but I'd say that's about $160,000 tuition money down the drain.
Denise Napoli is a Trinity sophomore. Her column usually appears every other Friday.
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