You know what sucks? Looking for work as a recent college grad. Despite trying every job search trick in the book, all I’ve been hearing is, “We need someone with more experience,” followed by laughter. Yes, laughter. Because, you know, being unemployed is freaking hilarious.
Well, now it’s my turn to laugh. Forget useless internships. Forget meaningless part-time jobs. I’ve found a surefire way to prove to employers that I’ve got what it takes to excel at the workplace. Nothing will make me look like serious entry-level material more than forcibly involving myself in tragic emergency situations.
I humbly admit this flash of brilliance came to me by complete chance. A few weeks ago, a rest home near my parents’ house caught fire. Peering from the basement that has become my job-searching lair, I could see that the firefighters outside were growing weary from battling the raging inferno. They were in need of someone to keep their spirits up, and not a single bystander was coming to their aid.
As they say at career seminars, I saw a need and I chose to fill it. I rushed outside and immediately began providing the firefighters with a lively assortment of cheers, hollers, and whoops. Perhaps due to some misunderstanding, they paid no attention to me, so I naturally stepped up my game and started slapping their backs repeatedly, often shouting things like ”Come on team, let’s do this!” right in their faces.
Later that night, after my parents released me from police custody, I realized I had gained an impressive experience that would knock the socks straight off my next job interviewer. I gave those tired, despairing firefighters the motivation they needed to bring their all to the task at hand. In fact, I learned the next day that the fire had been quelled with a relatively low number of fatalities. The valuable role I played was a perfect example of the quick thinking, initiative, and capacity to produce results in others that drive employers wild.
Now I’m constantly on the lookout for the next tragedy that will lift my resume straight to the top of the pile. Just yesterday, when screaming EMS personnel roughly shoved me aside as I tried to take the pulse of a man pinned underneath his crumpled motorcycle, I was reminded of the heated shouting matches that will surely erupt between senior vice presidents at my first job. The crucial responsibility of defusing their arguments will inevitably fall upon my young, responsible shoulders.
Ask yourself: who would be more prepared to resolve this kind of conflict — the college grad whose most traumatic life experience was accidentally puking on his roommate’s laundry, or me, a guy who has had to contend with more enraged emergency technicians threatening murder than seems possible in a single lifetime, let alone since graduation?
Some might say that because I completely lack any kind of training necessary to assist in emergency situations, I should just step aside and let the professionals do their jobs. But is that really the attitude that my future boss would want me to have? Should I fail to take on new challenges because ”it’s not what I was hired to do” or ”it’s not my responsibility” or ”they don’t pay me enough”? It seems to me that the people saying these things won’t get very far in their careers.
If my college education has taught me anything at all, it’s that the skills needed to succeed at any job are not learned in the classroom. They are learned in everyday life or in vocational school. Mentioning how I’ve taken a leadership role in random emergency situations will absolutely guarantee success at my next job interview. Assuming, of course, that I will be granted one.
As it happens, I’m rubbernecking at a disastrous pileup on the highway right now and see a perfect resume-building opportunity. Please excuse me as I prepare to inspire a rescue worker to save this injured motorist by throwing pieces of his car at his mostly burned head. I think I can work in some strong examples of persuasive management skills before the police arrive.
