Einstein Was Right

Albert Einstein is credited with having said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

He couldn’t have described the job search better.

Think about it: In what other instance would you repeatedly put yourself through a stressful, debilitating, and – let’s face it – humiliating process with so little potential for any significant return unless you absolutely had no alternative? If you think about it, here’s what you’re expected to do:

1. Show up dressed to the nines so someone you’ve never met can evaluate how your appearance and personality fits with their own

2. Research a company you know nothing about so you can at least appear interested to the interviewer who, in all likelihood, took the job for the same reason you’re interviewing for one: He needed a job as well.

3. Apply endlessly to position after position on the Internet, knowing full well that most of them will be filled by internal candidates (assuming that the positions are actually being filled at all and the company isn’t just leaving them up on the Web site in order to “ensure a steady pipeline of applicants for whenever it’s green-lit once again.”)

4. Answer a litany of such insanely personal questions as

o “What’s your biggest weakness?”
o “Tell me about a time you failed at something.”
o “Why were you laid off from your last job?”

Let’s face it, nobody who’s been in the job market has any illusions about the process. The person on the other side of the desk isn’t telling you the full story about the bad things that are waiting for you in the job because she knows you wouldn’t take it if she did. The guy sitting in front of her isn’t going to be completely honest about his shortcomings or he knows she won’t offer him the job. Nobody expects anything but the worst of the situation – and yet we all play the game day in and day out.

So this blog is an attempt – just an attempt – to find and spotlight the humor in the job search process. Because as Jimmy Buffett (admittedly no role model for stable employment himself) once said, if we can’t all laugh, well, then we just go insane…