workless by Heidi Larsen

workless features

10 it sucks to be us

The reality that faces today’s college graduates: they’re screwed, coddled self-absorbed, mocked and a surprisingly resilient generation.

16 what to do, while not working

How to get over that lazy feeling of not working. Avoid the pitfalls most unemployed people sometimes fall into and come out successful.

27 workless workforce

not working? or in a kob that makes you feel worthless, a guide to make the best of your situation because “it could be worse”

april 2012

workless contents

Departments will work

FOR STUFF

will work

FOR MONEY

will work

FOR A RIDE

using technology to help get your dream job

Using the latest trends and toys to help find that dream job faster

10 tips to nail that interview

Tips that will give you the edge over all the other applicants

travel right in your own backyard

Local places youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll love, but never thought to visit

will work

FOR STUFF

using TECHNOLOGY to help get your

DREAM JOB by devin jacobs

Using the latest trends and toys to help find that dream job faster Lorem ipsum consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque aliquam ultricies auctor. Fusce quis hendrerit augue. Quisque a tempus tortor. Ut erat nulla, imperdiet id tempor vel, eleifend a lacus. Nunc suscipit urna dolor. Integer adipiscing odio vitae tellus semper posuere venenatis ipsum dignissim. Curabitur sed faucibus metus. Curabitur placerat lacinia leo, eu adipiscing mi faucibus sit amet. Ut et feugiat tortor. Donec sed leo eros. Donec tincidunt congue dui. Sed tempor commodo ligula, sit amet tristique mauris pharetra nec. Suspendisse potenti. Vestibulum laoreet lectus quis dui varius in pellentesque nisi porta. Quisque felis felis, rhoncus cursus tempus ac, venenatis vel nibh. Ut sagittis odio sit amet arcu accumsan tempor. Nam quis leo lorem.

Phasellus sed est risus. Donec egestas nisl tempus nisi ullamcorper id rutrum nunc ornare. Integer accumsan vulputate nunc vitae facilisis. Aenean lacinia posuere aliquam. Duis nibh eros, rutrum eget vulputate id, cursus eu sapien. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Praesent pellentesque, diam non blandit porttitor, lorem nisi luctus sem, eu sagittis lorem sapien a elit. Phasellus nec quam lectus. Quisque conse Vestibulum laoreet lectus quis dui varius in pellentesque nisi Vestibulum sem magna, lacinia luctus blandit in, sodales ut sapien. Curabitur malesuada hendrerit ligula, a hendrerit dui tristique ut. Maecenas enim libero, fermentum non fringilla a, sagittis nec augue. In ligula neque, blandit id commodo eu, scelerisque et odio. non pretium enim pellentesque et. Nulla dignissim auctor

arcu sit amet ornare. Mauris ligula sem, aliquam id mollis nec, tempus vitae erat. Sed at vulputate neque. Praesent laoreet dignissim nibh ut vehicula. Vivamus nunc quam, auctor vel euismod consequat, adipiscing at tortor. Pellentesque ut consectetur mi. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Fusce venenatis ultrices lectus, aliquam sollicitudin sem porttitor eget. Etiam aliquet dignissim lectus, at tempus ante sodales vitae. Mauris euismod tempor tincidunt. Integer sed dui urna. Cras consectetur mi nec nibh viverra non condimentum libero suscipit. Donec porttitor porttitor molestie. non pretium enim pellentesque et. Nulla dignissim auctor

will work

FOR MONEY

10 TIPS to NAIL

THAT

interview by jamie billups

Vestibulum laoreet lectus quis dui varius in pellentesque nisi porta. Quisque felis felis,

Tips that will give you the edge over all the other applicants

Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Praesent dolor nulla, viverra in laoreet posuere, tincidunt at leo. Cras hendrerit fringilla mauris, vitae commodo justo vulputate et. Aenean vel neque ligula. Ut blandit leo nec sem interdum tincidunt at eget mauris. Morbi ut condimentum mi. Nullam sapien ipsum, fermentum at laoreet vel, ultricies at nisl. In dui odio consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam id rhoncus lorem. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Praesent dolor nulla, viverra in laoreet posuere,

will work

FOR A RIDE

TRAVEL right

in your own

BACKYARD

by kevin williams

local places youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll love, but never thought to visit

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque aliquam ultricies auctor. Fusce quis hendrerit augue. Quisque a tempus tortor. Ut erat nulla, imperdiet id tempor vel, eleifend a lacus. Nunc suscipit urna dolor. Integer adipiscing odio vitae tellus semper posuere venenatis ipsum dignissim. Curabitur sed faucibus metus. Curabitur placerat lacinia leo, eu adipiscing mi faucibus sit amet. Ut et feugiat tortor. Donec sed leo eros. Donec tincidunt congue dui. Sed tempor commodo ligula, sit amet tristique mauris pharetra nec. Suspendisse potenti. Vestibulum laoreet lectus quis dui varius in pellentesque nisi porta. Quisque felis felis, rhoncus cursus tempus ac, venenatis vel nibh. Ut sagittis odio sit amet arcu accumsan tempor. Nam quis leo lorem. Phasellus sed est risus. Donec egestas nisl tempus nisi ullamcorper id rutrum nunc ornare. Integer accumsan vulputate nunc vitae facilisis. Aenean lacinia posuere aliquam. Duis nibh eros, rutrum eget vulputate id, cursus eu

sapien. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Praesent pellentesque, diam non blandit porttitor, lorem nisi luctus sem, eu sagittis lorem sapien a elit. Phasellus nec quam lectus. Quisque consequat, justo eget sagittis rhoncus, dui sem pharetra quam, a porttitor erat lacus ac sapien. Fusce mauris metus, scelerisque a lobortis ut, tincidunt ac enim. Vestibulum sem magna, lacinia luctus blandit in, sodales ut sapien. Curabitur malesuada hendrerit ligula, a hendrerit dui tristique ut. Maecenas enim libero, fermentum non fringilla a, sagittis nec augue. In ligula neque, blandit id commodo eu, scelerisque et odio. non pretium enim pellentesque et. Nulla dignissim auctor arcu sit amet ornare. Mauris ligula sem, aliquam id mollis nec, tempus vitae erat. Sed at vulputate neque. Praesent laoreet dignissim nibh ut vehicula. Vivamus nunc quam, auctor vel euismod consequat, adipiscing at tortor. Pellentesque ut consectetur mi. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Fusce venenatis ultrices lectus, aliquam sollicitudin sem porttitor eget. Etiam aliquet dignissim lectus, at tempus ante sodales vitae. Mauris euismod tempor tincidunt. Integer sed dui urna. Cras consectetur mi nec nibh viverra non condimentum libero suscipit. Donec porttitor porttitor molestie. non pretium enim pellentesque et. Nulla dignissim auctor arcu sit amet ornare. Mauris ligula sem, aliquam id mollis nec, tempus vitae erat. Sed at vulputate neque. Praesent laoreet dignis-

“don’t make

GRADUATE!”

it SUCKS to be by noreen malone

The reality that faces today’s college graduates: they’re screwed, coddled self-absorbed, mocked and a surprisingly resilient generation. Every generation finds, eventually, a mode of expression that suits it. Cavemen drew lines on their cave walls. Sixties kids marched. My generation, we Gchat, a million tiny windows blinking orange with hopes and dreams and YouTube links, with five-year plans and lunch plans. So as I began to search for a single phrase that could, preposterously, describe our entire cohort, post-crash, I did what I always do in moments of crisis. I Gchatted my 24-year-old sister Clare, who happens to be living back at home with our parents while she looks for a job: (10:24 p.m.) CLARE: how about they just call usself-absorbed assholes, ME: booo‚ CLARE: we need a to make it really good‚îself-absorbed delusionals‚ (10:26) can i send you a cover letter right quick?‚ ME: sure‚ (10:28) CLARE:‚ our generation is:‚ delayed‚ afraid‚ immature‚ (10:29) independent‚ fame and glory hungry‚ weirdly apathetic

when it comes to things outside of the internet‚ (10:32) ME: delayed is not our fault‚ CLARE: ok, you know what i always think about when i think of our generation? i read the david brooks book, ‚Äúthe social animal‚Äù and while it was only me he had this one really great bit that really stuck with me‚Äîthe Greek ideal of ‚Äúthumos‚ Äù, which is the lust not for money or success (in the conventional sense) but the lust for glory‚ we want glory through our ideas-we want to know we matter‚ (10:33) the cold truth is that not all of us are brilliant‚ we are not all big thinkers. Not everyone‚ TED talks will change the world‚ some of us will just dissipate into the ether‚ (10:34) but it is the digital connectivity, that proximity to these people, that makes us think that perhaps we will succeed as well‚ (10:35) ok, i’m done‚ (10:36) no i‚ not‚ here‚ why the recession is so devastating to us‚ we grew up, all the way through college, with everything seem-

diocre, he had this one really great bit that really stuck with me‚Äîthe Greek ideal of ‚Äúthumos‚ Äù, which is the lust not for money or success (in the conventional sense) but the lust for glory‚ we want glory through our ideas-we want to know we matter‚ (10:33) the cold truth is that not all of us are brilliant‚ we are not all big thinkers. Not everyone‚ TED talks will change the world‚ some of us will just dissipate into the ether‚ (10:34) but it is the digital connectivity, that proximity to these people, that makes us think that perhaps we will succeed as well‚ (10:35) ok, i’m done‚ (10:36) no i‚ not‚ here‚ why the recession is so devastating to us‚ we grew up, all the way through college, with everything seeming so ripe and possible‚ (10:37) we had a PC education‚ people tried to hide from us as long as possible that not everyone is equal‚ we were told we all have a fair chance of making it‚ that’s just not so‚ and we‚ are starting to realize that‚ (10:39) are you even listening to me anymore? (10:41) ME: hi sorry‚ (10:42) i was writing an email‚ i am filing your comments‚ in my file.(10:43) i think‚ your cover letter is good!‚ CLARE: i thought it was I know this might read as very woe-is-us, but these are the facts: Nearly 14 percent of college graduates from the classes of 2006 through 2010 can’t find full-time work,

and overall just 55.3 percent of people ages 16 to 29 have jobs. That's the lowest percentage since World War II, as you might have heard an Occupy Wall Street protester point out. (Not coincidentally, one in five young adults now lives below the poverty line.) Almost a quarter more people ages 25 to 34‚ in other words, people who should be a few years into their independent lives‚ are living with their parents than at the beginning of the recession. Being young is supposed to mean you have the luxury of time. But in hard times, a few fallow years can become a lifetime drag on what you earn, sort of the opposite of compound interest. Because the average person grabs 70 percent of their total pay bumps during their first ten years in the workforce, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, having stagnant or nonexistent wages during that period means you hit that springboard at a crawl. Economist Lisa Kahn explained to The Atlantic in 2010 that those who graduate into a recession are still earning an average of 10 percent less nearly two decades into their careers. In hard, paycheck-shrinking numbers, the salary lost over that stretch totals around $100,000. That works out to $490 or so less a month, money that could go, say, toward repaying student loans, which for the class of

2004

2012

part time

full time

unemployed

layed off

the stats "Its a putrid, stinking,

several-months-oldstringy-goat-meat

moment to be young"

2009 average $24,000. Those student loans (the responsible borrowing option!) have reportedly passed credit cards as the nation‚ as largest source of debt. This is not just a rotten moment to be young. Earlier generations have weathered recessions, of course; this stall we’re in has the look of something nastier. Social Security and Medicare are going to be diminished, at best. Hours worked are up even as hiring staggers along: Blood from a stone looks to be the normal order of things ‚ going forward to borrow the business-speak. Economists are warning that even when the economy recuperates, full employment will be lower and growth will be slower‚Äîa sad little rhyme that adds up to something decidedly unpoetic. A majority of Americans say, for the first time ever, that this generation will not be better off than its parents. non pretium enim pellentesque et. Nulla dignissim auctor arcu sit amet ornare. Mauris ligula sem, aliquam id mollis nec, tempus vitae erat. Sed at vulputate neque. Praesent laoreet dignissim nibh ut vehicula. Vivamus nunc quam, auctor vel euismod consequat, adipiscing at tortor. Pellentesque ut consectetur mi. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Fusce venenatis ultrices lectus, aliquam sollicitudin sem porttitor eget. Etiam aliquet dignissim lectus, at tempus ante sodales vitae. Mauris euismod tempor tincidunt. Integer sed dui urna. Cras consectetur mi nec nibh viverra non condimentum libero suscipit. Donec porttitor porttitor molestie. non pretium enim pellentesque et. Nulla dignissim auctor arcu sit amet ornare. Mauris ligula sem, aliquam id mollis nec, tempus vitae erat. Sed at vulputate neque. Praesent laoreet dignissim nibh ut vehicula. Vivamus nunc quam, auctor vel euismod consequat, adipiscing at tortor. Pellentesque ut consectetur mi. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Fusce venenatis ultrices lectus, aliquam sollicitudin sem porttitor eget. Etiam aliquet dignissim lectus, at tempus ante sodales vitae. Mauris euismod tempor tincidunt. Integer sed dui urna. Cras consectetur mi nec nibh viverra non condimentum libero suscipit. Donec porttitor porttitor molestie. non pretium enim pellentesque et. Nulla dignissim auctor arcu sit amet ornare. Mauris ligula sem, aliquam id mollis nec, tempus vitae erat. Sed at vulputate neque. Praesent laoreet dignissim nibh ut vehicula. Vivamus nunc

student loans have reportedly passed credit cards as the nation‚ as largest source of debt.

the average person grabs 70 percent of their total pay bumps during their first ten years in the workforce

those who graduate into a recession are still earning an average of 10 percent less nearly two decades into their careers.

Nearly 14 percent of college graduates from the classes of 2006 through 2010 can’t find full-time work

one in five young adults now lives below the poverty line. Almost a quarter more people ages 25 to 34

And so we find ourselves living among the scattered ashes and spilled red wine and broken glass from a party we watched in our pajamas, peering down the stairs at the grown-ups. This is not a morning after we are prepared for, to judge by the composite sketch sociologists have drawn of us. (Generation-naming is an inexact science, but generally we’re talking here about the first half of the Millennials, the terrible New Agey label we were saddled with in the eighties.) Clare has us pegged pretty well: We are self-centered and convinced of our specialness and unaccustomed to being denied. “I am sad, jaded, disillusioned, frustrated, and worried,” said one girl I talked to who feels “stuck” in a finance job she took as a stepping-stone to more-fulfilling work she now cannot find. Ours isn’t a generation that will give you just one adjective to describe our hurt. It might be hard, in fact, to create a generation more metaphysically ill-equipped to adjust to this new tough-shit world. Yet some of us, somehow, are dealing pretty well. Our generation is the product of two long-term social experiments conducted by our parents. The first sought to create little hyperachievers encouraged to explore our interests and talents, so long as that could be spun for maximum effect on a college application. (I would like to take this forum to at last admit that my co-secretaryship of the math club had nothing to do with any passion for numbers and much to do with the extra-credit points.) In the second experiment, which was a reaction to their own distant moms and dads, our parents tried to see how much self-confidence they could pack into us, like so many overstuffed microfiber love seats, and accordingly we were awarded clip-art Certificates of Participation just for showing up. The finite supply of actual brass rings meant that the first experiment would never pan out, but the second was a runaway success. Self-esteem among young people in America has been rising since the seventies, but it’s now so dramatically high that social scientists are considering whether they need to find a different measurement system—we’ve broken the scale. Since we are not in fact all perfect, this means that the endless praise we got growing up, win or lose, must have really sunk in. (Meanwhile, it’s this characteristic that our parents’ generation—which instilled it in us!—so delights in interpreting as “entitled.”)

PART TIME JOB

I’ve got a working theory about what’s happening as our self-esteem surpluses collide with a contracting world. A big chunk of our generation, the part David Brooks a decade ago collectively labeled the Organization Kid, more or less happily embraced very hard work within the system. (Brooks was focused on elite students, but I think the term applies equally well to your typical first- and second-honor-roll strivers.) If you were an Organization Kid and have prospered despite the economy, landing one of those jobs that come with an embroidered gym bag, you’re obviously fine. The big change is that when you describe yourself as lucky—a word that comes up a lot with friends I know like this—you may actually mean it more than you would have before. (Before, it would have just been codespeak for “privileged.”) If, though, you set track records and made summa cum laude—if you earned praise not just for effort but real achievements—only to land back in the same bedroom where you drilled for the SATs, then you are unmoored. Your less-decorated peers, feeling the love regardless of results, came to believe they’ll always be appreciated. Whereas you have had your worldview kicked in. You become a little like my friend Lael Goodman. “The worst thing is that I’ve always gotten self-worth from performance, especially good grades. But now that I can’t get a job, I feel worthless,” she says. Lael, who is 27, was the valedictorian of her high school and did very well in college too. Unable to find

“create a generation more metaphysically

ill-equipped

to adjust to this new

tough-shit

world.Yet some of us, somehow, we’re dealing pretty well”

HIGH SCHOOL

COLL

LEGE

a position that paid a decent wage using her English degree, she got a master’s at the University of Michigan in environmental studies. Lael feels like she’s stranded on the wrong rung. “All the articles in the newspaper say that investing in an IRA now means I’ll have hundreds of thousands of extra dollars down the road, so I should just scrimp and save,” she says. “But I can’t scrimp and save because I’m doing that just to afford housing and groceries. So I’m screwed now, unable to enjoy young adulthood in the way that I feel I was promised, and screwed for the future.” Then there is my friend Sam (not his real name, because he felt that if I used his real name, he’d truly be unemployable). In high school, Sam was the sports captain who set all the curves in calculus. I used to call him up the night before physics tests to figure out what I should know. Sam went to the best college he got into, for which he took out $50,000 in loans. He signed

GRADUATE

up for some abstract-math courses, was cowed by classmates who worked theorems for kicks, and majored in poetry writing rather than fall short in the subject he’d built so much of his identity on. After graduating, he took a job as a woodworker’s apprentice, not the expected outcome for a grade-grubbing gunner, but also not all that unusual back in the days before every decision about which major to sign up for or job to take started to feel make-or-break. One thing about being the boomers’ heirs growing up in boom times was that it used to be okay to take a life-enriching sabbatical. There was no reason to think you wouldn’t eventually be able to get back on track. Sam found out that woodworking turned out to be mostly vacuuming up wood chips, and so after a few months, he moved on to a series of other gigs, none of them exactly a career. When he finally got sick of bouncing around in his broken-down $200 car and living with his parents—who kept pressuring

PART TIME JOB 14