Goblet of Fire

Over and over again I hear the complaints about millennials. We are, spoiled, entitled, expectant, aloof, and quite intolerable. That is, if your primary sources are memes and anecdotal complaints made by our generational predecessors. However, as a millennial who has earned a Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degree, had steady employment with increasing professional responsibility for a decade, and who has reasonably adept communication skills, I still find myself discouraged when searching for employment.  

Why am I unemployed in the first place? Loaded question. I am without employment currently (partially) because I moved home to be closer to family after a health emergency.  Mostly, though, I am unemployed because I chose to walk away from a university and a position that was not in service to my professional development or personal well-being. I have rolled the idea over and over in my mind and I cannot discern whether that is courageous or spoiled. Doesn’t everybody hate their job at least a little bit? I asked myself for months prior to submitting my resignation. Only, when I began to have physical, visceral reactions to being in my office, I told myself that this was not solely millennial musings—this was a big, flashing, red warning sign. GET OUT! Penning perhaps the most eloquent resignation letter of 2016, and on the morning following our presidential election I told my direct supervisor, “Given what is unfolding in America at present, I can no longer afford to have yet another space where I do not matter.“  She was wonderful and probably one of the most supportive and amazing supervisors I have ever had. Still, the issues I had were beyond her locust of control. I found myself at odds with my systemic oppression, and that paired with the socio-political climate of the moment left me overwhelmed to the point of paralyzed. Going to work was making me sicker and sicker, I could no longer do it and I was not sure how other people were managing. I only knew that I could not, not any more. 

Time passed and savings depleted, I find myself back at home with my parents armed with three degrees, six-figures of student loan debt, and no job prospects. People who know me encourage me often doting on my personal and professional accomplishments, my dynamic and engaging teaching methods and my penchant for networking and community development. Jokingly, but seriously, I rebut and ask them, “How does that translate into a job?” In the two weeks since I relocated back to Atlanta, I have applied to no less than 100 jobs. I have updated my resume and CV twice, drafted specific and individual cover letters for each position and university, and tapped colleagues in different professional networks for leads. Yesterday, I applied for a part-time counseling position that I was qualified for about 6 years ago, and as I submitted the application I found myself praying for a call-back. Is this really my reality? 

I have looked at what other classmates of mine have done. Shut down their facebooks, cleaned up their instagrams, gone virtually (literally, virtually) silent and invisible in the hopes of sterilizing their online presence while job-searching. I have also seen the pendulum swing in the opposite direction: people making profiles, YouTube resumes, and utilizing all social media networks as a means to find leads and yield interviews. Amidst the muck, I have had to ask myself, what kind of millennial am I? 

Do you remember in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when he was filled to the brim with anxiety at how to defeat the Hungarian Horned-Tail with no particularly impressive spells up his sleeve? Mad-Eye told him solidly, “You’re allowed a wand.” His was not not the way he would defeat the dragon, to be literal, but it was the tool that allowed him the means and access to anything he would need in order to defeat the dragon and complete the task.  That same logic applies to me and my proverbial pen. As an artist, a millennial, and a professional, there may always exist a tension on how to be, and how much of each identity to be at one time. I cannot stress myself over how perfect my LinkedIn profile is anymore than I can obsess incessantly about the language on my CV ormy cover letters. What I can do, and what I will always do is write. Without agenda or expectation, I write about my struggle to find employment because my words are my wand. I do not know exactly how telling my story leads me to landing a job, nor do I need to know. I simply trust that when the time comes, my words just like Harry’s wand, will not fail me and will provide me with everything I need in order to take the next step towards completing the task before me. 

I trust that the deafening silence of human resources offices is for a reason. I trust that every job I have been passed over for was not meant for me. I trust that the position at the university I am supposed to be at next will be so perfect for me, that I stand out as an applicant like a diamond among coal. I trust that the universe is conspiring on my behalf, and that in the meantime, this millennial will dedicate her time towards my own passion projects as well as helping others in any way that I can. And, I will write about it all. The ups-and-the-downs and all the feelings in-between that cause me to ask myself daily if I am ego-tripping or founded in my frustrations at the job-search process. If I am offered a position for which I am over-qualified, I will not dismiss it immediately, because perhaps it is being offered for a reason. In my reflection, I am teaching myself to slow down and tend to the details, get back to the basics of who I am and where my strengths lie. For Harry, it was flying and for me it is in artistry. So I promise myself that for as long becoming employed is my task, I will arm myself with words to describe the process. I will lean into the discomfort of FEELING exceptional yet unseen, unheard, and unaffirmed and I will persevere. Because, that is what millennials do. We are inspired to innovate during times of unrest. We create lanes where there was no road, and we make markets for ourselves centering SELF as the brand. We are unapologetic in our struggle, and dissatisfied with the status quo being reason enough to continue business as usual. Our audacity come from defiance and sheer will to survive when we were told to cease. So for my generation and for myself, I will write my way to employment and beyond that, I will create my path to professional freedom.