The Most Probably Way to Get a Job

Step one (1)

Have skills. If you do not have skills, you'll need to go and get some. This tends to be both time-consuming and expensive, and there is a chance you'll starve or go homeless long before the skills are actually marketable.

Step two (2)

Have experience. "Experience" is a noun (n.) that will appear on a lot of job listings. It is code for "something you do not have and cannot gain without first having it." The best way to obtain the experience that you do not have is to become an intern, which is code for "someone who has a lot of experience, but no money."

Step three (3)

Use your skills. You'll note that this is impossible because you are not currently working in a field wherein your skills are useful. However, if you do not use your skills, you basically don't have them, which means you should go back to step one.

Step four (4)

Market yourself. The most common way of selling off hours of your life is to send out resumes and job applications. If you have no skill at this, no one will ever notice you and you'll be starving and homeless for such a long time that no one will see you for an interview because you'll look scary. There are other ways of marketing your skills, but unless one of your skills is marketing, you'll probably fail at this.

Step five (5)

Make yourself marketable. Some people go about adding new skills or brushing up their appearance, but the most common way of making yourself marketable is lying a little bit so that you actually fit into the very narrow job description that will provide you with enough income to pay off all the debt you acquired while you were obtaining skills.

Step six (6)

Apply to jobs that interest you and that you know you could be successful at.

There are about 2 of these in the entire world, and someone else (who probably hates the job and isn't good at it) is already working there. (see step 7)

Step seven (7)

Lower your standards. It may be impossible for you to pay off your debt and live a comfy life working part-time at minimum wage, but 1/16th of an income is more than 0% of an income. Besides, without experience, you can only ever make 3/4 of an income anyway.


*Disclaimer: everything after step 7 is hypothetical and not related to obtaining a job except to give you some home after you complete step 7

Step eight A (8a)

Discover that you actually like working at an entry-level unskilled job, so you do really well and you get a raise because you tend to be good at what you enjoy, and managers sometimes reward you for that. You may eventually work your way into having most of an income in this fashion. Your dreams will be dead, but dreams don't pay the bills.

Step eight B (8b)

Slowly work your way up the corporate ladder by following a succession of jobs which you only work at for a year or two at most. This looks awkward on your resume, but you justify it by explaining that you're searching for a job that really suits your skills. You also now have a wide variety of experience (wide = not deep). By following this method, you may achieve your dream job by the time you're ready to retire. But since you have no 401K because you've never worked at a job for long enough to receive benefits, you can't retire. Enjoy your golden years in the workforce, because let's face it, if you leave your current job, no one will hire you: you're too old.

Step 8 C (8c)

Work at a job (or several jobs) you hate while secretly doing freelance work in the industry you actually wanted to work in all along, but which you'll never have solid references for, and will never make enough of an income to justify the time it takes away from your "real job." But at least you have something to look forward to when you get home from the daily grind.