Indiana Jones: Not Unemployed

The New York job hunt is dragging on. It is a tiring process of honing and patience just a short step away from faith. It occurred to me that I know an expert, a prominent career counselor from my home-sweet-home town of Portland, Maine, who has spent years rubbing elbows with the newly educated. I asked her for an interview to see if we could reformulate the challenges faced by new graduates and make them easier to understand. I wanted a new way to measure my efforts. She graciously agreed to help and did one better by providing the metaphor of the chasm.

According to the “life coach,” as she prefers to name her position, there are two major challenges confronting the typical grad, though they are more specific to either youth or inexperience than college per se. First, practically speaking, they may have left school without the requisite experience needed to land the job they want. Second, even with the necessary skills there may have a problem demonstrating them to an employer. Think of the combination of these as a chasm. Better yet, think of it as the chasm from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with all the crocodiles of self-doubt underfoot and utility bill-spears approaching quickly from behind. It must be crossed!
Rather than a lone, dashing rope bridge, the life coach laid down five planks that may be taken to the land of financial stability and luxury shopping on the other side:
1) Experience itself: Hero is the most apt position for Indiana Jones. After Raiders of the Lost Ark, his bullwhip and hand-to-hand combat skills made him a shoe in for the sequel in India. Still, had there been no prequel, his willingness to work for free for the sake of good for a while may have landed him the job. The life coach emphasized, “Don’t underestimate the power of unpaid work.”
2) Contacts: Indiana knows the value of local networking, and his charge, Short Round, would have been able to connect him with any number of employers on the sub-continent, had he not been in need of constant rescuing.
3) Training: Indiana Jones was an experienced archeologist and professor. Had his goal been a professorship (rather than evading an evil zealot) he would have been able to cross unmolested.
4) The Right Fit: Sort of like Indiana’s hat to his head. Even lacking training, experience, and contacts, Indiana may have been able to demonstrate how he was made for the job, (not unlike Cinderella.)
5) Lastly, Knowledge: Jones knew his field. Even hatless, friendless, and devoid of combat energy, the trilogy always revolved around his ability to make correct decisions, which, were derived from his archeological knowledge (though luck and rugged good-looks didn’t hurt.)
Stepping away from the silver screen for a moment, the life coach pointed out some basic examples from within this framework. “Say you don’t have the internship that you would have needed, in college, for a graceful transition. Be graceless. Do it now, for free, and then take the skills you acquire to an employer. There are lots of ways to go about making a case. If you’re an extravert; network. Locate a friend of a friend in the industry your hunting and chat them up over a drink.”
At the end of our conversation (and before its filtering through a bizarre Indiana Jones metaphor) the life coach had this last bit to add. An important afterthought:
“People in their early 20s aren’t very sure of themselves. Their biggest challenge may be just overcoming the fear of getting out there and doing it.”
Though I am disgruntled, tired of looking at my own resume, and well acquainted with the fear, I still feel I’m on the right path. After all, Indiana Jones never let those snakes get in the way, did he?