My Quest for a Job Helping Society

I really thought it would be easy to find a new job.  I had 20 years of writing reports, grants, information releases, and doing public speaking engagements both large and small.  I was a good manager of staff and raised $300,000 a year for a charitable organization. I had not been involved in any scandals or caused any public embarrassment for the organization. Maybe I was naive, or just arrogant, but I really thought my skills would be transferable to make me attractive to other employers.  The other thing that gave me confidence was assisting with the hiring of my replacement at my last job.  We got 86 applications and only six actually were appropriate for the job, or 7% of the total. I sat down and looked at every application and gave them points for the areas in their background in various categories that were important to the job.  I looked at how they had answered the job description, and then ranked them from most appropriate for the job to least appropriate.  93% of the applicants did not have the background to be an executive director, so I thought there must not be much competition out there. I wish I had the luxury of volunteering for eight months, which was the way I got my last job.

Unemployment was low last year, when I started my job search.  The economy had not seen the Trump depression, and I knew more about one subject than almost anyone else in the region.  I have nationally recognized civil rights victories and knew hundreds of people from my work.  I thought people would be asking me for help writing grants or doing government contracts because I was always fastidious.  My first job that I applied for in years, I was treated with a lot of deference and got well into the process.  I had applied for the Ohio ACLU Executive Director job and they instead hired a really good director who I could easily see had the skills to make his term successful in this critical position in our community.  The search committee wrote a nice note that was personalized and made me feel respected in the process. I had partnered with the ACLU on at least seven lawsuits over the years, so they were well acquainted with my background.  This also gave me confidence that other groups would recognize my skills and at least give me a fair opportunity to compete.  I was very wrong, and I prepared a chart to show my struggles.

I gave myself six months to find a job that I would enjoy and would improve society.  That passed on April 2, 2018, and so I have given up on finding a job that provides any benefit to society.  I will join the service sector or retail economy.  I need to have a job, and so I had to scrap all my old expectations and start over.  I redesigned my resume to take out all the housing and social justice junk and tailored it for real work like cleaning, manual labor or my supervision of staff.  What has amazed me is how unprofessional my peers were and how little respect I had in the social service community.  I applied for 21 jobs in the local non-profit sector and only received 3 interviews.  Only 33% of the local non-profits even acknowledge that they have "moved on" to other candidates. Some of these jobs were development directors, press relations, program directors or even outreach case workers.  I sent my resume to 140 local and national colleagues, and got 6 people who cared enough to send possible jobs.  I got lots of "thoughts and prayers," but just like in the gun debate, it does not help much.

I do not understand what human resources staff are thinking. I have no idea what they are looking for or why they do the things that they do. I have to wonder if they read the resumes/cover letters that are submitted or do they just hire people they know or people who are like them.  A friend of mine had a horrible experience with United Way Human Services staff, making me think personnel staff are morons.  I did not apply to agencies that hated me or that I knew to be hostile work environments. I did not apply anywhere that would kill me or would kill my soul like places that discriminate or treat their employees who are different with contempt.  With two decades of working with some of these groups and all my experience, it just felt like not getting an interview or a personal note was just dirty.  I did not get an interview from Care Alliance, St. Vincent DePaul, CEOGC, the United Church of Christ Headquarters or the Hunger Network.  What is most angering is that I know staff from these groups and did not even get a, "Hey Brian, sorry but we found this really dynamic person..." All of the trainings or information provided or the partnerships that I had forged did not mean much when I was out begging for a job.  Just like I indicated in the previous rant about how tough it was,  I did not even get an interview for a part time position overseeing a social service fair at HandsOn NEO that I helped start in Cleveland.  I just don't understand...

I applied for 15 government jobs and only got one interview for a supervisor job, but only 13% of the government actually send out a rejection.  There were good jobs at the City of Cleveland, Ohio Housing Finance Agency, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Cuyahoga Franklin and Delaware Counties, but I did not hear anything.  I am a taxpayer; don't I deserve to know that my government fairly evaluated my background and selected someone else?  I applied for a legal secretary job with the US District Court and had to take a 3 hour test. In the end, I was told how I did and that they would not be moving forward because other applicants had scored higher or were veterans.  That is fair and respectful, and the way that a government-of-the-people should operate.  Unfortunately, most Government positions leave the applicant wondering if the new employee was hired for political reasons or because they had some relationship with the person doing the hiring.

I applied for 24 jobs with either State or National Non-Profits, especially with groups that I admire, but most did not even respond.  Nothing from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Center for Community Change, or Center for Policy Studies for jobs that I spent a lot of time crafting the best cover letters that were specific to the job description. My worst experience was with the Advocates for Ohio's Future executive director position. I did get an interview, but then the group did not hire anyone.  So, basically I lost out to no one.  They re-opened the job because they could not come to terms with the two final candidates (not me because I would have taken the job at $40,000 per year).  I had worked with John Corlett and the Center for Community Solutions for decades and they are a co-coordinator of this agency down in Columbus.  In fact, we shared the stage, both receiving an award from Care Alliance a couple of years back.  I had also done advocacy with Lisa Hamler Fugitt who was on the search committee for the Advocates for Ohio's Future and her Ohio Foodbanks Association was the other co-sponsor of the group.  It was truly humiliating.  I asked for clarity, but got nothing. I got two other interviews from state or national non-profits, but never made it to the second interviews.  Maybe, I just suck at interviews.

For-profit companies, universities or foundations have not even bothered to interview me.  So, my 20 years of being an executive director were not transferable to these industries.  I wrote a snarky letter to CWRU about how horrible they were for not even offering an interview to an alum.  I did not get acknowledgement for a secretary job or a custodial job at CWRU. While looking for a job, I did write a few other snarky letters marked "larks for fun" basically to call attention how ridiculous some job descriptions are for expecting the world and not paying for those skills.  Many of these groups that I have applied have some connection to the public or customers and yet still treat applicants with such disrespect.  I would never donate to CWRU or many of the non-profits after the horrible treatment I received.  I would never move my banking to PNC or KeyBank, or recommend a partnership with a few local law firms who do not even acknowledge worthy candidates for jobs.  I can now talk about this since I have given up on getting a job based on my history and I am starting over.

So, I am now down to "real work" as a custodian, retail worker, service industry or a secretarial job.  I have had a few follow ups in the last few weeks since I redesigned my goals.  24 applications over the last three weeks and already have seen 12% of the jobs providing an interview.  That is not bad for a short period of time.  I appreciated Habitat for Humanity for the respectful process with their administrative assistant job. They provided me a first interview and a personalized rejection (I knew I should have worn a tie so I would have gotten to round 2 of the interviews).  Still a few strange things like these entry level jobs asking for social security numbers.  Why the hell would they be willing to take the risk of securing that highly sensitive information for someone they do not have a professional relationship with?  Giant Eagle did not select me for a job standing at the door greeting people and preventing thefts for some unknown reason.  I tried to ask, but of course they don't respond back. A total of 107 job applications and only 10 interviews.  It is rough out there, and I have not figured out the code for getting a good job.

by Brian Davis