How did you get your job(s)?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Did you put in an application somewhere? Did you network? Did you rely on nepotism? Did you start your own business and avoid job-hunting altogether?

My first non-babysitting job was at the company where my dad worked - I was hired for weekends and sometimes in the summer to pick up, open, and sort the mail, run the switchboard (an old PBX, and a gracious good afternoon… :smiley: ), do menial clerical chores, and, one horrible summer, spend hours and hours in an unairconditioned basement with one window that opened to a fish market (ick) checking thousands and thousands of file folders to be sure they were in numerical order, then boxing them for warehouse storage. Yeah, being the boss’ daughter was a great deal for me! :rolleyes: But it paid better than minimum, so there was that.

Next job was 11+ years in the Navy. I talked to a recruiter, took a test, and a few weeks later, I was in uniform. I guess that was sort of like putting in an application.

Back in the civilian world, I applied for and was hired as the Veterans’ advisor at a local junior college. I’m pretty sure I got the job because I kept calling to ask if they’d made a choice - finally, they asked me to come in for an interview.

While there, I met a woman who was married to a man who worked with an engineer who was looking to hire another engineer. I guess that sorta counts as networking - the friend’s spouse presented my resume, and I was hired. That was the start of 26 years as a federal employee.

I retired, but got bored, so after a year or so, when my husband was looking for a draftsman, I told him I was interested. There was some trepidation on the part of his bosses, but I’ve been there 2 months now, and apparently I’ve impressed the right people, so nepotism got me the job, but my performance cinched it. :smiley:

So my count is 2 for Nepotism, 2 for Applications, 1 for Networking (sorta.)

Your turn!

2

In my life I have earned two jobs through nepotism, one through an application, and two through networking.

3
  1. Application
  2. Application
  3. Application
  4. Application
  5. Recruited
  6. Application
  7. Recruited
  8. Application
  9. Application
  10. Application
  11. Application
  12. Recruited
  13. Recruited
4

I got into my current field of work via a friend, so nepotism of a sort. The specific jobs I have now are via speculatively emailing companies, some of them via specific people whose names I got via networking.

All my secondary teaching work was simply via direct applications to advertised roles, and my EFL work was mostly from speculative applications.

5

For my handful of part-time jobs during college, I just showed up and filled out an application to work in the dining halls. They accepted any warm body, since the only other option was temp workers.

My first (and only) “real job” after college was through networking. My undergraduate research adviser pointed me towards a colleague/former adviser, who hired me as a research technician without even an interview.

Now I’m in grad school, which doesn’t quite count as a real job… but for the purposes of discussion I’ll credit most all of my acceptances to networking. Basically my application included some pretty shitty undergraduate grades, but also an impressive amount of research experience with an assortment of recommendations from the scientists I worked under. I can’t say for sure why some schools accepted me and others did not, but I suspect that recommendations only outweighed my grades when there was some personal/professional connection between the people who accepted me and the people who wrote letters for me.

6

Direct Application: 7, one career-type, the rest low-paying hourly jobs
Application through a third-party recuiter: 1, career type
Networking: 2, career-type, both through coworkers who knew somebody who needed my skillset
Other: 1, TA/RA in grad school. The result of picking a department and advisor that had money to spend on it.

If you want to include jobs I was offered, but didn’t take, add 3 more career jobs through third-party recruiters and 1 by direct application.

7

In Europe, I got one of the highest (if not the highest) paying jobs as an ESL instructor due to porn.
Yep. Porn.
I was teaching at a private school and realized many of my adult students would then go to the US or UK or wherever and not understand the “bad words”. One ex-student told me he was embarrassed after a meeting, sitting at a hotel bar in the US, and one of the clients told a dirty joke he didn’t understand and they had to explain it to him! So I created a cheat sheet for students’ last day of English class with all of the words you don’t say in polite society - variations of fuck, cock, cunt…yep, all the stuff your mother never told you to say in public. I told students this was an optional class, and all of the bad, pornographic words and phases in English. Every student ALWAYS showed up for this class. This class got to be quite popular, but the other teachers were afraid to teach it, so often they would ask me to teach it to their final class session.
One day I was asked by a teacher to give this “porn lesson” to her group of German businessmen. They found it quite enlightening.
Fast forward about 2-3 months and I get a phone call at home. It was from the head honcho in West Germany who said, “One of my employees gave me a copy of your cheat sheet for the porn lesson. Did you create this and teach it?”
I thought for sure I was now going to be fired when he called my boss at the school, but fessed up and said, “Yes.”
He said, “Anyone who has the guts to teach this is someone we are looking for. Would you like to fly to Frankfurt for an interview? We have a new job opening up.”
I went and got the job.

After a few years there, I lost that job (along with the other teachers) for stupid reasons, but got the word at about 11:00 AM on a Tuesday. I went out and bought the Herald Tribune and had coffee, trying to figure out what to do next. Saw a small ad for a teacher needed at a Swiss boarding school. Went home and called. I was put on hold for a very long time (and price of the call wasn’t cheap) and was just about to hang up when the director got on the phone. We had a ten minute interview and he hired me over the phone. I went to work for that school for seven summers in a row and it was one of the best jobs I ever had. Went from teacher to Director of Education.

Got my job at the film studio in LA by working through a temp agency. They sent me to one area where the boss was a pain in the ass (they warned me) and had fired every temp for the past few months. Within two days, I had cleared his desk of all late work and created a simple data base for him. By the end of the week, he offered me a full time position in their legal department and I was there for many years.

Similar stories for almost every other job I have ever gotten…I guess what I am saying is I have a slight knack for getting a foot in the door and either coming up with some new idea(s), or at least exceeding what they expected me to do.

8

Job #1 - interviewed after being recommended by high school business teacher
Job #2 - volunteer at first, hired when an opening came up
Job #3 - hired by a co-worker’s husband who started his own business
Job #4 - stayed with employer who started another business
Job #5 - stayed with same employer in a move to another company
Job #6 - applied
Job #7 - invited to apply
Job #8 - started as temp, hired when permanent position became available
Job #9 - applied
Job #10 - invited to apply

I have a lot of sympathy for job searchers. I’ve interviewed for three jobs that I didn’t get, and it’s disheartening.

9

Job 1: Friend put in a good word for me
Job 2: Followed a former coworker who put in a good word for me
Job 3: Conducting teacher hired me where he was VP
Job 4: Friend put in a good word for me
Job 5: Did temp work
Job 6: Temp agency, turned into full time
Job 7: Followed a former coworker who put in a good word for me
Job 8: Followed a former coworker who put in a good word for me
Job 9: Posted resume on Monster
Job 10: Posted resume on Dice

10

I will only list jobs that lasted longer than two weeks.

Three were offered to me by my friends. Two of them lasted about five years each and paid well as second jobs.

I had two summer jobs due to political graft, and three due to application (corn detassleing).

I had two college jobs I applied for. They each lasted two quarters.

I applied for and got one part-time job when I was a senior in high school that ended up lasting six years.

I applied for and got two career positions- one lasted nine years, the other seventeen.

11

First job after college: hired by the place I’d been working during the summer
Second job: Hired by a former coworker from the first job
Third job: Got a volunteer spot in my field via a friend, was hired three months later
Fourth job: Online application, no connections, got interview, got job
Fifth job: Poached by former boss from fourth job

So yeah, five jobs, and only one of them was through the conventional fill-out-lots-of-applications-and-hope method. And this is in the tech world, in a city where there aren’t enough qualified applicants to meet demand. Filling out applications beats doing nothing, but IME that’s not how most jobs happen.

12

All my jobs have either been people recruiting me who knew I was available (4 jobs), or jobs I created for myself (2 jobs). Never did the application thing.

13

Responded to the flyers posted near our classroom for temp work through temp agency in what could marginally be considered my area of study. I wanted to pick up a few bucks to supplement my meager TA income and pay for plane tickets to visit my friend on the other side of the country. The alleged six week job actually ran a lot longer; in retrospect I understand this is how companies can cherry pick good workers. I did a good job and worked as needed for a couple of years. When a new project materialized, I was asked to work on it - as a contractor, so still temp in a way, but with benefits from the company I was contracted through. Eventually that project petered out, through no fault of my own, and by this time I had built a reputation (a good one) and was hired “for reals” by The Company. Fast forward another ten years, I have a fairly secure position, all things considered, and my pay is about 50% above median income for my area. I could go into management if I wanted, but I prefer doing work with tangible outcomes.

tldr: Took the first thing that came along, and that thing was dull and repetitive, but made it a point to work hard and develop proficiency whenever I could. Also a hefty dose of good luck of having management who noticed that sort of thing.

14

1 - Application at a retail store (age 16)
2 - Nepotism at my cousin’s restaurant/catering business
3 - Application for college newspaper webmaster
4 - Application for movie theater
5 - Application for paid internship at a online newspaper
6 - Created my own company/job (age 20)

15

Three were applications
One was either networking or nepotism (husband of a co-worker of my mom had an opening in my field and asked to see me for it)
Two were straight-up networking including my current job (someone here used to work with me elsewhere and asked me to come interview)

16

I finished my teacher training, sent in applications to every job teaching English in my area, and found myself still without a job a few days before the school year began. So I carpet-bombed the schools - basically sent out a generic cover letter and a CV to every junior and senior high school in my area. Within two days I had three invitations to come in for an interview, and I’m still working at the school where I had the first interview.

17

I had been working for several years as a caregiver for my agency. When I decided it was time to look elsewhere for more money/different work, I went to let my boss know. I didn’t realize that the current staff scheduler was getting ready to bail, and my boss instantly offered me the job. She was desperate: whatever hours I wanted, whatever pay I wanted, anything, you name it. My first reaction was: You could not pay me enough to do this work.
But she did need help, so I went home and thought it over and went back the next day with (what I considered) an unreasonably high pay rate as well as a fairly impossible work schedule. We negotiated a bit each way, and six months later, here I (still) am, Queen Bee Scheduler.
And I like it! I’m continually surprised at how much I enjoy my work.

18

I applied for my first job waiting tables in a roadside dinner-- true to the stereotype minus the sass. After that I applied at the tutoring ctr in college. My teaching job you could only technically consider applied for. I’d subbed long term and the school must have liked what they saw so an art position was essentially handed to me. It didn’t hurt that the entire hiring committee was composed of friends of the family and my parent’s colleagues. Most laid back interview ever.

I’ve moved twelve hours north, so it’s back to applications and I’ll not have to wonder if nepotism played a role if I get the job this time.

19

(Not counting kid stuff like camp counselling, etc…)

Job #1: Referred by a professor after finishing a degree.
Job #2: Did a co-op term when I went back to school, and they hired me full-time when I finished school.
Job #3: My wife applied for a job, was turned down, and she referred me for the job instead.
Job #4: Poached from job #3 by a former co-worker from job #2.

So none of them involved filling out applications (although I tried that approach between job #2 and job #3, with no success).

20

Job #1 - referred by my brother, who had previously worked at the same store
Job #2 - referred by friend
Job #3 - went through employment agency
Job #4 - applied to ad in newspaper
Job #5 - applied to ad in newspaper

Jobs 1 and 2 were part time jobs while I was in High School/College; job #3 was my first ‘real’ job. And Job #5 is where I’ve been for the last 14 years.