I've been trying to get a career for ten years

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

When is this going to stop?

I got an MA in August of 2011. Unlike my nightmarish undergraduate years (2000-2004), I got a few internships under my belt, and I thought I made a lot of friends/contacts who could help me, though few were in my program. As it happens, I have had exactly one job interview in almost three years. I’ve been to/talked-with-people-at my university’s career center multiple times, but it hasn’t helped.

I’ve read here that just looking for posted jobs and sending out applications is a terrible idea, but I don’t understand how to “end up” in a job by means of social interaction. I went on a pair of informational interviews a few years ago, and while those were interesting, it didn’t help me when I repeatedly applied for jobs at one of those places. My school’s Alumni Advisor keeps telling me to find people on LinkedIn, and I tried that, but I apparently have to “get introduced” to people I don’t already know (or the first person I tried is like that), and naturally there’s no response yet.

I realize that there are temp agencies that work with employers who are more or less in my field, and that’s a way to get in doors, but I’m terrified to leave my current day job, which isn’t too hard, pays a living wage, and has benefits like health insurance. This job saved my life, as before this I was working at a big box, going deeply into debt, and was afraid that I had just passed my final birthday, as before long I would become insolvent, be evicted, and kill myself out of shame/fear/etc.

I should mention here that for my whole life, including very recently, I’ve been told that I’m brilliant, that I’m going to “go so far,” and so on. I also have extreme difficulties with other people. I’m not shy at all, but I cannot make and keep friends, people do not tend to like me very much, and things like dating are just too complicated. I’ve been in therapy off and on since 2002, and I’m still messed up. I have a downright uncanny mind for facts etc., and I can deliver a wealth of information like a superb professor giving a lecture. I can’t put that on a resume, so I tried to convey it by writing and publishing articles (on blogs/sites/etc.) on my field of study, but that hasn’t gotten me a job.

The last part is that I embarked on this path in order to use my vast knowledge and relative privilege to benefit others, and I feel like I’m letting them down. “You have the weight of the world on your own skinny shoulders,” according to one of my few friends.

What can I do?

2

What is the field you’re looking to find a career in?

3

International Relations, specifically US Foreign Policy. I’m also really interested in issues of development and economic well-being, and how it’s all related.

4

Do you know why this is? Since you sound like a very well qualified otherwise, I think interviewers may be picking up on some cues that you may be giving off. People don’t tend to hire inviduals they don’t like on a personal level.

5

I feel you, OP. I’m also into International Relations.

From my point of view, one of the key factors when finding a job in the area is having an international background. English is a great language, but Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian are very useful too! I’ve even known people who learnt a bit of a niche language (ie Persian, Indonesian) and built their careers on that because there aren’t that many English-and-Persian speakers out there.

I would recommend trying to get some stuff published. Whether it’s for an academic journal (your former lecturers might help here), a local paper or even a blog, that kind of stuff looks good on your CV. It shows potential employers that you really care about the topic.

Finally, have you considered moving abroad for a while? There are plenty of NGOs on the ground in Asia, Africa and Latin America that would love to get help from an ambitious person like you. Work with them for half a year, learn a tonne of practical skills, then go back home. Or even (assuming you’re American) look for internships or jobs in Europe. Particularly cities like Brussels or London are full of institutions, NGOs and think-tanks that are constantly looking to hire people. You might have to study the whole visa situation before you apply, but it’s still an interesting possibility

6

Have you looked into something like the Peace Corps? I know there are other people on this board who know way more than I do about the programme, but from the little I do know about it, it seems like it might help you to get the kind of practical experience that would supplement your academic experience, and is likely to lead to paid employment afterwards.

That said, if you’ve been thinking even vaguely about killing yourself in the recent past, I think that’s a much more important issue to deal with than career planning. It will be a lot easier to work out how to get from where you are to where you want to be if you’re not also trying to ignore depression. And even in a more structured programme like the Peace Corps, it’s going to be much harder for you to get the most out of it, if you’re also struggling internally. I wouldn’t necessarily rule it out, though, if you’re eligible - it seems to me to be an ideal sideways stepping stone for you from where you are to the sort of work you seem to be interested in. (And if you find while you’re doing it that it’s not your thing, it’s still a good thing to be able to put on a CV.)

There are similar volunteer type programmes at the UN, if that would interest you, and you might see whether the main multilateral organisations have paid job openings that might interest you - the UN and its various agencies, the OECD, that sort of thing.

You were an undergrad at about the same time I was, so I assume you’re about the same age I am - it’s ok not to have fixed the world just yet. It doesn’t mean you won’t ever help people (or, indeed, that you haven’t already) and it doesn’t make you a failure. Lots of people start new careers in their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond - there’s no reason you can’t be one of them.

(And on the getting a job through people you know, all my jobs have been jobs I’ve seen an ad for and then just applied, without knowing anyone there. I realise that might be different in the US, and maybe there’s a public/private sector divide, too - but it’s not impossible to do. It might be easier if you already know someone, but don’t let that stop you sending applications for posted jobs if you see ones you like the look of.)

7

Do you live in DC?

8

Why not go to grad school and get a Ph.D.? You sound like someone who would be more comfortable as an academic than as someone who travels the world consulting on issues. Teaching and researching may be more natural to you than having to constantly meet new people and brief them.

9

This is terrible advice, especially given the social issues the OP mentions.

Could you be more specific in the kind of job you’re looking for? I agree with the international experience suggestion. Perhaps taking a position (any position) abroad for a while would help. It’s not too difficult to get a posting teaching English abroad, and while there you can have that experience and incidentally see whether it’s for you. I always loved the idea of living abroad, but to my chagrin turned out to be terrible at it. This despite a B.A. in anthropology and a real skill with language.

10

I think your current personality issues are going to hold you back in almost any career; the exception being academia. It doesn’t really matter how brilliant you are, if you cannot make and keep friends, or if people you are around on a regular basis do not like you, their are not a whole lot of positions where you could add value to a company.

I think you could get by in academia with the traits you have described, but you would need a Phd. Otherwise based on what you have described, would need pretty much a complete personality makeover and would have to develop a new way of interacting with people. Probably the Phd. would be the easier route. I took me like 15 years to realize that my personality was pretty much useless outside a few specialized fields. Good luck.

11

Dr. Drake, why do you think mine was terrible advice? The advice that other people are giving are to try for jobs that require a very outgoing, friendly person, quite different from Lemmytheseal2’s self-described personality. I think that being an academic (preferably one who does mostly research rather than teaching) would fit much better with the personality that Lemmytheseal2 describes for himself (herself?) than the jobs that other people have been describing. Going to grad school would at least allow Lemmytheseal2 to figure out how good he (she?) is at studying International Relations and would allow him (her?) to spend some time with other people who know the subject and figure out whether he (she?) really likes the subject.

12

FWIW I came to the same conclusion as you Wendell based upon having 3 professors in my immediate family.

13

I’ve only had one in-person job interview since getting my MA. I was referring more to my inability to “schmooze” my way into a job.

I can paraphrase Spanish. I really need to hit it more intensely, and get fully competent.

I took a break from applying for jobs in order to write some more articles, for the reason you mentioned. It doesn’t seem to have helped.

Five years ago, I would probably think that was a really good idea, but right now I’m 32. Isn’t it a bit late for that sort of thing?

I’m used to it, inasmuch as I’ve been dealing with it since my teens. I’ve only thought concretely about it when I’ve been faced with utter calamity. I’m much less depressed now than I’ve been in the past, and I know how many people would love to see me dead, and I won’t give them the satisfaction.

I’m remembering these two pieces of advice: “There will always be someone younger, with a better resume, so act now…” “You have to know people.”

Yes.

14

Because PhD programs cause mentally-balanced people to consider suicide, and OP already wants to die occasionally. And academic jobs no longer exist or aren’t salaried/no benefits (adjunct work).

OP really needs to address his social skills. Like most people who don’t have good social skills, he’s totally confused about what networking means. It’s not “schmoozing with random strangers until someone has a charitable impulse.” Networking involves making actual friends, and helping those friends when/how you can over time, ultimately creating a number of people who genuinely like you and/or owe you favors. Which OP appears incapable of doing at the moment. He states that people generally do not like him, but he doesn’t know why. He needs to find out why, and correct it if he wants to enter a highly social profession.

Additional, extremely stressful schooling will not resolve this issue, and OP will find himself older, in even more debt, and with the same problem after completing a PhD program (assuming he is emotionally capable of doing so).

15

Hello Again writes:

> Because PhD programs cause mentally-balanced people to consider suicide, and
> OP already wants to die occasionally.

They do if you want to interact with other people all the time and not spend most of your time alone with books and such. But that’s not Lemmytheseal2’s problem. He (she?) wants to spend time alone. That’s exactly the sort of personality that would do well in grad school. The other jobs suggested here are the sort that wouldn’t fit him (her?). It may be true that he (she?) needs a lot of psychological help, but he (she?) would need it before taking any of the other jobs suggested here. So if you’re saying that Lemmytheseal2 needs to get psychological help before doing anything else, that’s fine, but the jobs suggested here other than going to grad school and into academia would be terrible ideas.

16

Basically what Hello Again said. It is no longer true in most fields that you can find a permanent academic position based on your degree and research alone. There is such an oversupply of PhDs that any newly minted PhD without social skills is going to be left in the dust. Even with social skills and a solid publication record, a lot of it is down to chance. Plus, it’s a significant investment of time and money.

To the OP: 32 is not too old to start over from scratch if you need to. I think the advice to learn a language is spot on. With Spanish, there are millions of Americans who are fluent in both English and Spanish from childhood. You’d be more marketable with a lesser-known language (from the point of view of the American job market) as well.

17

Well getting to DC is half the battle. If you want to work in international relations, DC is the place to be.

The old saying is that DC is Hollywood for ugly people. That’s not far from the truth. Just like in Hollywood you see models waiting tables to make their big break, in DC you see brilliant folks working at bike shops and hoping to break in. Smarts are a dime a dozen here. And unfortuantely, international relations is a tough field if you aren’t a “people person” because it all eventually leads back one way or another to the government, and that’s all about relationships. The good thing, though, is the field has a lot of tolerance for eccentricity.

A year or two abroad is pretty much required to be taken seriously in the field. In part, this is because the field requires a lot of travel, and X percent of people freak out when they travel. So they want to know that you know what you are getting in to. Peace Corps is one of the more straightforward ways to get that experience, but I really wouldn’t recommend it to someone with depression. Peace Corps is definitely NOT structured, and being out of your element with little structure is not a good fit for someone facing depression. I’m not sure what I would recommend to someone facing depression. You may need to really work on that first.

You also want to be fluent-ish in at least one language, and more likely a few. And Spanish is one of the less sexy languages to know. Would you be able to take some classes? GW has a program that will offer free language classes in exchange for volunteer work, or your university may allow you to audit some. Or, perhaps saving up to spend some time abroad taking language classes somewhere cheap may make sense.

Other than that, the only thing I can really recommend is that if you are a quantitative thinker, you can focus on those skills pretty easily without having to be a big people person. Quants are in demand and not expected to be real people people, but you have to be REALLY brilliant at it.

18

This isn’t exactly false, but it’s not quite the whole story. The personality you describe might do well in grad school (and Lemmy already has an MA), but (s)he won’t do well in academia as a profession. Academics don’t work alone. They need to keep up with current research in their field, network at conferences, and establish both personal and professional connections with other researchers. You can get a PhD without those connection, but you can’t be a successful researcher without them. If Lemmy takes that path, (s)he’s going to be in the exact same situation in 2020, but with a narrower range of potential jobs than now.

As Dr. Drake said, the opportunity cost of a PhD is enormous and the job prospects typically aren’t good. It can be phenomenally rewarding if it’s exactly what you want to do, but it’s absolutely not something you should do just because you’re not sure what else to do.

19

The problem(s) is that academic job openings for PhD’s in many fields are even more limited than those in the private sector, and he’s already mentioned nearly committing suicide over financial and professional difficulties before and now you’re proposing a course of action that will leave him even more in debt than before. Tell me, do you also offer free beer to recovering alcoholics?

20

FWIW a former classmate from my master’s degree (graduated last september) is 55. He had been an electrician his whole life, and all of a sudden decided that he wanted to work in international development. Did a master’s degree (granted, it’s quite common for older people to study at university in Sweden) and is now doing an internship in Kenya. Bottom line: it’s never too late for anything.