MetaChat - How Did You Get Your Job?

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06 January 2006

How Did You Get Your Job? →[More:]In keeping with the working themes, I want to know how other Metachatters got into the work they're doing now. Chance, school, what?

I say this as I'll be unemployed again on Wednesday, and ready to say Suck It to the haters.

post by: Lipstick Thespian at: 17:28 | 30 comments

I was a very bad person in a previous life.

posted by bmarkey 06 January | 17:37

I was unemployed and had no prospects. My friend in Silicon Valley kept telling me how much money he was making, so I asked him if he could get me a job. He said, "get some skillz, foolio". (This was 1998, after all) So I took a few networking classes and got a certification, and he got me a job. I've worked for that company in various capacities since 1999.

posted by agropyron 06 January | 17:37

I got a temp job in accounting, the temp job became a full-time job, I got laid off and needed a new job quick, got another accounting job.

Ugh. Wish me luck as I'm going to be applying for a couple of long-shot jobs soon. Before I go insane.

posted by selfnoise 06 January | 17:38

Unemployed, college drop out, and I signed up with a temp agency since I'd done secretarial stuff in college and had some mad computer skillz (for someone willing to work for peanuts).

Temp agency assigned me here. Assignment ended after mucho jerking around.
Assigned me here again in a different department.
Hired on after mucho jerking around.
But, it's IT so I can get away with clearly-artificial red hair, and my unique version of business casual.

posted by kellydamnit 06 January | 17:47

I don't have a job, you question beggar.

Do you have one for me?

posted by teece 06 January | 17:47

I was working as a divorce lawyer. I'd done it for 15 years, and had grown to hate it, especially the endless streams of chavs who were totalling incapable of accepting responsibility for their own lives. But I didn't know what else I could do.

Then one day, instead of throwing away The Times job supplement, I opened it, saw 'the job', worked hard as hell to study up on what it involved (reading the organisation's previous annual reports online, preparing a list of questions for the interview) and I got the job. That was over five years ago, and I'm still there, still like it (interesting work, awesome benefits, although being public sector-ish, the money isn't wonderful. But you can't buy quality of life, and this job gives me that in spades.

A God shot, I think. Usually the job ads went in the bin.

posted by essexjan 06 January | 17:49

totally

posted by essexjan 06 January | 17:50

bmarkey - heh

I was working in private industry straight out of college. Company got bought out with the promise that it wouldn't be moved. A year later, they moved and I declined to move with them (from Vancouver BC to suburban hell outside of Boston).

Was unemployed for 8 months - the biotech market in Vancouver sucked at the time. I interviewed for two positions 1) analyzing baby urine at the hospital, and 2) as an immunology technician. 2) came with a twist - he wanted me as a graduate student instead of as a tech.

I really should have taken the baby piss job - I ended up being a vastly underpaid technician on top of my "graduate research assistant" duties and other assorted horribleness. The light at the end of the tunnel is in sight, though, but it keeps receding the closer I get to it.

posted by porpoise 06 January | 17:50

I paid for mine. Well, I paid for law school, and as federal judges and big law firms hire almost exclusively top graduates from top law schools, that's about all you can do.

posted by brainwidth 06 January | 17:54

My jobs have come from agressivly (study the industry, the job and the company) asking for them (DJ, club manager, TV Director, stock broker etc.), building them (photographer, bookseller, call centre operator, consultant) or headhunter/agents (network sales, software sales, etc.).

posted by arse_hat 06 January | 18:00

The job I have now- I got a temp/part-time gig with the company while in college. When I graduated, they weren't hiring full-time (start-up), so I went to work full-time. Was miserable at that place, so I called my old boss up and said, hey, you hiring? And she was.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 06 January | 18:21

i moved to nyc with no jobs and no prospects. i applied to a bunch of different jobs in different fields (my background was in science, but i figured i would like nonprofits and library stuff as well). i had 3 different resumes spun 3 different ways. i would say that i applied to about 20-25 positions (primarily over the internet), and got 3 interviews, and 1 job offer. i think that i was terribly lucky.

posted by unknowncommand 06 January | 18:52

When I was working as a Waffle House waitress, another waitress would tell customers I got the job because I was sleeping with the boss.

Which was technically true-I was (and am) married to him.

posted by bunnyfire 06 January | 18:57

i think that i was terribly lucky.

Yes you were. Many, many applications. Three interviews, no offers. (One job that would have been mine, but the hiring manager did not understand the State's hiring guidelines, and thus the state would not let him hire me. Argh).

posted by teece 06 January | 19:40

I acquired the educational credential that's pretty much required in my field. Then I applied for some jobs, and got one. Since then, I've been promoted a few times. Wow, that's boring.

posted by box 06 January | 19:46

Current job? I walked into the University temp agency, figuring that I could pick up some work, but that I'd still have a few weeks worth of time to finish up other things... bastards hired me on the spot. I had an interview at eleven, and by one I was being shown around the office. It was traumatic.

Oh, originally a friend of mine said, way back when, do you want my job? I'm being promoted. I had a three year old, and needed the money. And there you go. Now the three year old is nineteen, and I'm not working on a Mac Classic anymore. Life goes on.

posted by jokeefe 06 January | 21:08

I went to grad school understanding full well that in my field (history) there was a horrible oversupply of PhDs and that a job would be tough to find. I was very proud when I landed a tenure track job in my first year of applying, when I was still not finished with the dissertation. That was ten years ago.

Just this last year I found out why I got the job. The other candidate who they brought to campus, with qualifications just as good as my own, had poor personal hygiene. He smelled so bad that people argued over whose turn it was to give him a ride to the next meeting!

So that is how I got my job. I beat Stinky.

posted by LarryC 06 January | 21:23

Through a friend on MeFi. No joke.

posted by jonmc 06 January | 22:16

In a fit of temporary insanity, I took an oath and enlisted.

posted by tetsuo 06 January | 22:33

All of my predecessors died mysteriously.

No, really, on my knees.

Wait--

posted by goatdog 07 January | 01:13

It's not what you know, it's who you ..er.. know. Started part-time in high school at the same Savings & Loan that my mum worked at. I was there for fifteen years. I'm currently unemployed.

posted by deborah 07 January | 04:26

I'm the daugher of the boss.
If I had to go out and get a real job, I'd be COMPLETELY FUCKED.

posted by krix 07 January | 15:14

I got my current job by emailing my boss when I knew she had already found someone to fill the post-doc position and pretending that I didn't know. She had previously tried to recruit me, but I held off because I didn't know where my husband would be matched (for his med. residency). So she diverted some grant money elsewhere and hired me as well. Yay.

As for the bigger picture, I went to college, went to grad school, got my first post-doc by writing letters to 5 investigators, 3 of whom offered me a job immediately (and one 6 mo later when I'd already accepted a position). That's why I spent my first 3 years in the USA in Baltimore.

posted by gaspode 07 January | 15:33

my job is being me.
it wasn't my choice but apparently no one else has the qualifications.

it's not easy and takes a lot out of me and a truly bizarre bunch of skill sets.
but it's seems to me more fun than most people have working.

this hopefully will only get better.

posted by ethylene 07 January | 20:13

this also means i have no "weekends" or "work hours" as you people on your planet call them.
i am a piece of work.

posted by ethylene 07 January | 21:27

<hugz ethylene>

Third straight year I had work that had to be done (by me) on Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, New Years Eve, and New Years Day (and all the days in between).

posted by porpoise 07 January | 23:32

i'd like to find a few replacement clones or adepts for purposes on this planet so i can do other things away from the live hominids more of the time.

posted by ethylene 07 January | 23:38

krix, i worked for my dad once.
ONCE.

posted by ethylene 07 January | 23:40

apparently snappy retorts are not appreciated in the secretarial world, as people think they are allowed to be rude to you if you sit behind one of those open hutch things.

posted by ethylene 07 January | 23:42

hey, if anyone needs props, i can totally scare your office manager with my "calling from Belgium accent."
anyone need a higher salary bid?

posted by ethylene 07 January | 23:45

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