Anyway. So
you’ve dropped out of college. Cue the dreaded question: What now? You have two
options, a. find a job, or b. find a job. (Of course, this won’t apply to
everybody since not all of us have to quit college because of financial
difficulties, but I digress.) At any rate, finding something with which to
support yourself is the next logical step.
Handicap, Schmandicap
First,
remember that you are already at a disadvantage. The lack of a college diploma
is a handicap with which you will have to contend. It will sit next to you at
every other job interview and will poke at you incessantly while you’re filling
out an application. BUT (there’s a big but in all of that) that handicap also
makes you more persistent and relatively more street smart. Enter pointless
anecdote:
In 2005, my
friends had just finished college and they’ve asked me to be their Makati tour
guide, so to speak. At the end of that day, I was the only one who walked out
of a company’s doors with a job offer in hand. My friends were not by any
chance idiots, it was only that I a. had work experience and b. knew how to use
my skills to my advantage.
Therefore,
the first thing you’ll need when Job Hunting Without a Diploma are skills. Sit
down, get a pen and paper ready. What are your skills? List everything you ever
received a “Best in” ribbon for. Debating skills can translate to good
communication skills. Those Photoshop skills can translate into good design
skills. A drafting class in high school translated to a draftsman’s job for me.
Good English language skills got me a job in a call center then a video game
website.
Next, you
will need experience. This will come with time. Every little job you get adds
to your experience, and subsequently, they all add to your skill set as well.
I’ve been a tutor, a drug store clerk, a liquor store clerk, a data encoder, a
draftsman, a tech support agent, a marketing agent, a creative writer, and a
freelance writer. In between those are bouts of being a bum and looking for a
job, of course. What sort of skills have I developed from teaching squalling
children to staying at home and writing in my pajamas? A lot. Your job now can
teach you a number of things you will have use for in the future, say, how to
deal with people too drunk to count their money or how to find creative ways to
teach a kid.
Experience
will also help you “level up.” (Pro-tip: You don’t have to list all of your
work experience in your resume. Sometimes, listing only the pertinent ones –
pertinent to the company to which you are applying – saves time for you and the
HR people. You don’t want to spend several uncomfortable minutes explaining why
you left that company notorious for pushing out pornographic content, do you?)
Working at a bad job or for a bad company can help you weed out the things you
never want to do again. After working at a call center, I realized that I never
wanted to do that ever again. The Universe, who for most of the time is a
motherfucking bitch, will somehow help you find your place under the sun.
To Recap
So, handicap
schmandicap, skills, and experience. There are several unquantifiable things
you will need in your Job Hunting Kit, including 2 cups of diskarte, 3 cups of
confidence (don’t go over, don’t go without), and a dash of luck. You will
eventually develop a thick carapace to deal with rejection from assholes, but
in the meantime, take a few tons of kakapalan ng mukha with you. Eventually,
you will learn to shrug off comments and ads that discriminate against
undergrads. Take my word for it, you don’t want to work there. Always be
willing to learn and eventually you’d have leveled up enough that the piece of
paper won’t matter – or at least you’d have amassed enough money to go back to
school.
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