On perseverance.

“Job alert! Looking for a x, y and z to be our company’s x, y and z! DM for more details.”

You DM the person. You know them, after all. They’re on your LinkedIn page, you’re friends on Facebook, they follow your Finsta. They know you. They’ve listened to you speak, sent you a “You go girl” email. They’ve worked with you at some point in your career. They’ve gone to see bands and movies with you; they were your actual friend then. They were on the come up at the same time you were, they worked for you, they know you. They’ve had lunch with you, expensed it. They always give you a hug when they see you.

And yet when you DM that person because that person has posted a job alert, all you get in return are crickets.

That’s something. It feels bitter in your mouth.

The people who do respond? In my experience, they are the strangers. The ones with no real references of your personhood, the ones who see a name in the ether, the writing on a feed? The ones who knew you from afar, who admired your work, who passed you in a hall? The ones who have a role you are right for and want to get you on board? Those people? They’re the Mavericks.

Sometimes someone you do know will come through for you. That’s why it is important to keep trying, anytime they post a job, or are connected to someone who has a job opportunity you’d be right for.

The people who ghost you? They’re comfortable in their roles. They haven’t been on the outside, like you have, looking for a job yet. They will, because at some point, there will be a downsizing and at some point, they will have been at their jobs for ten, twenty years, and the balloon for them will pop. That’s not bitterness, that’s reality. I can’t tell you how many times I have emailed someone I knew on my come up, been ignored, only to run into them at a conference or a panel or a party, to see that look on their face, the etching in their brow, that now that they, know how you feel, that burn of blow off, of connecting but not coming through the in door of gainful employment.

We will all pound the pavement at some point.

Keep trying. Keep emailing and DMing the people you know and don’t know. Somewhere in there is a person who has a job for you and is willing to respond to your query. And that person? That’s the one, the bright one, the one you want to work with.

The rest are a bunch of duds. And you don’t want to be aligned with them. Make your mark, the one you have been making for the whole of your career, with someone that gets you. That will put you on their team. That will give you the opportunity of your lifetime.  That person? That person gets YOU.

On ageism.

Have you heard about this college scandal thingie?

Heeheheeheeeee.

And now have a laugh with Janelle James.