Career Confidence

3How Did We Get Here?

If you were born in the 1970s, 1980s, or even the early part of the 1990s, looking for a job was like a little exercise in nepotism, dumb luck, and the right place, right time.

Everyone who wanted a job, for the most part, had a job.

Most of us got jobs because we knew someone who worked at a company we were interested in, or we met someone in college whose parents worked for a company. We sent out some resumes, LinkedIn didn't exist, and job boards were not a thing.

We typed, printed, and mailed our resumes to job opportunities we saw in the newspaper, or later, online.

Unemployment ranged from 5% to 7%, give or take a few tenths of a percentage, and finding a job was, well, pretty easy. It may not have been the exact job you wanted, but if you needed one, you filled out an application, a nice HR lady gave you a call, and boom, you went to the interview.

If you did not get a job offer, they sent you a postcard in the mail, or called you on the phone and let you know you were not selected. It was all very civilized. It was extremely rare to be ignored, and sometimes, they even kept your resume around, so if another job came up, they called you.

My first grown-up job, a marketing representative for a large local grocery store chain, came about because the father of my best friend was an executive there.

After graduating from college with a degree in communication and marketing, it was fair to say that I knew almost nothing about communications or marketing. ...