What Jobs Want To Hear From You (And Why I Can't Say It)

“You are the only one for me. You are the perfect fit. I will stay with you for better or for worse until death do we part.” – What Most Jobs Want To Hear

I’m not joking.

I have found out the one thing most jobs want when hiring. They want you to have a diverse background, but a singular future. They want you to have been Barack Obama and Mother Teresa and Albert Einstein and Shakespeare, but once you join, you have to be (insert company’s name)’s employee.

It’s like a woman who wants to find a bad-boy who’s been with every girl in a thousand-mile radius, but be the one person to break him.

This is nothing short of ridiculous.

Don’t get me wrong; I have interviews. I understand commitment. And I always find a way to describe how the company/ non-profit/ government job I’m applying for relates to my life. Obviously I want the job and that’s why I’m applying. If I say, “You are my top choice,” you are my top choice.

I try to get across that I’m fun-loving and open, even if that’s not what the job wants. I believe there’s no point in getting a job that doesn’t fit my personality. I’m mostly honest.

But if I tell you that I see myself anywhere in ten years for sure, it’s a lie. I want to be a lawyer for a while – or work in music or journalism – but none of these are my endgame. The truth is I don’t have an endgame.

When I want a job, I don’t want it above all else. I want it for a while, while I like it and it interests me and I can do my best to contribute to the organization I work for. I still want to have the time to pursue my so-called “hobbies” on the side. I want time for my family. I want time to help others.

This is apparently a good thing.

Interviewers tend to remark on how my resume stood out because they never expected me to do xyz. My writing resume has physics jobs and my legal resume has music experience. They like the diversity and they’re curious why I spend so much time working on publishing or journalism when they are hobbies. Sometimes I even say, “Yes, they are hobbies.”

Here’s the thing, though: they’re not. If they were hobbies, I’d have put them on the back-seat and focused 100% on making straight-A’s in law school. If they were hobbies, I would get bored, not force myself to write on lazy mornings, and have given up after the second agent rejected me.

Music, writing, art, and volunteering are important parts of my career and my life, just like law is. I don’t want to give them up.

You see, when it comes to careers, I’m not that fascinated by the idea of monogamy. I’m a bit of a playboy. It’s the concept of too many fascinating fish in the sea and I can’t spend the rest of my life with just one.

What makes me the diverse person who’s attractive to hire is unfortunately the same thing that makes me the diverse person who isn’t “fully committed” and might leave.

But I think having new people come in and out of organizations, spreading ideas, is a good thing. I think that people who are willing to only stay in jobs as long as they are excited by them are people who work very hard while they’re there. I think people can contribute meaningfully and be 100% committed for a while and move on.

I have great relationships with my ex-bosses and I keep in touch. I still care about the companies and organizations that I worked for and will help in anyway I can if I’m needed. The skills and experiences I got in my time there were valuable and I have amazing memories.

I believe you can be friends with your ex-jobs. I believe that just because I’m not in physics anymore doesn’t mean that I didn’t love it. I still love most of my ex-jobs and would love them if I went back.

I believe I might never find “the one” when it comes to my career. If there’s one thing I’ve always been interested in since I was the stereotypical five-years-old (five-year-old’s are really planning these days, I tell you!), it’s that I want a career in politics. Maybe political office is my “one thing.”

But in the decades in between now and when I might run, I don’t know if I want to be tied down.

So, dear dream job, I can’t tell you I’ll be with you for life or that you’re my one happy ending. That doesn’t mean this can’t be a great relationship while it lasts, though. And it doesn’t mean you aren’t my dream job.

What about you? Can you honestly tell your dream job it's endgame? Comment below!

#studentvoices

Isvari is a Staff Writer for The Washington Times, composes pop music, is a Global Law Scholar at Georgetown Law, and has worked around the world in national and cyber security law, astrophysics, particle physics, and politics. Her novel, The Eyes of Mikra, is about a spy with amnesia who's figured everything out about the war she's fighting, but nothing about who she really is.  Available, like everything else in the world, on Amazon.