That's not even a word!

“Unfortunately, you just don’t have the experience we’re looking for. We wish you luck with your future endeavours.”

How many times have you heard those words before? Sitting there refreshing your inbox over and over again, praying that despite their promises of “we’ll let you know either way”, that you will actually hear back from them, even if it just to break the bad news that yet again the forty five minutes you spent filling in the application form has gone to waste? You pray that they’ll ring you, even if it is just to say that although you were great in your interview, someone else just beat you to it?

I’ve been unemployed before. I spent three months on Job Seeker’s Allowance, dreading that God awful moment when I would have to visit a place which was full of people swearing, couples arguing, babies crying, people spitting – actually spitting – on the floor because they were bored. Or angry. Or both.

I was one of the lucky ones and got myself a Christmas temp job at Asda. Terrible hours. Long, long days. Doing the work that no one else wanted to do, sorting through a big bucket of mismatched DVDs to reunite them with their cases. Cleaning the shelves in the stockroom, up to my elbows in cobwebs and dust bunnies, convincing myself I’d caught TB in the process. Trying to find a bucket of steam and a tin of tartan paint. No word of a lie. I was twenty one and it was crap but it was work and I was getting regular money, so I was made up. Until I got laid off on Christmas Eve.

Naturally, I found myself back on Job Seeker’s Allowance for a further three months.

That was even worse. I’d had a taste of what real life was like. I’d had two nice big fat payslips whilst working there and it had given me an inkling of what money could do. I’d booked my first set of driving lessons and paid off some of my ever increasing student overdraft. There was even enough left to buy clothes – things that I didn’t actually need but I wanted. So, yes. It was far worse signing on the second time, knowing I didn’t have enough in my bank to both pay my phone bill and get my dad a birthday present.

Not to mention the crippling self loathing that boils inside you when you sit across the desk from a condescending albeit very polite lady called Karen or Martha or Genevieve and she scans through your little booklet to check that you’ve applied for at least three jobs every seven days just so you can get a measly fifty quid a week.

I won’t even mention how utterly worthless you feel when someone asks you “so, what is it you do?” and you have to admit that you’re the person they’ve just been ranting about – the one who drinks and takes drugs and has baby after baby after baby with any man they can find just so they can sit on their arse all day watching Jeremy Kyle. Despite the fact that you’ve never done anything of the sort. You’re just a twenty something university graduate who’s stuck in a rut. You don’t drink, you don’t smoke, you can’t drive – you just want a job.

I’ve done all that. I’ve been that girl. No, it’s not nice. Yes, it is crap. Nobody wants to be in that position despite what you may have read in online articles or what you may have seen on one sided television shows, dripping in propaganda. Realistically, there’s a very small percentage of people who would choose to receive a measly sum of benefits every fortnight rather than earn proper money, actual money themselves but that’s not what the media will have you believe. The media portrays unemployment as a vicious illness which you only catch if you deserve it.

It’s a horrible shitty cycle and it’s enough to make anyone feel faint with despair. I know. I’ve been there.

But what about when you have a job – a full time, reasonably paid job at that – but you’re desperately trying to find another one?

You don’t have The Fear, for a start. The Fear is something Chandler Bing describes one episode in Friends as the reason why Rachel should quit her job at Central Perk. He also explains it’s the reason he can’t quit his job in – erm, what was Chandler Bing’s job?

Ultimately, The Fear is a bit like a big kick up the backside when it comes to finding new work. You can usually only get The Fear if you’ve impulsively quit your job and have no alternative employment. The Fear kicks in and you dedicate seven or eight hours a day to applying for jobs over and over and over until Google Chrome can fill an application form in without any help from you. Whereas if you’re comfortable in a job – you may not love it, you may not necessarily like it, but you’re comfortable because the shifts are nice, the money’s not bad, the people are great – you’re less likely to apply for a new job.

It’s no secret that I did a drama degree. It’s no secret that I love writing, enjoy acting, thrive off seeing people enjoying my work. You’re reading my blog right now so of course it isn’t a secret. I’m the first to admit that my career path isn’t on track right now. And it kills me. Don’t get me wrong, I like the job I’m in at the moment. It’s nice, it’s easy, my colleagues are little rays of sunshine. But it isn’t what I want to do for the rest of my life.

After a big wake up call in March of this year, I started applying for new jobs. Writing jobs. Acting jobs. Anything which is remotely linked to the field I want to work in. Unlike applying for admin jobs, call centre jobs or retail jobs, it isn’t as simple as uploading your CV with a cover letter. Often, there were two or three page application forms I needed to fill in along with a 3,000 word sample of my work or a link to an online source of my work with a 1,000 word explanation for the content. It was tricky but I dedicated whole weekends to it. I didn’t exactly feel positive but I was confident that I’d done the best I could.

Weeks later, the rejections began pouring in. Now I can handle rejections. I’ve had rejections before. I’m the queen of plastering a smile on my face and pretending I’m fine when my world is crumbling apart. I’m the bees knees at it. But there’s something disconcerting, something a little uncomfortable, alarming even when every day you get told that you aren’t good enough for something. Especially when that something just so happens to be the reason you feel you were placed on the Earth. The sad thing is how little they care when they tell you.

Look at this:

The name of the company has been hidden and it’s worth pointing out that the company in question is very respectable, well known and very good at what they do. Except perhaps responding to unsuccessful job applications. “Unfortunately, we feel you do not have skills or experience”. What? In anything? In life itself? Did they somehow know about my lack of cooking abilities? Had they seen me trying to parallel park? Or did they just mean with writing? I laughed and thought nothing of it. Until the following day, when I got a similar rejection email from a different company. Again, the reason I hadn’t been offered an interview was because I didn’t have enough experience.

Okay. Fair enough. After six or seven more knock backs, I was finally offered an interview for a very well respected TV production company. I’d submitted my work about two months beforehand and it had been a blank canvas submission. This basically means you submit two documents: one containing your work and one containing a cover sheet with your personal details on it, such as your name, age and experience. The two documents are kept separate from each other and initially, the only document which the employers look at is your work.

Then when the employers have made a decision on which samples of work they like, they match up the two documents to find the applicant’s personal details and contact them for an interview. It’s fair. It’s reasonable. It’s how all employers should work. And in this case, I’d submitted the first three scenes of a play I wrote a few months ago and thankfully, was offered an interview.

The strange thing is, I wasn’t actually that nervous in the morning and was more excited. It turned out the interview would be a group workshop followed by individual assessments. There were five other applicants there and aside from one young whipper snapper, I was the youngest by at least fifteen years. Interestingly, the final six of us were all female.

The day began with a buffet lunch. Now, if I was organising this workshop, I would’ve made it very clear that lunch was provided. The workshop started at twelve o’clock but in the emails we’d received, there’d been no mention of food so without knowing what time I would be finished, I’d anticipated that I would be starving, so I’d stuffed my face before I went in – as had the other applicants. Then they announced we had a buffet lunch. Great. The awkwardness of eating strange sandwiches (seriously, who offers lemon chicken and cucumber sandwiches to people they’ve never met before? It seemed a tad adventurous to me. What’s wrong with good old fashioned cheese?) around people while trying to introduce yourself is damn near impossible.

“Tell us a bit about yourself, Emily.”

Now, I’ve done enough drama workshops and theatre auditions to know the answer to this question off by heart. Any actors reading this will agree. You know just the right sort of information to provide which highlights your good points but without sounding like you’re showing off and you know when to stop speaking. If you’re really good, you’ll know how to make them laugh. I’ve been playing this game for years so my answer to this little ice breaker is always more than adequate and I usually end it on a funny little true story (which I’m not going to share here in case someone less imaginative steals it.)

Does that sound daft? Probably. Does it work? Yes. I’m not sure about other types of jobs. I’m trying to think back to interviews I’ve had for retail, admin, call centre type jobs. Usually, it’s competency based questions, for example, “tell us about a time you’ve handled an unhappy customer”. I suppose it’s the equivalent of always being asked things like that. After a few years, you generally tend to know what you’re going to say.

At the workshop, one woman began to crumble. “Tell us a bit about yourself, Linda.” (Just for the record, her name wasn’t Linda) “What? Me? Oh, I don’t know. There’s not much to say. I’m fifty six. I’m married with a grown up daughter and a grandson. Erm. I don’t really know what else to say.” Poor Linda. She turned out to be a really lovely lady and the weeks that followed the interview, we emailed back and forth to see if either of us had heard back from the company.

At least her answer was a damn sight better than Wendy’s. (Yeah, that’s not her real name either.) Wendy had the slowest speaking voice I’ve ever heard. Whereas it takes the average person two seconds to say “What’s your name?”, it took Wendy a good five minutes. 

“Tell us a bit about yourself, Wendy.” 

“Where do I start? Okay, so, I got into writing two years ago when my ex husband remarried a woman who was a writer. I’m not sure it’s something I’m a natural at but I’m willing to work hard. I haven’t worked since before I was married unless you count the time I was a Zumba instructor twice a week.”

And it went on and on and on and on – for the love of God, Wendy, we don’t care! She just didn’t stop speaking and because she spoke so slowly, it went on even longer. We all began to shift uncomfortably in our seats. I started to panic, wondering whether I should have spoken about my first holiday abroad the way Wendy had, when one of the interviewers put a hand up and asked her to stop. She looked so taken aback at being interrupted that she actually sat back in her seat and sulked. A forty something woman sulking because a potential employer had interrupted her babble about Dotty the dalmation.

The rest of the day went by like a dream. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I really got into what we were doing, not being frightened of asking when I didn’t understand something and volunteering ideas willy nilly. The day came to an end and we’d been set another task to complete more work to submit before a decision was made. Aside from the phone call I got from my mum on the way home saying my nephew was in A&E, it had been a brilliant day. I got this little fizzle in my stomach when I realised Yes, this is what I want to do.

It was the only thing keeping me going. No news is good news as they say. So you can imagine how disappointed I was when I got a rejection email two weeks later: “Your written work was excellent, however, you just don’t have the experience we’re looking for.”

Ah, there we go again. That bloody experience. Fanbloodytastic. I felt utterly dejected. How on earth did I gain the necessary experience when no one would give me that chance in the first place? It was a horrible case of Catch 22. I moped about for days, thinking about the entire saga.

Like many people, I sound great on paper. Sixteen GCSEs, two years of A Levels, three years of a drama degree, twelve months working for a theatre company, two years at drama school, three books, four plays and a blog.

Is it do with my degree? Is it because people smirk and sneer when I say, rather proudly, "I did a drama degree", then continue to ask, "Oh. They actually let you do that at university?" Is this what the careers people were talking about in college when they said I wouldn't be able to make a career out of drama? ("I know you think acting is a lot of fun but have you thought about pursuing a more serious career?") Is this why I feel overwhelmingly sad when people I trained with slowly but surely abandon all hopes of acting, writing, directing, producing, casting, anything linked to their degree? Perhaps I'm my own worst enemy, I thought. I've done this to myself. Created a monster with a useless degree.

No. I was being ridiculous. It wasn't a useless degree at all. I learnt so much from it: confidence building skills, how to work independently, how to work as part of a team, learning huge chunks of information word for word, how to speak clearly, how to think fast on the spot, how to sell myself, how to cry on demand (lol) and more importantly, I met some of my best friends in the world there - look, look how pretty they all are!

- and I learnt a hell of a lot about myself. So, no. It's not because of my degree. Besides, working for a production company - what other degree would you need? Accountancy? Geography? French?

So, it was down to my experience. What more experience did I need? I’d sort of understand if I didn’t have any clue about the working world – I’ve seen some people get a job straight out school and because they’re still very much in the I-just-want-to-go-out-all-the-time stage, they never seem to last long. Fair enough. They’re young. They’ll learn.

But I’m not young. Well, not really. And I have learnt. Believe me. I’ve worked for minimum wage. I’ve worked until midnight, spending half my shift’s wages on a taxi home. I’ve started work in Liverpool at seven in the morning, getting the five thirty train every day. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve worked hard. Okay, maybe not all the time but definitely in the last two or three years.

(It's not even about the money. Honestly, money doesn't motivate me. I suppose I'm quite strange like that. For some people, the first thing they ask at the end of an interview is "how much will I get paid?" For me, I just want to do a job that I love and I'd happily settle for minimum wage. Getting up every morning and feeling excited about going to work to do a job that you love has got to feel like heaven on Earth, surely? It wouldn't even feel like work. That's how it felt working for Black Box Theatre Company: what, you want me to learn these lines and perform in this play and then... you're going to give me money for doing it? That.)

What more can I do to gain this seemingly compulsive experience? There’s always the option of volunteering somewhere I want to work and hoping and praying that they offer me a job. But how do you fit volunteer work around a full time job? Volunteering is a wonderful thing to do, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t pay the bills and at twenty five, watching my car being repossessed wouldn’t be the best thing to happen.

It reminded me of being sixteen and applying for my first full time job. Every single shop, bar, café, restaurant, everywhere I was applying would inevitably get back to me and say I just wasn’t experienced enough. It was sort of true – I hadn’t ever worked before, aside from one measly little paper round which my poor mum ended up doing when it was raining. Which was all the time.

But what if that was the rule? You can’t get a job unless you have experience. Well, you just wouldn’t ever work, would you? And that would mean we would exist as a country with thousands of job vacancies and millions of unemployed people. Exactly. Ridiculous and not likely to happen. Why is it not happening now? Because someone somewhere took a chance on you.

Think back to your first ever job. Maybe a glass collector, a shelf stacker, a cleaner, bar staff, working on a till, dog walking, office work – whatever it was. How did you get that job? You’d never worked before so it couldn’t have been a glowing reference from your previous employer. No. It was down to some kind soul in HR who met you and thought you looked decent and hardworking. Or maybe they were absolutely crying out for staff, I don’t know. But someone took a chance on you.

Thanks to that first job, you got your second job. Maybe you stayed there a bit longer. Worked your way up a bit. Thanks to that job, you maybe got the job you’re in now. Or maybe there’s been thirty jobs in between. But none of that would have happened if someone hadn’t taken that chance on you when you were young and inexperienced.

How very sad that it’s not always the case years later.

Edit: I'd originally planned to leave the blog entry on this note but when I sent it a trusted friend to proof read, we agreed it sounded like my soul had left my body. 

Instead, I'll just say, after weeks of moping about feeling sorry for myself, I received a lovely message from an old friend from college and after a few hours of chatting, we've decided to work on a little project over the coming months. 

I won't say any more right now because a) I don't want to jinx it, b) it's still very early days and c) I don't want to ruin the surprise. But you know what? It's made those niggling little doubts in the back of my mind disappear for the time being. 

Everything happens for a reason. 

Especially when you can't see why at first.