Looking for work

In the legal profession, work does not typically just fall onto one’s plate (unless of course you are a tort lawyer and someone chokes on a piece of glass in their salad and during the heimlich manouevre, that piece of glass lands on your plate. This doesn't happen very often). Quite the contrary, one has to embark on a long and arduous task of sending out a 1000 CV’s, only to receive in response a letter which does not bear good news. Not good news AT ALL! (on a totally unrelated point - what is the correct construction of "no news is good news"? Is it "no, news is good news!" or "know news is good news" or....)

To date, I have received 15 ‘Dear John’ letters from prospective employer’s that I begged to work for. They all follow the same format too:

Without Prejudice (with malice aforethought)

 

“Dear *insert candidate name here as this is clearly a format mail-merge letter*,

Thank you for your application, (kindly stop sending us your crappy CV).

Unfortunately we cannot offer you a position at this time (we didn’t like your stupid CV and see no reason why we should hire anyone like you. There are toilets in china who could do a better job than you. Not even a mother could love you). We wish you all the best in your future endeavours (just make sure it’s nowhere near our plush offices. If we catch you hanging around these parts, we shall dispense wild west justice and scalp your loser ass).

Kind regards (f*ck off respectfully)

Evil Law Firm

And it’s such a humiliating task. I find myself shamelessly exploiting my positive characteristics to them, blowing my own trumpet so hard the walls of Jericho would crumble down in front of this covering letter. Then I try to tailor-make my personality to fit their corporate profile. It’s all so demeaning. I’m not sure it’s much better than in the medieval times when you were looking for work as an apprentice and they checked you had all your teeth.

Because really, what is the perfect candidate but a well-bred filly? We are weighed, measured and (in my case) found wanting. For the astute of you, yes I did recently re-watch A Knight’s Tale. Good movie. Great movie. Moment of silence for the fallen beauty Heath.

The reason for this rant is it is once again the time of year to send out CV’s to law firms to beg them to hire me. I don’t know why I bother, since I’m not sure my fragile ego could handle another rejection letter, but I need work! Of course, I’m only looking for 2012, but end of May this year is the cut-off date (!).

Much more fun, and to appease the sinking sense of depression, is applying for casual wine-tasting jobs and a position as a winemag blogger. Those are my kind of applications! Far more stimulating than the traditional "Dear Sirs, I trust you find the above to be in order" legal bullsh*t. You get to be informal "Yo dog, How hangs it with ma' homey" and such other non-legal greetings (or so I am led to believe). You can lie (a lot). I learned the other day that in other professions, other people aren't competely honest about their qualifications (the horror!). You can even exaggerate the truth. (See my post 'College Admission Letter" for how I would like to apply for a job!)

In any case, wish me luck and pray that I don't get another "Dear Jill" letter. Too many law firms have already broken this heart...