Self Employed-ish : Job Seeking during Entrepreneurship
SELF EMPLOYED…ISH.
This blog post is about the difficulty with job searching, especially as an entrepreneur, and an interesting experience I had lately while interviewing for a job. I think it highlights an interesting aspect of employer expectations in the current job market as well as what it’s like trying to secure a job as an aspiring artist.
WORKING A 9 TO 5 DURING ARTREPRENEURSHIP
Most artists would agree that it would be wonderful to immediately secure enough income in art sales that, at a moment’s decision, you could just choose to not work any “regular” job. But most artists would also tell you that this sudden decision is not usually possible. Securing enough opportunity to be a full time artist is no easy feat. Even more so than other forms of entrepreneurship. Some kind of transition usually occurs before complete dependence on art is even a possibility. Other artists may actually prefer to maintain some kind of steady employment for the financial/social/psychological benefit of a structured work environment. Other artists might even enjoy taking on temp or seasonal jobs for the benefit of some extra cash during slow times of the year. Some artists might not want to earn a living off their art at all in order to “keep it pure” (whatever that means). Regardless of the “why” most, if not all, artists have to learn to balance work that comes from an employer with the work of their craft. At least at some time of their art careers.
I BELIEVE THAT THIS IS THE MOST DIFFICULT CHALLENGE FOR ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS
You ultimately have to find, what I like to call, a “Supporter Job”: A job that supports you until full self employment exists. In an IDEAL situation it is a job that is;
Part time so you can still have time and energy for creating
Well paying enough that it still covers your largest bills
Not too mentally, physically or emotionally taxing that it kills your creativity even off the clock.
Stable enough in scheduling that you can plan accordingly for a stable art or business production routine.
Not requiring you to be on call or openly available for work needs
Most artists and entrepreneurs would probably insist that this ideal Supporter Job, with all of the above stipulations, does not exist. Or if it does, it is not in wide supply. Therefore, balancing hired work and art work can get tricky. You have this dilemma of not having the time to do art if you maintain a job but not earning enough money just through art to survive without one.
WORKING A 9 TO 5 EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT AN ENTREPRENEUR
Even outside of securing employment as an aspiring Entrepreneur, the job market is still difficult. Ever since graduating college nearly 4 years ago I have been shown repeatedly how bizarre the job application and recruitment process is. I have explored jobs in the automotive industry, social service industry, medical field, food service industry, hotel industry, specialty retail, janitorial management and even a civil rights legal office. There are a few differences in the recruitment process but my overall impression from all these experiences is pretty much the same -There are 2 main problems affecting the job market:
The digital automation of the application process has severe flaws.
There is a severe disconnect between the way most businesses and corporations recruit/view workers and the way most workers view employment anymore.
The job market seems to still be managed by the older generation who cannot connect with the cultural values, morals and worldview of Millennials who they are employing. Furthermore the digital automation features that make the recruitment process “more efficient” cuts out major contact points where a good impression and conversation can take place between a recruiter and a candidate. These disconnects lead to tension and conflict. In every job I have worked, this has been an issue.
My lengthy job exploration in such a short time is partially due to the fact that I am not willing to accept maltreatment from an employer at any price. But it’s also due to the fact that I have been aiming to find a Supporter Job that matches the above circumstances as best as possible. And it’s not that I’m quitting any job because it’s not perfect or because I’m a stereotypical sensitive artist. I’m quitting jobs that have an extreme lack of one or more of these requirements. For example...
I once held a job that had no limit to when you could expect to leave. Meaning you started at 8 AM and you could be there as late as 8 PM or leave as early as 1PM. The time I was allowed to leave depended on a handful of unpredictable factors all out of my control. When you never know when it’s quitting time, it’s very taxing on your mind. There is no sense of pacing yourself. There is no true way to plan for things outside of work. It was terrible, especially for someone trying to maintain creative momentum outside of work hours.
Another time I held a job for about 6 months with an employer who was outright emotionally and verbally abusive to everyone in the office. There were employees who had worked there for years and literally displayed symptoms of being in an abusive relationship solely from their interactions at work. You can imagine what this did to my creative flow.
The only job I’ve had that was relatively balanced with most of the requirements I needed, simply didn’t pay enough to even make it worth my time. It paid about half of what I needed to cover my largest bills. I have since looked for similar jobs to that one but they all pay about that same low salary.
MY PRESENT DAY DILEMMA
I’m currently employed in a temporary position that’s actually pretty compatible with my needs but I realized it might be ending soon. The dread of the upcoming jobs search loomed ahead. Every time I go through the process it exhausts me before it even starts. I began reflecting on my career journey thus far and what may have been occurring that leads to my dissatisfaction. I looked within and contemplated on how I might be causing this.
I concluded that maybe I wasn’t finding the right job because I wasn’t being completely transparent at the interviews about what exactly I needed from a job. In efforts to sell myself as an available worker, I would usually just not mention my art career at all. Instead, I decided to be upfront about this during future interviews and see where that got me. If that transparency lost me a job then that job just wasn’t for me right? Simple enough.
I finally secured a phone interview for a position and had a lengthy discussion with the hiring manager. I explained that I am a very dedicated worker but I do need a work-life balance because I am developing a business outside of the work hours. Nothing over 40 hours a week, nothing on call, nothing with a random unpredictable schedule (which honestly isn’t even too much to ask for even if I DIDN’T have outside work. These are demands that anyone with a LIFE would want!). I talked about my applicable experience and college education. I explained how the creative and entrepreneurial aspect to my personality manifests nicely within a work environment. He seemed to understand and I thought the interaction was going well. But at the end he says;
“You’re actually perfect for the position as far as education, experience and MOST of your answers to my questions. But I can’t select you because of how you presented your business endeavors. Some advice, don’t be honest about that with employers. You will never secure a job if you do. Instead give the impression of full availability and just figure out how to balance both once you get hired.”
Now I had a few different mental/emotional reactions to this statement.
On one hand, I greatly appreciated that he offered upfront and blunt feedback at all. Job seekers can attest to how agonizing it is when you spend all the time and resources going through the entire recruitment process just to have a recruiter say “I’ll call you back with the next steps” and then ghost you while you wait in anticipation for that callback. His honesty made me feel like he at least had enough integrity to not leave me waiting in the dust. So props to him for that.
BUT
His advice was very surprising and didn’t seem like he was helping his own cause as a Recruiter at all. I spent time in management and in my experience with interviewing and hiring people my least favorite part was how people would lie at the interview. It would frustrate me because I was completely transparent about what qualities we needed for the candidate filling the position and when they couldn’t deliver upon hire, it made it seem like I just didn’t know how to select people correctly. I understand people just need a job but it’s difficult to be empathetic when their choices to lie end up reflecting poorly on ME. Even when it was evident that the candidate lied, it was so much of a waste of time and resources to have to go through the entire process again to find someone who COULD deliver. So hearing a recruiter advise that I LIE during an interview went against everything I learned in that hiring manager position. As a recruiter he should want to select the person who is ACTUALLY best for the position, not someone who knows how to weasel their way through an interview.
That being said, it felt like an experience of transcendence for me and that made me extremely grateful for my growth. I could understand what he was saying - after all that’s exactly what I had done for the last 4 years. Simultaneously though, I also recognized that his advice was stemming from a work mindset that keeps people within the metaphorical “rat race”. I felt like I was beyond that mindset so the advice didn’t apply to me. For that I felt proud of myself! I was just very thankful that this wasn’t how I was viewing the world and my livelihood anymore. I was grateful that I was wise enough to recognize this advice for what it was because there was a time that I would have been greatly dismayed and misguided by his sentiment.
I felt like my decision to be completely transparent, about my goals/likes/strengths, was a decision that takes a lot more COURAGE and FAITH than the path he was ultimately suggesting.
His advice was operating from a perspective that gives employers all the power and workers the need to manipulate their way through that power in order to receive any benefit - hence my above reference to the rat race. But the irony to this view is that by seemingly tricking an employer, you hurt yourself more than anything. You might get the job but you sign yourself up for something that’s not really helping YOU. In which case, the employer is getting more benefit from the arrangement than you are. IF it is a game at all, who really wins in that scenario? The employer.
Being transparent about what you are able to offer in the position is operating from a sense of faith that what you have to offer will always be enough for what is truly meant for you. When you embellish, exaggerate or dishonestly tweak your sales pitch to a potential employer about who you are and what you need from them, you are not living genuinely. And that is blocking you from the ability to truly live in YOUR fate or destiny. You will not need to lie in order to receive what is intended for you.
HOW THIS RELATES
I think most Millenials are moving away from the recruiter’s perspective in regards to employment. I feel like his advice was along the lines of an old school attitude of “sticking it to the man” but our generation is more about living in a way where you don’t even have to deal with those games AT ALL. We’re not accepting that this is just how it is. We’re taking back our negotiating power by asserting our worth. We are not staying at jobs for years upon years just because it pays well or provides good health insurance. We are recognizing that a peace of mind at a place of employment is worth more than ANY salary or benefits can account for. We are being our genuine selves and we’d rather pass up the opportunity if it means lying about who we are or lessening ourselves.
This is just one of the frequent culture clashes I’ve witnessed between management and workers. Older management worked through an era where certain workplace abuse, injustice and mistreatment was accepted as a norm and so they still expect us to do the same. We refuse and they can't understand why.
This is especially true for the rising numbers of Millenials who are seeking a path in entrepreneurship. Becoming an entrepreneur is empowering and it reminds you of what you can accomplish. If you need to work a job at all, you are surely not going to work a job that doesn’t value these genuine strengths.
MY TAKEAWAY
There was a brief moment after the call where self doubt started to creep in a little bit. I started wondering if maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was naive to think that I could be honest about my passions with a potential employer. Was I foolish to think that there is a job that gives me enough freedom to still implement my own dreams? It took a lot of faith and confidence to knock myself back out of that mindframe. If you’re reading this and struggling the same difficulty please remind yourself!
You are valuable enough to assert very simple demands from an employer!
More likely than not, your standards are not unrealistic!!
It is so easy to get caught up in self deprecating thoughts during the job process today. You spend so much time trying to prove to employers that you are valuable and worthy of selection. When you continue to not be selected those feelings of rejection can hit nerves. This is normal but we can’t let these feelings overcome us! We must stay true to the wisdom we have found in our power.
The experience also validated a feeling I was having about the job market. One factor that motivated me to seek self employment was being overwhelmed with how fake the entire job recruitment process felt. I tried investing time in LinkedIn as a job seeker but it felt like a platform where transparency and realness was lacking severely. Each post seemed like the worst parts of networking - where people link with others for the sole purpose of benefiting off of them. It felt like the entire thing was a facade. One big fake virtual interview space for people to sell themselves. Which linked to my feelings about other routes of recruitment. Every part started to feel fake and gross. I wanted to thrive in a career where I didn’t feel pressure to act a certain way by someone who controlled if I could pay my bills or not. This experience reaffirmed my initial motivations for entrepreneurship and made me feel validated that my observations about the recruitment process were at least a little true.
Another takeaway - I hope that this new boom in entrepreneurs takes these feelings of self empowerment and standards for employers and remembers to apply them to THEIR future employees. If we all turn to entrepreneurship in order to escape the agonies of employment, we must prevent those agonies in our own workplace. Otherwise we are hypocrites.
Thank you for reading and I hope I inspired you today. If you have thoughts on the topic please leave a comment below.
Do you think the recruiter was right? Was he wrong?
Do you think that there’s an effective way to present these standards to a potential employer that will still help me secure a position?
Have you sensed these changing values in work ethic and how do you feel about that?
Do you think the recruitment process will change to match the changing work ethic of our generation? If so, how long do you think it will take to change?
All comments welcome.
Sylvia Sykes
Creator of SylviaPaints