It’s job hunting season once again, and that can only mean one thing: Most of the senior class now has to find gainful employment out in the mysterious, confusing, utterly terrifying Real World. This is a real challenge, especially considering that most of us can’t show up anywhere less than half an hour late, holding an iced coffee and reeking of weed. But unless you’ve decided to dodge this horrible process via grad school, which obviously comes really cheap and is a total breeze to get into, you’ll have to figure something out.
Luckily for you, I’m here to help. I’ve been named Forbes’ Most Employable Woman for four years running—since I never had an actual job during any of those four years, I was eligible for employment the whole time—and a number of career counselors have referred to me as “a very special case.” With my brain, charisma, wits and daring, and your…uh…other useful qualities, there’s nothing the two of us can’t do together. So let’s get started!
My First Hot Tip: Apply for great jobs! I know—it seems obvious, right? But so many people are only applying to the worst gigs on the market, all because they don’t actually know what’s out there. So many people think that it’s a great move to get into investment banking or law or medicine or that kind of nonsense, when in reality you couldn’t do much worse. Instead, apply to those intriguing listings on LinkedIn, the ones written in broken English and offering high salaries for positions with companies that, according to Google, don’t actually exist. Make work work for you!
Secondly: Widen your net! Tons of folks are incredibly closed-minded about where they’d like to work and live. Unfortunately, with the way the world is today, 99 percent of entry-level positions in 99 percent of cities around the country require ten years of related experience—so unless you started work in middle school, you’ll have to get creative! Maybe you can’t become a brand marketer in New York City, but look abroad—there could be a great position for you in exotic cities like Mombasa, Jakarta or even Peoria. With a little searching, you could even find yourself in Spain without the S!
Thirdly: Be curious! You need to be careful out there: Not everything in the working world is as it seems. When a job offers a high salary, that’s often because it has terrible working conditions. When a job has a high salary and great working conditions, that’s usually because it’s located in Skeeterville, TX. And when a New York City job has a high salary and great working conditions, that’s a sign you need to give those shrooms a chance to wear off!
A fourth and final tip: Seek alternative employment! Think: Do you really want to work 80 hours a week as a paralegal for a piddling $50,000? Do you really want to go deep into debt in med school and then make just slightly more than that as a resident at a hospital that wasn’t even on “Grey’s Anatomy”? Just look to alternative models of employment for an inspiring new direction. Avid players of the documentary video game series “The Sims” will know that there’s no need to work any job at all when you can simply stand at an easel for 18 hours at a stretch, cranking out masterpieces for ten thousand simoleons a pop. Or turn to OnlyFans and sell feet pics for a living! Really, the possibilities are endless, and even broader if you don’t mind starving to death along the way.
So there you have it: a foolproof, failsafe plan for a fruitful working life. Nailing down a job is easy once you know how, which is why I’m currently weighing a spate of offers from Goldman Sachs, NASA, McKinsey, HSBC and the Club Penguin pizza parlor. But for all you mere mortals out there who actually have to look for work, I hope this helps. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have enormous stacks of coins to dive into like a porpoise, just like Scrooge McDuck. See you next time—and get a job, you hippies!