The Unemployed V.S AI

While everyone was preparing for the SAT’s and college admissions and exams, I was adamant that I would never go to college. 

I struggled in high school immensely between my mom’s alcoholism, bullying, and not receiving a challenging and enriching enough education through the NYC public school system, leaving me feeling bored and uninterested.

It may also have had something to do with the time I watched my older sister's Hofstra University College dreams shatter in her face when neither she nor my mother could afford it. She was brilliantly smart academically, but we were poor in a way that we couldn’t afford college yet making enough money to not qualify for financial aid and my mother hadn’t figured out how to beat the system yet. 

She dropped out mid semester and started her exciting career as a crossing guard.

So, I graduated high school in 2013 with no plans on obtaining a college degree.

In 2017, I was living with my boyfriend virtually rent free in the Lower East Side projects. The years I spent hanging out in Gowanus, Red Hook, Bed Stuy and Harlem were starting to open my eyes to finessing the system. My entire life my mother relentlessly shamed welfare recipients despite being 1 bill away from the food bank line These people were not just “skells abusing the system”, they were fucking geniuses.

I learned along the way that I qualified for many of the programs offered in NYC. Food stamps, Medicaid, and tuition-free community college. We were getting fucked everyday by the government, might as well take some of it back. I happened to agree with this.

That year at 23 years old, I decided to enroll at Borough of Manhattan Community College as an independent adult with $0 in income. I put myself through college using the generous financial aid packages and the money I stashed from my successful and lucrative babysitting career. It took me from 2017 to 2024 (Covid, Domestic violence, etc) to eventually graduate Cum Laude from the College of Staten Island with my Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing. At the same time, I was working for CUNY at two different campuses to help build experience in marketing before I graduated. I even earned my certification in Digital Marketing through Google Certifications to strengthen my credentials.

I spent the last year of my semester unsuccessfully placing an internship, and when I graduated excited to send my resume to the world, reality kicked me in my two front teeth.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have the education, I did

It wasn’t that I did not have the experience, I did.

It wasn't that I did not have the credentials, I did

It was that the job application process has been almost entirely automated one way or another. We took the “human” out of Human Resources. In NYC, you are not only fighting against hundreds (potentially thousands) of other applicants, but a fucking computer.

It is bad enough that we had employer discrimination to such an extent that each and every one of my applications involved a 20 question survey asking me my demographics. It is bad enough that this discrimination has led a lot of non-white applicants to alter their own names to avoid being ruled out by their name alone.

But now my resume is being scanned by a computer to determine if enough keywords match the job description. If it does match, you move on to be personally discriminated against by a human being.

If it doesn’t, it is immediately dumped in the trash icon folder of the HR personnel who gets paid to much to watch the computer program do his job.

Maybe I typed “Proficient in Microsoft Office”, but the keyword needed was “Excel”. Maybe I typed “Customer service skills” but the computer was looking for “Client retention”. These synonymous and often transferable skills could be immediately ruled out because they did not specifically align with whatever rubric that particular software is utilizing.

Do not fret! Tiktok has many solutions to cheat the AI systems as opposed to bringing human HR job duties back. One solution was to tailor every single one of your resumes to specifically match the keywords in each and every job application that you are applying for. This is on top of the application-specific cover letter that you will also spend an inordinate amount of time on, essentially begging for the opportunity to sell your free time to a company in exchange for food. Another solution was to add these keywords in white font to the bottom of your resume to trick the system in to matching your resume to the job.

Not only will you spend ~30 minutes extra on each job application (depending on how good you are at this) that will inevitably result in an automated and dehumanizing rejection email to you anyway, you will take up crushing amounts of space on your laptop from 2014 that is one file away from dying completely, making applying for jobs even more insufferable. 

Ok maybe that one is just a me problem.

Now I get to play the exhilarating job application Squid Games daily against the same automation that is slowly rendering my future career obsolete anyway. and even if by some stroke of luck I manage to land that interview for the perfect opportunity that would jumpstart my career in a woman owned event company, I will go through three interviews where all three of the interviewers asked me the same exact questions. 

Afterwards, I will spend my entire Costa Rica graduation trip manically refreshing my email, hoping and praying that I get the job of my entry level marketing career dreams.

I didn’t get the job. 8 days later they responded to my email informing me that they hired someone else.

They did not provide any feedback.