2008 Woodie Awards
The search for summer work
Fatoumata Soumaré
Issue date: 9/5/06 Section: Opinions
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It's that time again, the one where we put away our bathing suits, short skirts and suntan lotion and head back to school. For most college students, summer is the season for fun, being with friends and family and internships. For myself, it was all of those things except the internship. During the spring semester, I was ill and missed the deadlines for all the internships I wanted, but nonetheless I had hope that I would still enjoy my summer and get a decent summer job. It all seemed easy in my head before I started my summer and it was only later that I realized that easy wasn't a word a young woman could associate with the job market in New York City.
When the school year ended at Smith, I headed back home to New York in hopes of enjoying my summer and finding a fun summer job with no problems. My first instinct was to apply for retail jobs because, in my opinion, they were easier to obtain. With that in mind, I applied for jobs at clothing stores, cosmetics stores (M.A.C. and Sephora) and even my local supermarkets. I can safely say that from the end of May to early June, I had filled out over 20 job applications with a résumé included.
I waited for two weeks to get the results for all the jobs I applied for, and to my disappointment, no one called; for the employers I called to check on my application status, I was put on hold for a half hour, hung up on at some point or told to call back, and call back I did until all hopes were lost. A family friend tried to help me on my job search and directed me to craigslist.com, and despite the fact that the site became my obsession day and night, I still had no job.
I decided to go on craigslist.com again and stumbled across an ad for a bartending school that was looking for new students (18 years old and above). I went to bartending school for three hours a day, five days a week for two weeks. I really enjoyed learning how to mix drinks and appreciated the two-day alcohol awareness class that went along with it. After my certification, I was called by the school for job placement and got about ten interviews for bartending jobs in Manhattan (it seemed like a dream come true).
When the school year ended at Smith, I headed back home to New York in hopes of enjoying my summer and finding a fun summer job with no problems. My first instinct was to apply for retail jobs because, in my opinion, they were easier to obtain. With that in mind, I applied for jobs at clothing stores, cosmetics stores (M.A.C. and Sephora) and even my local supermarkets. I can safely say that from the end of May to early June, I had filled out over 20 job applications with a résumé included.
I waited for two weeks to get the results for all the jobs I applied for, and to my disappointment, no one called; for the employers I called to check on my application status, I was put on hold for a half hour, hung up on at some point or told to call back, and call back I did until all hopes were lost. A family friend tried to help me on my job search and directed me to craigslist.com, and despite the fact that the site became my obsession day and night, I still had no job.
I decided to go on craigslist.com again and stumbled across an ad for a bartending school that was looking for new students (18 years old and above). I went to bartending school for three hours a day, five days a week for two weeks. I really enjoyed learning how to mix drinks and appreciated the two-day alcohol awareness class that went along with it. After my certification, I was called by the school for job placement and got about ten interviews for bartending jobs in Manhattan (it seemed like a dream come true).
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