Job Hunter 3000!! Top Score: 0

Job hunting, it’s not your typical hunt. I’ve never hunted a deer that wasn’t made of pixels, but I think all the same rules apply. You choose a place to hide in the woods, preferably a difficult place to make your story better when you tell it later, and you wait there for a deer, or something, to walk by.

You can mix it up by calling them over with an over-priced plastic thing that grunts, but you still wait. When the deer is in sight, you pop it full of lead and take it home. The hunt.

Well, job hunting is actually pretty simple. My chosen hunting grounds change with the season, but after my first hopeful applications through common knowledge and interest, I reverted to websites with names like “simply hired” and “snag a job.” I don’t look for twelve point bucks as much as just looking for something breathing and legal.

Finding the perfect job buck isn’t too hard, it’s shooting the dang thing that so dang difficult. You learn to avoid jobs posted in all caps.

GREAT WAITRESS OPENINGS

It’s ugly and desperate little sister, caps with exclamation points.

GREAT WAITRESS JOB!!!! APPLY NOW!!!!

And of course you need to stay away from their inbred love child: all caps, exclamation points, no information, and bad grammar.

GOOD JOB!! $$MUCH MONIES$$ U PPL APPLIES NOW FOR TO GET JOB NOW!!

That is not a head you want on your wall.

So what happens when you finally see a beautiful job stroll up to your tree stand? Your first instinct is to jump down and kiss it, but usually you just end up freaking out happily and peppering it full of over-eager emails and resumes. At this moment you contract “did-i-get-it-itus.” The most common symptoms are hourly e-mail checking, false self-assurance that you will be interviewed, day dreaming of you in the desired job, and, in advanced cases, practicing in front of a mirror for the interview (bad jokes may or may not be connected to this symptom).

More often than almost always, your beautiful stag will leap away into the arms of another tree stand stalker. “It’s not personal, I just hate your guts.” After a few nights in the cold, wet, pop-up bug infested boughs of a job forum, you begin to lose all personal attachment to your emails and even your resume. The emails become templates.

Hello ____, My name is Joe Worthless. I found your position on/in ______. I'm writing because I’m deeply/very/so interested in/excited about, your position/opening/opportunity. Attached is my resume. Have a great/awesome/wonderful day. Thank you for your time/this opportunity. Sincerely/Respectfully/Please-Just-Frickin-Hire-Me
Joe.

Your resume soon follows the way of the fired Buffalo waitress with sentences like “Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint,” and “Great with People.” If the deer couldn’t smell your greenness, it can smell your sheer desperation and total lack of hope three websites away. You become one will your couch. You can’t count all the applications you’ve sent out in the last hour. The sheer amount of crap you’ve padded into your “mission statement” leaves you wondering if anyone will actually hire you when all you’ve presented them is a giant miserable turd. Eventually you watch the deer walk by and wonder if they’re even real.

This is when they prove that, oh yes, they are. Remember, failure is not common. Don’t try to blame a deer shortage, slumped ecosystem, or your damp ears. Behold the sixteen year old barista. With barely the muscle to shoulder a shotgun, he somehow went and slew himself a nice six-month-supply of cute customers and coffee perks. Starbucks wouldn’t even look twice at you grinning through the tears in your first tree stand. It’s not them, it’s you. This is even more apparent when you start seeing the victory pictures go up from your fellow’s hunter’s escapades. The charming girl with the eight pointer, funny girl got a ten pointer, and the stupidly cute but adorably sweet guy with the freakin 16 pointer. “Ahhh, so happy for you! lol….” Irony 5. Pride 0. And don't even THINK about letting this desperation make you settle for a crappy job. You see there is a deer out there just as desperate to be shot as you are to shoot it.

And when it spots you, the lonely hunter, in its size six-and-a-half dollars an hour spandex jeans, it will jump on your application like a freshmen fifteen on tater-tot eaters. Say no and say it loud. Hell hath no fury like an awful job accepted.

And its then, then when you can finally smell your own failure and you begin to wonder if anyone else notices how much time you spend on the internet looking at pictures of cats with funny captions (and by the way, yes, they do) that a deer walks by. You are finally not too smart to shoot or too dumb to know not to shoot, this deer is killable. By powers unknown to you, you are coherent, charming, somehow desirable, and when you feel like it can only be a dream, you hear a BANG, see a small meaty firework,

and you have killed your first interview. You basically fall out of the tree and happy dance your way to the corpse. It’s all formality from the surprisingly heavily body, to the oh so happy Facebook post, “I’m HIRED!”

Congratulations, you are no hunter. You've broken every common sense rule, kissed up to a million virtual butts, and slaughtered you self-esteem in a bucket of Ben and Jerry's "Don't Call Us We'll Call You Berry Dream." But in the end, it ends the same as the game in the pizza arcade that ran on mom’s quarters.

“Son, it looks like you’ve got something!”