Last updated on November 26, 2023
I’ve blogged many, many times over the last decade about my employment situation. Most recently, I posted a podcast episode and transcript on the topic of unemployment addressing my low morale and general sense of failure.
The problem is, I don’t know how much of a factor my autistic traits are in my unemployment compared to many other factors that limit my marketability.
- Age: 50 years old this year (born 1968).
- Employment Gap: graduate school from fall 2004 through fall 2017, a 13-year period of part-time teaching and two full-time but temporary posts.
- Market Challenge: academic job markets stink, especially in the humanities, and have since the 1990s.
- Self-Employment and Executive-Level Employment: companies would rather not hire someone accustomed to being in charge for entry-level positions.
- Credentials: tech jobs now require college degrees in specific fields that didn’t exist or were not essential.
- Immobility: not, as in physical disability, but as in “We can’t move with foster-adopt children.”
None of the above would help anyone locate a job and restart a career. Any good career coach would say you need to be willing to move, have the right education, and pursue industry opportunities. As a friend said, “You don’t seek a career as a cattle roper in New York City.” She said that’s what I’m trying to do when searching for visual and digital rhetoric jobs where we currently live.
I tried to adjust my expectations. I’m not going to be a visual rhetoric or rhetoric of economics professor where we live. Accepting that reality, I started applying for anything that seems to align with my education, or at least an employer will assume that there is a relationship to my education.
“Technical writer” seems like a good fit. I have a journalism degree, a technical communication degree, and I understand the technology used to deliver content. Not a career about which I’m passionate, but few people are passionate about their jobs. It’s a good field, and I could do the work. This is the typical response I receive to those applications:
Thank you for your application and interest regarding the Technical Writer position with XXXX.
We are reaching out to let you know that after carefully reviewing your background and qualifications, we have decided to move forward with other candidates whose backgrounds are a closer match with our business needs.
In this case, the employer wanted a writer with a bachelor’s degree and at least one year of experience with (basic) CMS platforms (WordPress, Drupal) and MS Office. I meet the requirements. I have written about technology for nearly 30 years, from compiler manuals to my monthly tech column. I have a Ph.D. and an MFA.
Am I overqualified? Is it too obvious that this position was not my dream job?
This is my 200th rejection in three years. I know because I track these things. That’s 200 applications, counting academic posts for which I focused narrowly on visual and digital rhetoric / communications so I would have a strong portfolio of works and publications.
That’s 200 jobs and less than a ten call backs. Special milestone… 200 job rejections since 2015. Yipeeeee.
I had two sit-downs during my last academic conference. They were both to tell me that the lines were cancelled or converted to one-year posts, unlikely to be renewed.
My wife took a chance and let me complete the MFA in Film and Digital Technology so I might have a better chance on the market, as a digital media person. I appreciate how many times (too many) she let me try.
The K12 substitute teaching paperwork is on my desk. Going to get the fingerprints and apply for the substitute gigs. I was already told by an administrator that my education now works against getting hired full-time anywhere local. There’s a surplus of teachers as they continue to consolidate schools.
This job search thing is a recurring topic because so little has changed since I started this blog. I’m still dreaming of the day when I have a potentially permanent, full-time job.
I’m just old, grumpy, and frustrated. That’s not an autistic thing. It’s an old-guy thing.