The Cover Letter I Want To Write
Dear Prospective Employer,
Hello! This is the paragraph where I introduce myself and tell you how thrilled I am to apply for a job with your company/organization/coven. It is what all job applicants are expected to do and, frankly, I’m surprised human resource departments don’t see right through this sort of bullshit. Truth is, I’m having trouble working up the requisite enthusiasm. My feelings about employment are ambivalent, at best. My past few jobs experiences have been less than ideal. They have taken a huge toll on my physical and mental health and destroyed what little self-esteem I had to begin with. With every resume I send out, I am as afraid of acceptance as I am of rejection. This is why, although I spend a great deal of time looking at job listings, I hardly ever get around to applying to any of them. The fact that you are receiving this at all is remarkable. So, feel good about that. You are special!
This is the paragraph where I tell you about my professional accomplishments. That’s a tough one. As I mentioned above, my past few paying jobs haven’t left me with much material. That is not to say I did a bad job. In fact, those employers asked so little of me. It would have taken more effort to do a bad job than to do a good one. And it’s not like I didn’t learn anything. For example, I learned that it is impossible to literally die of boredom. Also, that I seem to be capable of intermittent invisibility. Sadly, those accomplishments don’t make for very good action words.
This is the paragraph where I tell you what an excellent fit I would be for your company/doomsday cult/drug cartel. But, seriously? How the hell am I supposed to know? Yes, I have looked at your website. I know what you do. I might even have looked at online reviews by current and previous employees, but this is scanty and biased information. The only way to know if I am a “good fit” someplace is to work there. I thought I would be a good fit for every terrible job I’ve had. So, clearly, I am not spectacular at predicting professional compatibility.
This is the paragraph where I explain my recent — how shall we say — employment gap? I could tell you that I used this time to go back to college and finish my degree. That sounds like a worthwhile pursuit and has the advantage of being completely truthful. But, while I did go back to school during my employment gap, it is not the reason for it. Besides, I finished my degree two years ago. Shouldn’t I have found a job by now? It’s probably a bad idea to mention the health problems I was dealing with at the time — how I was suffering from clinical depression and undiagnosed Lyme disease. You might get the idea that I am medically fragile — that I will always be taking sick leave. Besides, who wants a depressed person in the office, bringing everyone else down? Sure, my struggles might make me a more empathetic coworker, but is it worth the risk?
Oh dear, it seems like this employment gap thing is going to run to a second paragraph. I realize that’s a big no-no, but six years is a long period of time to cover in a single paragraph. I’m kind of worried about how you will react when I tell you what I was doing during this time. Here it is: I was being an at-home mom. “Oh, that’s okay,” you say? “Lots of women take a few years off when they have kids before returning to the real world.” Did I mention that — although, for much of this time, I also had paid employment — I have considered myself, first and foremost, an at-home mom for over twenty years? Does this mean I have crossed some invisible line which separates mildly eccentric from downright weird? Might I just as well show you pictures of my cats dressed up in costumes? (Don’t worry, I won’t. My cats hate wearing costumes.) Is there any way to make you understand that — far from being “time off from the real world” — being an at-home mom is the hardest, realest work I have ever done? That, far from being boring and mindless, raising children has challenged me, intellectually, in a way that no paying job ever has. That it makes anything else, I consider doing feel meaningless and vapid and small.
I know, Ms. HR Director/Business Owner/Supervillian, one is not supposed to digress in a cover letter. But it has occurred to me to wonder why at-home parenting is the one job you are expected to quit, just when you’re getting good at it. Think about it: in many ways, at-home parenting is like any other job. When you start out, you are at the bottom of the ladder. You like your job and believe in what you are doing, but you have to do quite a bit of the shit work (so to speak) which no one else wants to do. You put in a lot of overtime. You often feel like you have no idea what the hell you are doing. Then, as time goes on, you become more comfortable in your role. More confident. The job evolves. Less and less of your work is menial, and you move into more of a management role. You are able to see, now, that all those long hours and hard work have paid off. This is the point (typically when your youngest child starts school) when you are supposed to quit.
Would this make sense in any other profession? I don’t think so. Therefore, I have decided to stop apologizing for my lack of paid employment. To stop downplaying the aspect of my life, which gives me the most value as a prospective employee. Career advisors tell me that employers only care about “real” experience (read: paid experience), but the experience one gets in the workplace tends to be job-specific. How to use this software. How to manage that type of business. The things I have learned as a mom are universal. Maybe, if I turned them into bullet points, they would seem more real:
- How to learn on the job.
- How to bring order out of chaos (as a mother of twins, this is my particular specialty).
- How to stretch a tiny budget.
- How to prioritize.
- How to accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently.
- How to manage interpersonal conflict (if I can do it with toddlers, I can do it with anyone).
- How to keep my own ego in check, in service to something much bigger and more important than I am.
There. That looks almost professional.
So, this is the paragraph where I tie it all together and give you a big, unsubtle marketing pitch about myself. But — let’s be honest — normal people hate talking about themselves that way. I am old enough (dammit, I just left myself open to age discrimination) to realize this: if I have to pretend to be someone I’m not in order to get a job, it is unlikely to be the right job for me. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from your company/terror cell/School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Or not.
