In Their Words: How Immigrants Experience the Job-Seeking Process in the U.S.
During The JobUp, the offline educational project I launched to help skilled but underemployed immigrants improve their professional outcomes in New York, I asked participants to keep a job diary.
What follows are both observations and “Aha!” moments they shared while learning about how to look for a job in the U.S. Some of these students, a group of highly educated Italians whose former professions include media, law, marketing, psychology and pharmacy, had arrived in the Big Apple only months earlier. Their attitudes can be quite humorous.
But searching for a job in Italy is a very private affair. Some participants have carried over that sensibility and didn’t feel so comfortable writing about their thoughts and inner emotions. It’s an understandable cultural reaction; as a journalist and a teacher, I didn’t take it into proper consideration when I assigned this type of recounting. In the end, only a few students kept the diaries, but those who did provided a fun and perceptive outlook.
The excerpts below are original entries from my students’ job diaries, edited for brevity and clarity. They are used with their permission, but without the authors’ names to safeguard their privacy.
Jobs They Didn’t Imagine Existed
This comment was written after I shared a list of resources that skilled immigrants can use to track job vacancies appropriate for their backgrounds. Here’s the edited diary entry:
I was happy to discover that there are websites, with tools such as the CareerChanger, that can help me to discover new professional opportunities. Yesterday at 3:00 am, I started to randomly look on the CareerChanger webpage. I was not too impressed by the jobs that popped up.
There were a lot of teaching positions or opportunities that I might consider, such as librarian, but that require a new master’s degree. So, I took an interest assessment to find out whether I can explore new career paths. Similar jobs came out, but I started to explore them and like in a rabbit hole.
I was happy to come upon jobs I would have never imagined they existed.
One of these jobs, which seems perfect for me, is the content acquisition associate at Newsela. This position is ideal for people like me with a background in communication.
Later, I took the skill assessment, and I discovered a list of 150 jobs. Many of these opportunities overlap with those from the interest assessment, but again, I tried to find out if these jobs can really fit me.
“Hollywood, I’m coming!”
Another student posted:
I visited the CareerOneStop website and I did both the interest assessment and the skill assessment. They gave me similar and very interesting results. The bad news (considering my career and experience) is that half of my strongest interests and skills are related to artistic careers.
I’m ready to become an actor or a music director or a singer. Hollywood, I’m coming!
The same student was both prolific and funny! The entry blow spells the frustration so many newcomers feel about the language barrier, the lack of professional connections and the like.
I’ve started looking for a job in my field and after the first few months, I’m a little demoralized. Why? I’ve applied for lots of jobs, but I haven’t received a call or a reply so far.
I’ve never received so little interest in my professional experience in the entire career! “What are my weaknesses?” I asked myself.
- I’ve always studied English, but I’m not fluent enough to find a job. That’s a big problem!
- I don’t have professional experience in the U.S. That’s another big problem!
- I have an established and broad network of contacts across all Europe, but I don’t have enough connections here. That’s the biggest problem!
Welcome back to reality!
On Networking
When you get here from Italy, do you feel as if you’ve been dropped on the moon? Can I really ask for an informational interview to anyone? After some initial experiences, I understood that here in the United States the word “networking” is taken in a tremendously serious way.
There are precise rules, things to do, things not to do. Right now I’m trying to imagine the face of my last employer in Italy who sees an email with the subject: “Informational interview.”
But, here, I can contact someone and ask for a quick chat to gather information about a job, career field, industry, or workplace so I can determine if it’s a “fit” for me.
It works because I did it!
Trust
“I trust you because I liked your story and so I offer you a job,” or, “I trust you and so I open the doors of my network.”
One of the best ways to land a new job here is by getting people to know you, like you and trust you. Unbelievable!
Everything is based on trust, not on the “raccomandazione*.” (Please, Tiziana and Joye let me know if there is a word in English to translate this typical Italian custom.) That’s the way to do networking here. That explains why many generations of Italians came here.
Bruce Springsteen sings these words in a song: “Mister I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man and I believe in a promised land, I believe in a promised land…”
*The word means receiving and unfair advantage based on nepotism. Joye Dawkins is the English language teacher I partnered with to teach The JobUp.
“Ice-breaker in NYC or Ice-breaker in the Arctic Ocean?”
Is it easier to pilot an ice-breaker in the Arctic Ocean or use an ice-breaker to start a conversation at a networking event in NYC? I attended two networking events in my field last week. I can answer with a certain degree of certainty that I would have preferred to be in the icy north winds surrounded by polar bears than in a conference hall in New York City’s financial district surrounded by networking sharks!
I know how to do it in my language and the business rules in my country. I know the best way to ask or when to give my business card. Here I feel like an intern on the first day of work.
The first networking event was a disaster with only two business cards in the pocket: one per event!
But despite all that, immigrants continue to believe in the American experiment and the ideal that a person could aspire to fulfill his or her potential.
I Have A Dream
When I moved here, I was thrilled about this new challenge! I’ve always dreamed of having a long-term experience abroad. I have long dreamed of it. I visited its streets when I was a child. I remember the wonder in front of the tall buildings. It was love at first sight. I returned when I was a young adult at the beginning of my career. I remember the energy that it gave me. Those three months were the most intense of my life.
Well, here we are — New York City.
