Careering towards a career?

"Job? Did someone say job? Where? Where is it? Get out of my way, it's mine."

It’s the week of the Careers’ Fair. The one by the end of which all finalists dream they will have been handed a job over the table (or stand), based purely on the outstanding quality, originality and (probably feigned) interest of their five minute conversation with the recruiters. Something to the tune of, “Don’t bother applying online, son (daughter doesn’t have quite the same ring to it), we’ll have you right here, right now. In these last five minutes you’ve clearly demonstrated your fantastic organisational skills, ability to work in a team and charm your way through any conversation.”

Backtrack slightly. This may be everyone’s dream, but in terms of the Careers' Fair, is only realistic for those who relish the idea of selling their soul, since they're more or less the only companies there. Souls can bring in good money, I grant you, but Faust’s death knell echoes far too loudly in my ears for such a career to appeal. (The fact that I cannot do Maths, which most of the exhibitors, for want of a better word, require, is beside the point).



"If I look thoughtful and teeming with ideas, someone will snap me up…"

In spite of the perils of soul-trading, the honeypots that are Deloitte, KPMG and BNP Paribas, to name a few, were not wanting for a new intake of worker bees. Unfortunately for the bees, said companies do not, I think, actually hand out jobs over the table for them to get stuck into. This results in a very loud, anxious buzzing emanating from the room. It's as if all the bees in the world have buzzed on over to the same place because that is where the only flowering plant left in existence grows, and they're all just desperate to be the ones to earn their place in the hive by getting a little bit of nectar.

 (Small, largely unconnected aside, triggered by the mention of nectar: The Durham Revue, on the other hand, demonstrated in their Returners' Show last week that they have exactly the right idea about what nectar is: a stream of thought-provoking questions that cause the juices of the brain to flow abundantly with wonder and curiosity, expressed beautifully in song form by Ben Whittle)

The thing about the Careers' Fair is that everyone (myself included) seems to forget that these stands are not in fact the only flowering plants left in the world. Even if the garden of jobs is somewhat barren at the moment after the drought of the last couple of years, there are other jobs; it's just that most of them don't seed themselves on your doorstep.

If you are not one of these worker bees then your dream job will probably fall into one of the following categories regarding application:

a). A military career, which has a rigorous but not quite so cut-throat application system as City jobs.

b). There is a plentiful supply of graduate schemes in your field, advertised and to be applied for online.

c). Nepotism (not a bad thing, as long as it's you getting the job and not someone else).

d). None of the above. You are still panicking.

Mine falls into category d), which means looking for weeks and weeks of work experience. But those weeks are interesting and, dare I say it, exciting. The only downside is that while the soul-sellers are earning themselves a nice pile of cash on an internship to fund their final year, I wince every time I have to top up my Oyster card.

Still, the way I see it is this: 'career' is a terrifying noun. But, it is also a verb, one that implies a certain lack of control, as opposed to direction. As in the internal monologue, 'I am on my horse careering towards a fence and I can't stop. Shit.' Or the newspaper report, 'When the steering and the brakes stopped working his car careered off the road.' Since there's nothing like a bit of adrenalin to liven life up a bit, careering seems to me to be the best way to arrive at a career.

Plus, while careering is an electrifying experience for you, it also provides mountains of material for inducing merriment in the work place du jour. You will be able to tell tales of how you careered towards a fence on a horse (or similar work-related adventure such as bumping into Boris on his bike/Ellie Goulding in a cafe, asking him/her for an interview and getting it published in your local rag). This, naturally, will demonstrate your fantastic organisational skills, ability to think on your feet and charm your way through any conversation, just as in the sugar-coated thoughts of the wannabe City-workers.

Think outside the box, the hive, or what you will and then, as if by magic (but actually by a wonderful adventure of roundabout, up and down careering), you have… a job.