Salient Weekly Challenge: 100 Resumes on Lambton Quay

Within the span of a week, I’ll be trying to accomplish a long-term task just to see if it’s possible, and to see what I can get out of it. Life lessons, skills, resilience training? The stimulation alone should be enough motivation.

Currently, I work a lot. By day I slave in the Salient office, but by night I’m my alter ego: hospitality Front of House. My parents always forcefully encouraged me to have a job or two during study. In the past three years, I’ve complained to them endlessly about wanting to find a new job that pays better, and how hard job hunting always is. 

They always respond the same way: 

“Why don’t you just cold call and hand your CV into some places?” 

And in response I go, “Boy, what a stupid idea. What is this, the 80s, Helen?”

In my head, obviously. Never disrespect Helen Tickner, working mother-of-two, to her face.

As of late, I’ve realized I’ve never actually cold-called on places for a job. I’ve always painstakingly tailored CVs and cover letters for specific roles, cherry-picked applications online, and nervously handed in papers to outlets that advertise they’re hiring. I decided to finally take the advice of Generation X and ask for a job face-to-face, to see if I can get an interview from cold-calling within a week. 

What better place to try than Lambton Quay? 

Lambton Quay contains numerous retail spaces, banks, and major corporate buildings. Nearly a kilometre long, it bustles with people bunched in big suits and fancy clothing. As a Cuba Street kid, I hate it. But there are smaller places, such as the occasional cafe or salon, that aren't big businesses requiring a 9-5 commitment. Therefore, it's an excellent smorgasbord of establishments to go on a tirade announcing that I desire a job.

There are countless buildings on Lambton, so I decided to simply print off 100 CVs and 100 cover letters, all exactly the same and stating the same general things. I think I’d rather peel 100 hangnails than write 100 individual resumes that say the same thing. After everyone in the Salient office rightfully ripped the wording and punctuation of my cover letter to shreds—and reworked it, thank you Sub-editor Holly—I went out on the town with a stack of CVs to beg for a job with. 

Editor’s Note: I didn’t check Will’s CV very hard when he went to hand it out; I just helped him print it. But I did redact items from it when it was going to print. And my advice, on reflection, is this: check your spelling of “permanent” in your CV. Will spelled it wrong… very “Creative Thinking” of him. 

When I approached each establishment on Lambton, I’d say the exact same thing at every front desk: 

“Hello, I’d like to apply for any and all open positions you have. Here’s my CV and cover letter. I’m looking for anything from casual to full time. I am available Monday through Friday, and am flexible on weekends.”

My deliveries of desperation began at the banking end of Lambton, home to the Kiwibank, ANZ, and BNZ buildings. Handing in my papers to big banks with no warning was my biggest worry, but I was pleasantly surprised at how professional their staff was. I struck up a genuinely nice conversation with the lady at the front desk of Kiwibank about how poor the job market was, and she told me that while they didn’t have any open positions, they would post positions online to Seek & Indeed. I thanked her, and she told me she’d pass my CV onto her manager. As I skipped away, my happiness began to dwindle as I slowly started hearing these exact same answers from nearly every single place.

“You can actually just apply online.”

“I will pass this on to my manager.”

“We actually just hired a whole bunch of people.”

“Sorry, we are not hiring at the moment…”

“...but we will keep it on-hand in case we are.”

By the time I got to Countdown, I had started to get so jaded hearing the same rejections. At Cotton On, I finished the worker's sentence about applying online. Some places outright didn’t accept physical CVs due to sustainability, such as Lush and Mecca. 

Other places didn’t accept my CV because I’m probably too good for them, like Swarovski Crystal.

I was doing the same mundane task and saying the same thing over and over to the point of autopilot. For example, at Shosta Vape Shop, I accidentally said to the girl at the counter, “Here's my CoverC and VLetter." As I turned to leave, I’m fairly certain I heard her tear my paper in two and scrunch it into a ball. While there’s no problem getting rid of trash, the least that girl could do was wait till I was out of the store. After handing out about 80 papers in one day, I put a pause on my rejection therapy. Stores were beginning to close.

I started my second day flying my papers by heading up the elevators of the Lambton skyscrapers. I’ve always been curious as to what’s up in the sky above my emergency grocery shopping. While most of the floors required ID, it was surprisingly easy to get public access to certain floors simply by waltzing in. In those tall buildings, I felt completely out of my depth asking for a job at law firms and consultants. I reminded myself this was mostly just for kicks to ask for a job as an underqualified applicant to The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists.

Despite how depressing this all was, I did find some pretty funny moments. There’s a lot of women's clothing fashion stores, and I handed my CV into all of them, including Bendon Lingerie. It’s sexy, dark, mysterious, and full of mannequins in bras. I entered nervous, beet red, and very much not wanting a job there. However, the young girls at the counter were so nice, and the three of us had a laugh about being desperate for a job in this economy when I told them, “Please don’t hire me.” 

On the other end of the spectrum was the men's clothing store Barkers. I came in and did the whole spiel I usually did, expecting to be told nothing but “thanks.” Instead, the guy at the counter started to give me a full mini interview right then and there. Taken off guard, I lost my confident autopilot behavior. I dropped the ball and waffled on about how retail and hospitality are the same—they’re not—so they should probably offer me a job. I don’t think I’ll be working there anytime soon.

Going into this, I knew there was no way I was going to get an interview in a week. To rub salt in the wound, a lot of older people would shoot me down, and then follow up with, “It’s so great to see you’re doing this, getting up and out there trying!” 

Eugh. Thanks. 

It’s now one week later and I’ve had no interviews for potential jobs on Lambton. Out of the 100 CVs I handed out, I received only two responses back: one from a law firm, another from a consulting group, both including the words “unfortunately.” They were quite nice responses, however, both taking the time to read through my CV and offer me alternatives with proper explanations. 

If I could do anything differently, I would have dressed myself more presentable and shaved before going out, instead of looking like a scraggly unemployed creature. It seems that the days of cold-calling in Wellington are over, and the era of online job application hell is here to stay. If I could recommend anything though, it would be handing in a physical CV and applying online. Or do whatever it takes to annoy businesses to remember your name and consider employing you. I may have failed this week's challenge, but that doesn’t mean you have to fail the challenge of being employed. Embarrass yourself and try to get a job.