Stop Apologizing for Your Work History

When I moved to Chicago the summer after my sophomore year in college, I was nineteen. I planned to wait tables in Chicago, the same kind of work I'd done as a student in New York. I had made a lot of money waiting tables.

I didn't realize that the drinking age in Chicago back then was 21. I wasn't old enough to serve alcohol, so none of the nicer restaurants would hire me.

I had to go indoors and do office work. Oh no, I thought, how will I make enough money to pay my rent?

The office jobs advertised in the newspaper paid at most five bucks an hour. I had no choice -- I had to apply for a low-paying office job, whether I liked it or not. Maybe I can find a really cheap place to live, I thought.

I went on tons of interviews and didn't get any offers. On paper, I looked like an odd-duck candidate. I had two years of vocal performance instruction under my belt. I could sing opera and musical theatre. I could draw.

The Personnel people (that's what they were called in those days) didn't know what to do with me. My resume confused them. You know how it is with amoebas and other single-celled organisms. They only recognize two things: predators, and prey.

Amoebas don't say "Ah! Here is something new. Let me ask some questions and learn more about this person." No way! When they don't understand something, they fear it. The Personnel ladies let me know right away that I wasn't their cup of tea.

They did everything but shove garlic and a cross in my face within three minutes of meeting me.

"I don't understand your background," said one lady. "You worked for Smith Barney in New York - that's a good company. Why did you leave?"

"That was a part-time job," I said. "I left because I decided to move to Chicago."

"But why?" asked the woman. That was a reasonable question. I asked many job-seekers the same thing, years later.

"My friend was coming to Chicago and he asked me to join him," I said. "I lived my whole life on the east coast and I was ready for a change."

The lady looked ready to faint on the carpet. "You came here without a job?" she asked.

Yes, I came to Chicago without a job, I answered her in my mind, since most employers aren't making long-distance five-dollar-an-hour job offers to nineteen-year-old punk rock opera singers, as far as I know.

The lady couldn't imagine anyone having the confidence to move cross-country without a job and without any money.

Good thing she didn't know that my friend and I had a hundred bucks between us. If you can't take a chance when you're nineteen and have no obligations or encumbrances, when can you take a chance?

"I don't think we can use you," she said.

I went on an interview with an executive in an office overlooking the Chicago river. "Nice view," I said.

The guy said "If you get hired here, you'll sit in a cube over there - there's no view." That is the weirdest possible thing you could have said, I thought. I couldn't imagine how I could work for the guy.

"So, where did you get your degree?" he asked, to start off the interview.

"I don't have a degree yet," I said. "I have half a degree in vocal performance from the Manhattan School of Music. I'm an opera singer. Of course, I know how to type and file and talk on the phone. I did that kind of work in New York."

He didn't ask me any questions about music, or about my experience doing office work. "No degree?" he asked.

I had to bite my lip in half to keep from saying "No, I haven't earned any new degrees since the last time you asked me that, ten seconds ago. Why didn't you look at my resume before calling me in here?"

I had one interviewing outfit, and it was dry-clean only. My new pantyhose had cost me three bucks.

"I'm nineteen," I said. "I'll have my degree by the time I'm twenty-three or so, I expect."

This guy cannot shift his worldview one inch, I thought. He's never interviewed anyone without a college degree before. He's completely befuddled. And he's an executive! Oh dear, the grown-up world is in even worse shape than I suspected.

The guy said "We have a very sophisticated clientele here. I can't imagine that you'd be able to interact with them appropriately, without a degree."

My dear fellow, I thought, are you on drugs?

Ask me one question, my darling, I thought. Ask me something useful. Ask me about the manners my old-school mother drummed into me and my siblings.

Ask me about correspondence, or how to handle people with kid gloves. Ask me about the mother-of-pearl opera glasses I got for my ninth birthday and how excited I was to get them. Ask me about American history or literature or world affairs - or any of the things your sophisticated clientele might be interested in.

Ask me what I've read or how I talk to people on the phone or the thesaurus I keep in my purse. Ask me how I'd handle a tricky client solution. Ask me something!

Nope!

Mr. Can't Get Off the Script had already heard everything he needed to know to make up his mind. "I think we're done here," he said.

I was depressed during the long elevator ride down to the lobby. I walked out into the sunlight on Michigan Avenue and thought Thank you, God! I wouldn't last two weeks with that dork. Something better is out there for me. It has to be!

It was.

It was at least six months later that it hit me what Mr. Sophisticated Clientele was worried about. He was nervous that he himself was not the guy to give his clients the kid-glove treatment they expected and deserved.

He was swimming in deep water without a lifesaver. I could have helped the poor dude, but as we've always been told, God helps those who help themselves. Weenies are on their own!

You may have run into people who belittled your work history, your education or some aspect of your background they found lacking. You may have felt bad about yourself when that happened.

It is helpful to remember that lots of people are mired in fear. There are haters, fools, amoebas, weenies and idiots everywhere. It is normal to feel angry and hurt when someone judges you, but after a little while, you may feel sorry for that person.

They are so fearful that they can't really see you. They have to put you in a box, so that their own box stays warm and snug. Nothing new can enter their field of vision.

Those people have nothing to do with you. You don't need their approval. It's a waste of your time and precious mojo to seek approval from people like that. If they're a hiring manager, God bless the poor people who work for them!

If they're a recruiter and they look down their nose at you, you already know that they couldn't help you anyway. Fearful people put other people down. Confident people lift other people up.

You are perfect and capable right now. Anyone who judges your work history and finds it lacking is utterly undeserving of your talents. Only foolish and fearful people believe that they can tell anything useful about you based merely on where you worked and went to school.

Those things are just a small piece of who you are!

If you want to know about a person, you have to ask questions. Not everyone can do that. Some people prefer to sit in judgment. Those people can't help you. What feels like rejection in the moment is actually a gift -- a message from the universe that you're aiming too low.

As a hiring manager, you have to learn who a job candidate is and how s/he thinks in order to understand him or her. Many managers have hired "blue-chip" candidates without asking questions, and lived to regret it.

If you make snap judgments based on the barest facts -- the brand names of colleges and employers -- you'll miss what's unique and amazing about each person.

As a job seeker and working person, as long as you believe that your job history or your lack of some magical qualification (a certification or an Ivy League degree, for instance) damns you to second-rate employment opportunities, your belief will come true.

When you decide that you're worthy of the career and the life you want because of who you are, rather than because of anything on your resume, then you'll be worthy of it. What you believe you deserve is what you'll get.

Not everyone will agree with your assessment of your own capabilities. Not everyone wants to see your flame grow. Some people want to hold you back. They'll tell you not to believe in yourself.

God bless the haters! People like the high-rise amoeba guy nudge us back on our path.

I was nineteen and the high-rise guy was about forty when my story took place, so he's probably retired by now. Did he ever evolve past the amoeba stage, to consider that everything important in life isn't contained in keywords and brand names on a resume?

I couldn't tell you. I don't remember the guy's name. He's on his path, I'm on mine and you are on your own wonderful journey. Don't let anybody but you define you or tell you what you can't do. Your job is to go forth and prove the doubters and haters wrong!

Read Liz Ryan's story "If You Hear This On a Job Interview, Run!" on Forbes!

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