I’ll Take One Job with Great Benefits, Please!
Analyze job description. Add words from job description onto personal resume. Open personal template for cover letter (if the job even requests one). Copy and paste. Edit a few details. Submit. And repeat for the next job application. The process is repetitive, mundane, and a waste of time. LinkedIn easy apply is ten times worse; your defaulted resume is used unless otherwise stated and it submits your application in less than 3 seconds. Should searching for your passion, job, career, or role in life be this easy and thoughtless? In addition to the boring process, there are two other details regarding job apps that make the overall concept much worse. Job requirements and the review process. Brands are recruiting young designers and fashion personnel to bring innovation and fresh insight into their creative processes, which is great. The problem arises when they post a job with requirements quickly eliminating any young designers from even a tiny chance at scoring the job. Job postings usually look like the following: Bachelor’s degree in fashion or equivalent field; 3-5, or 5-10, years of experience in the industry, etc. So, a young designer who just graduated from a fashion school and is excitedly scanning job listings is vastly taken aback at the requirements of 3-10 years of experience! They just graduated. How in the world is anyone expected to gain experience if the minimum requirement for work is 3 years in the field?! This is outright ridiculous. Internships in the industry rarely give you the hands-on experience required for these jobs so it would be more than ignorant to count these as years of experience. So, what can these unemployed, young fashion souls do? Hope. Hope that one employer pities them enough to give them the chance to interview. On top of this, we have the tech based, automated review process that crushes any young designer’s chance even further from updating their LinkedIn profile to employed. The review process has people basically conducting and solving math equations to win the lottery of a basic interview. The automated process that most employers now use to check and review resumes consists of a system that scans your resumes for key words that match the job. The more key words found on your resume, the higher chance you have of getting ushered to the next step of the application process. If you have no words that match, your resume gets denied and you are emailed the regurgitated “We regret to inform you” or “We have decided to move on with other candidates” statements. I graduated as class Valedictorian from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in March 2020 right when the pandemic hit the U.S. I already knew finding a job in the industry was going to be a struggle, but I was not mentally prepared for what was to come. My amazing career counselor connected me with a brand and an opportunity to interview with them. I interviewed with around 5 people from the company and was asked to come back for a second interview in a few days. I was thrilled. The night before my second interview, I received an email stating the company was closing its job posting and would be pausing the hiring process as the pandemic was creating issues in the supply chain. Can you hear the air coming out of the deflating balloon? I was devastated, but I tried to remain positive. Our school had a tradition of hosting a Portfolio night where employers and family were invited to see some of the students’ best work. Jobs were never promised by this night, but you had the chance of connecting with employers and possibly scoring an interview as they put faces to names on applications. This night, days before it was due to take place, was canceled due to the pandemic and would not be rescheduled. Finals were put online, and school was closed. I did not get to celebrate graduating or enjoy a last day of school. I completed my finals and began the search. I created accounts on LinkedIn, Indeed, and individual brand websites in hopes of getting any job at any level in the industry. Rejection. No response. Rejection. I applied to over 50 jobs, there were not a lot of jobs being offered at the time, until I was offered a position at a start-up company almost six months after graduating. Sometimes I ask myself if I would have even found a job if the pandemic was not creating remote positions and flexible lifestyles? The industry was already competitive without a global pandemic obliterating our world.
The global fashion industry is valued at $3 trillion and equates to 2% of the global GDP [1]. In the U.S. alone, fashion employment in the industry is 1.9 million [1]. New York City as the fashion capital has a labor force of 4.2 million, but where are all the jobs? In 2021, the industry, and world, has reached a new era: the great resignation [2]. No one wants to work after seeing a lifestyle they never knew existed before. During the pandemic and global shutdown, people were forced to stay home and work from home. We no longer had to worry about commuting via bus, train, car, bike, etc. We simply rolled out of bed, grabbed a drink, and started our day on the computer. People started revamping their homes, customizing their spaces, and spending quality time with their loved ones. And the kicker? They LOVED it! Another cause of the great resignation was fueled by employees reaching their limits with how their employers treated them. Almost 650,000 retail workers in the U.S. quit in a single month [2]. People are beginning to demand better working conditions. Work from home (WFH) is the new norm and one of the most demanded conditions by employees now. Statistics show that around 20% of people worked from home before the pandemic, 71% currently work from home, and 54% want to stay working from home after the pandemic [3]. 64% of employees surveyed say it is easy to feel motivated to do their work while working from home [3]. It also benefits employers who will no longer have to pay operating costs for the buildings and offices people once worked in. Google, Snapchat, and Amazon do not have to buy their employees meals or provide transportation and gym access. Google is no longer allowing its employees to expense out food or gym costs as they work from home as of May 2020 [4]. Companies save money. So, this has led to an increased satisfaction in employees who can work from the comfort of their own homes as well as happy employers who save costs. What’s the issue? Well, some people do not know when to stop working since they live where they work, causing intense burnout. Bosses are having to deal with their trust issues wondering if their employees are working when they say they are. Some have even mandated Zoom cameras be always on during work hours! It is legally allowed for them to require this in most cases and employees can actually be terminated for insubordination if they do not comply [5]. Others caught sight of enjoying life and do not want to go physically back to work when it is once again being demanded. Hence the mass resignation. People value their lives over their jobs now that they have seen “the other side” and are changing their lifestyles. Now that people do not want to work, jobs should begin to open to those seeking work, right? Wrong. The mass resignation has brought about a new issue where people are opting out of hard-working, time-consuming jobs. Those who still want the job aren’t qualified enough to be offered it.
Employers need to lower their standards to a reasonable request to give us a chance or they may run out of employees to run their businesses. How do employees truly gain any experience without being given the chance to learn? Is this why the younger generations are now the generation of entrepreneurs? Employers aren’t giving them the chance, so they are making their own opportunities. How many failed start-ups does it take for employers to realize there exists a huge pool of eligible future employees waiting to learn and grow? Unemployment skyrocketed during the pandemic and still exists as people cannot find jobs. The implications of our broken system are far worse than high unemployment. The events of 2020 and 2021 plus the entire job application process have created and fostered a generational issue. Inexperienced, skill-lacking young people today are being ushered towards laziness, impatience, and a lack of respect. Unemployment benefits and stimulus checks during the pandemic were life savers for a lot of people, but they were also terrible tokens given to people who quit jobs to get higher pay from unemployment [6]. Blue collar jobs were low staffed and young people were lounging about as the world fed them check after check. Don’t get me wrong, some people used and needed the money for their livelihood. However, there did exist a group of the population that abused it, just like with anything else in this world. This kind of behavior has become embedded in some of the young generation’s DNA: laziness, the “you owe me” attitude, and disrespect. How will younger generations learn responsibility and hard work if they are never given a job? The fashion industry needs a revamp. If younger designers are being desired to provide a fresh perspective, they need to at least make it through the first gate of the application process: the resume requirements. How will the industry ever fix itself or will fashion and creative industry employers wait for the system to totally fail, and then pick up the broken pieces?
So, here’s looking at you, employers. Make realistic job requirements. Give people a chance; they may surprise you. If they don’t, you can let them go. How will you ever know if you don’t try? Studies have shown that hiring someone fresh out of the educational institute can give you a blank canvas to work with. Fashion employers can teach the new employee how to do tasks the way their brand does. These young eyes do not yet have bad habits from working so long in the industry. Go ahead, pick up that resume with a year or two of experience and request an interview. All that could possibly be wasted is a few minutes of your day, but it could potentially change a person’s life. We are happy to inform you that you got the job!
REFERENCES
[1] https://fashionunited.com/global-fashion-industry-statistics/
[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/upshot/unemployment-pandemic-worker-shortages.html