Originally published in the July 2009 issue

The end of the world comes. I survive and I'm warming my hands by a trash-can fire with the other survivors, and we're figuring out what each of us can do in our little postapocalyptic community. You're a doctor? Okay, you can fix hearts. You're a plumber? Great, go plumb something. They get to me: What can you do? I'm an editor at a men's magazine, I say. But what can you do? I'm a journalist, I explain. But what are you qualified to do? Huh. Good question. Like most Americans, I don't have any kind of technical certification or graduate degree. I'm not great with computers, and I'm not really handy with tools or machines, either. I'm pretty good at my job, but unless Mad Max and co. need some help cleaning up their prose or selecting the Sexiest Remaining Woman Alive, I'm afraid my practical skills are somewhat limited. But then this is only a daydream — the past year has only seemed like the end of the world. Still, as the prospect of getting laid off has gone from doomsday scenario to near universal dread, I've sat up nights, wondering and worrying and wrestling with the same questions that weigh on so many of us: What the hell would I do if I lost my job? And, more important, what the hell could I do?

So over the course of six weeks this winter, I applied for about three hundred jobs. I applied to be a marketing designer at Nascar, a personal shopper at Tiffany, and a methadone counselor at Rikers Island. I applied to be the vice-president of collections and exhibitions at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, a product designer at La-Z-Boy, a housekeeper on a cruise ship, a butler in a mansion, and a baby photographer. I applied to be a customer-service rep at Trump University, a multimedia coordinator at the Clinton Global Initiative, and some kind of manager at Toys "R" Us, Chuck E. Cheese's, Blockbuster, Home Depot, Starbucks, KFC, and McDonald's. (More on that last one later.) I applied to be an exterminator, a junior fashion designer, a men's buyer at Loehmann's, a women's buyer at Ann Taylor, and a sneaker salesman at Adidas. I applied to work in the human-resources department of the New York Fed, the environmental-underwriting department of AIG, and the underpaid-assistant department for a "titan of industry." ("Candidate must be thick-skinned.") I applied to be a security guard at Yankee Stadium, a front-desk clerk at a Hilton (graveyard shift), and a secretary, receptionist, or file clerk in every conceivable line of work in the greater New York City area. I did all this because I was nearing my thirtieth birthday and was curious what my education and experience qualified me to do in an age of unsparing economic upheaval. I did it because I knew the only way to gauge my qualifications accurately was to let the employment market dictate what I was and wasn't qualified to do. I did it because I wanted to see, as best I could, what it's like out there in the trenches for at least some of the millions of people who've lost their jobs since September. And I did it, if you really want to know the truth, because I was scared that I would become one of them.

I began by updating my résumé. Nothing unusual about it, just a series of jobs over seven years, one better than the next, and a degree in English from a decent school. I notified potential character references and asked them to be honest — or, you know, not — with potential queries. And in a kind of social experiment, I drafted three different cover letters — one all hot air, one all business, and one just plain folksy — and alternated among them equally to see which style was most effective. (More on that later, too.) And then I began applying. Every day, I would scour three major Internet job sites (The New YorkTimes/Monster.com, Yahoo! HotJobs, and CareerBuilder.com; Craigslist — where the term job is used loosely, if not pornographically — is usually more trouble than it's worth). There were, of course, a few ground rules: I wouldn't apply for a job if it required a degree, accreditation, or license that I didn't have, because there's no point in wasting anyone's time if I'm technically unqualified. I wouldn't apply to any positions in the magazine or newspaper world, because I'm already sort of aware of my qualifications in that field. (And the frightening truth is, there aren't many jobs available, anyway.) I wouldn't lie about my experiences or expectations on any of my applications or during interviews. No surrogates would interview in my place, Good Will Hunting, "Retaainer!" style. And, whenever possible, I would say yes. Or, more specifically, Yes! Would I work nights and weekends? Yes! Would I assent to a background check or join a union? Yes! Do I require a work visa, or have I ever been arrested? Well, no, but in the context of convincing someone that I'm perfect for a job, that no is really a yes! Because yes! is what you say when you want work so badly that you'd walk across a graveyard at midnight to get it. If someone ever decided to offer me a job, I would turn it down. That's work that could go to someone else, and I wasn't about to take an opportunity away from someone who needs it. Not that any of this would really get that far.

My first interview opportunity came almost immediately. The owner of a trendy breakfast joint in TriBeCa was looking for an assistant manager, and about an hour after I'd submitted my résumé, he e-mailed me back: "Alright publisher boy... I'm interested. I totally understand that your industry is getting pounded on. I would love to meet you just to hear what you have to say." I'd never really worked in a restaurant before, but if the guy was willing to take a chance, so was I. A few days later I showed up at the restaurant wearing a navy-blue suit and my lucky necktie — the same outfit I would wear to every subsequent interview — which made me feel like kind of an ass when the owner used his T-shirt to wipe his nose. (Twice.) He explained that he was looking to attract bigger crowds and that a "chimp on Xanax" could do the job. He wanted new ideas and maybe I was his guy, but there was one problem, aside from my not having any relevant experience: It seemed like I had a great job. What the hell was I doing there? I answered, as I would a dozen times over the next few weeks, as honestly as I could: I'd been working in the same industry for a few years and was looking to explore new options. He nodded. I smiled and made a crack about wanting free pancakes, too, and that more or less brought things to a close. He sent me off with some homework — review a competitor's menu and drum up some big, bold ideas that could boost business — and made a tentative suggestion that I come back to meet his staff. I later wrote a thank-you note, by hand, and turned in my assignment. (I faulted the competitor's menu for its prissy tone — "organic" this, "grass-fed" that — and used phrases like "loss leader" and "all-you-can-eat buffet" to articulate my big, bold ideas.) I admit, in retrospect, this must seem kind of lame, but you have to remember that I didn't have the first clue about how I could help this guy improve his restaurant. And who doesn't love an all-you-can-eat buffet? I waited to hear back. I followed up. Twice. Nothing.

Luckily, about a week later a slightly less trendy breakfast joint contacted me about an assistant-manager position. It's not entirely unflattering to hear you're potential management material, even if it's for a McDonald's franchise in a part of New York where the Law & Order cops find dead hookers. This interview wasn't in person, and my answers to the online questions were to be given in the form of one-word answers. Some of the questions were practical in nature. ("Always, sometimes, never: I complete assigned tasks more quickly than my coworkers.") Some were ethical. ("Always, sometimes, never: It's okay to borrow from the cash register, so long as I pay it back.") And some were even existential. ("In an ideal world, would you rather be a file clerk or a receptionist?" Which, if you think about it, is kind of heavy, and to which I replied, ambivalently, receptionist.) There was no real engagement, no spontaneous interaction, and I realized that each of my answers would probably be reduced to data and run through a very expensive machine that would determine whether or not I was truly McDonald's management material. The McDonald's brass, with their billions served and hellish turnover rates, had interviewing down to a science, and I wasn't all that surprised when I didn't hear back from them, either. Would it have ended differently if I'd met someone from McDonald's face-to-face, smiling and nodding and yessing my way into a second-round interview? Would I have felt better about the whole thing if I'd been rejected by a real person (as I'd been in TriBeCa) instead of a machine? Probably not. But the fact that two restaurants of vastly different character rejected me after single interviews (and that the likes of Papa John's and Hale & Hearty didn't even want to meet me) didn't bode well for my future in food service.

Working retail is my personal idea of hell, but a job's a job, and I applied to pretty much every store or sales floor in New York City. A few weeks into my search, I opened an e-mail from someone who'd seen my application for a sales-representative position: "My name is Benjamin.* I would like to thank you for your interest in our company and invite you over for a tour of our facilities." Which was great news, except for one problem: His facilities were a Chrysler dealership on the West Side of Manhattan. I know dick about cars and even less about selling cars, and there was the small matter of Chrysler's delicate financial condition. But I said yes — Yes! — and the next day I entered the vaulted glass emporium, empty but for some bored-looking employees and some impossibly shiny rides, and shook hands with crew-cut, all-American, thirty-something Benjamin. (I was expecting Buddy Garrity; I got Coach Taylor.) We weren't in his office a minute when he took a call from someone — his boss, judging from his shift in tone — checking in on the action that morning. Benjamin said they'd had two customers: one guy who'd had his car repossessed and was looking for a new one and another guy who no longer wanted to make his monthly payments and wanted to talk to someone about that. Benjamin recounted this without embarrassment — just another day, boss — before hanging up and telling me how loudly business was booming. He never asked about my knowledge of cars or car buyers, focusing instead on the dealership's pay structure — a hundred bucks a week, plus a very modest commission. He told me he was looking for people who understood people — the rest he could teach me — and after about twenty minutes, he said he'd open a spot for me if I wanted one. This was my first real prospect. It wasn't much — a hundred bucks a week doesn't go far in Manhattan, and American cars aren't exactly selling themselves — but for an enterprising man, a hungry man, it would've been enough. After our meeting we played phone tag for a while, and I eventually sent him my regrets. In the last of our e-mail exchanges, he included a postscript: "If you know of anyone who might be interested in the job, I will need another two to three guys." I asked around, mostly among my unemployed friends. No takers.

*This name has been changed for the purposes of this story.

Pretty soon I heard from Macy's. I'd been applying there for a while — they post a few new jobs a week — and I was finally invited to interview for a sales position. I made my way through the bowels of its huge flagship store until I reached a warren of back offices that resembled my local DMV: uncomfortable chairs lined up in rows, beige wallpaper, and a few women in their early twenties waiting to be interviewed. Two of the applicants were friends who said they'd both been looking for work for three weeks. "No receptionist jobs, no secretaries, no nothing," one of them told me, and I nodded. Me, too. I asked the other woman in the room, a chubby girl with glasses and a big smile, if she'd had any luck. This was her big break, she said. She'd applied for a job in beauty and she was just so excited to be there. She wanted to work in the movies someday, and after applying to, like, a hundred other jobs and only hearing back from Macy's, she knew this was fate. I was excited for her and, to be honest, a little jealous. I'd forgotten what it was like to interview for a job you really wanted, and I realized that I lacked that sense of excitement, that clarity of purpose that rings as loud and true as a church bell. I had to do something about my energy level.

I eventually found myself sitting across from a pretty HR rep with frosted curly hair and long acrylic nails. We talked mostly about customer service — what it meant, how I'd provide it, why it was important at Macy's — and I told her I got it. I knew how to shop and I knew how to sell; this is how I'd sell that suit or this is how I'd push the warranty on a flat-screen TV. Customer service is everything, I told her, and she smiled and nodded. I was on. She said she'd pass my résumé along to the department heads, and if there was any interest, one of them would be in touch directly. Later that day I bragged to my wife that I'd nailed my Macy's interview, that I had this woman eating out of the palm of my hand. It never occurred to me — not until recently, anyway, when I realized Macy's would never call me — that maybe she felt sorry for me. That all her smiling and nodding was a simple act of human kindness, of pity, for a loudmouth with no sales experience. Interviews can be funny that way: You can walk away knowing less about the job and more about yourself than you'd like to admit.

They can be funny in other ways, too. About a week after the Macy's interview, I applied for a position selling jewelry at an Upper East Side boutique, and the owner called me back himself. His English was, at best, broken, and for the first few minutes of our conversation, I might as well have been talking to Beaker from the Muppets. That didn't stop me, though. Oh, no. When in doubt, I said yes! or asked him to repeat the question, and I was able to make out that he wanted to meet me. I arrived at the shop the following day to find a middle-aged man who was a dead ringer in every aspect save his impenetrable accent for Lloyd from Entourage. We sat in his back room, and joining us for the interview was an obese woman of central-Asian extraction who kept the books and wore her velour sweatpants snug around her thighs. We talked about how the ideal applicant would be honest, trustworthy, kind, and smart, and how he would have to make wealthy women feel good about buying jewelry. That's when Lloyd asked me to sell him some jewelry. I swallowed. Lloyd would pretend he was a wealthy woman who needed one piece of jewelry for an evening gala and one for a garden party, and it was my job to pick two pieces from the store's inventory and make the sale. Lloyd and the bookkeeper waited silently as I got up and then came back with my selections.

Me: So, uh, for your gala, we have this extraordinary cubic-zirconia necklace, which, uh, would fall so beautifully on your neck and frame your collarbone perfectly.

Lloyd: But my husband kill me if I come home with more diamond!

Me: But once he sees you with this on, ma'am, he'll fall in love with you all over again. And it's a classic. You'll wear it forever. You could pass it on to your daughters.

Lloyd: But I never had children.

Me:...

Lloyd: Okay. What about garden party?

Me: For that I have this beautiful, um, coral and, uh, semiprecious-stone necklace that's in the shape of flowers. Like the kind you find in a garden. Where you're having your party. It's a classic. You would own the garden party. It would look really great with your collarbone.

Lloyd: Okay, I buy.

This episode, during which a small part of me died, was a revelation: It was the first time anyone had asked me to prove that I could do the job I was applying for. All the answers and explanations, all the words about what I could do, were irrelevant. It was put up or shut up, and as I packed up my things to leave, Lloyd said the damnedest thing. He was a jeweler, he said. He could recognize a gem even when everyone else saw a stone. All he needs is a good stone, he said, and he could do the rest. An impressive and poignant metaphor, particularly for a man who apparently learned English by watching Dynasty, and it may explain why he never called again.

My first shot at a real office job didn't come until a few weeks into my search, and it was an instance of how a few simple questions asked during the application process can save everybody and their nice Italian shoes a lot of trouble. I'd applied for a junior-executive position at a sports-marketing agency, and someone called me back. Would I like to come by the office for an interview? Yes! Would I like to come in tomorrow afternoon at, say, 3:30? Yes! Do I need directions to their offices in New Jersey? Yes! I hung up and wondered how the hell I was going to get to New Jersey. I don't own a car — I live in New York — so I did some digging and discovered a New Jersey Transit bus could drop me a stone's throw from the office. Nice. But about a half hour into my ride, I realized that NJT bus drivers don't always announce the names of the stops. This driver didn't, anyway, so I convinced myself that we'd already passed my stop and hopped off the bus. There I was, standing on a sidewalk in the wilds of industrial north Jersey, when raindrops the size of lemons started falling. I walked back a few blocks and found a crossing guard, a Wilford Brimley type with a bushy mustache and an orange reflective vest, who told me I was about four miles from my destination. I got off too early. Fuck. I was soaking wet, there were no cabs in sight, and my shoes were slowly drowning. The crossing guard must have sensed my distress — I suspect Helen Keller could've sensed my distress — so he said I could wait with him in his little brick hut until the next bus came. In a half hour. The kindness of strangers — it never gets old.

The man had been a crossing guard for only a few months. He'd retired from the police force last summer and started looking for part-time work. Turns out, he told me, that kind of work can be hard to come by, but he had a buddy over at City Hall who set him up as a crossing guard. Easy work, decent pay, cute kids: Apparently you need some connections to become a crossing guard these days. The next bus eventually pulled up. I thanked my new friend and made my way to the office. My potential new employer was twenty-four, tops, and his questions were of the most pedestrian variety: Why did I apply to this new job? (I love sports!) What are my two biggest strengths? (Enthusiasm and intelligence. I then added modesty, which he jotted down without skipping a beat.) He tells me that he's looking for a people person, someone with good communication skills to help his young sports-marketing firm grow. He saw some potential in my résumé but told me he had a few more candidates to meet before he'd be in touch again. The whole interview took about ten minutes, handshake to handshake; the whole trip took about five hours, and everything the company learned about me — that I was probably unqualified or at least not as well qualified as someone with actual sports-marketing experience — could've been deduced from a few simple questions up front. I didn't hear back from him, of course, and my shoes haven't looked the same since.

That was the day I realized my little experiment had to come to an end. I went on to interview for a few more jobs — one of which, a financial-services sales rep at MetLife, became a real prospect, but only if I would provide them with the name, phone number, and household income of everyone I've ever met. (I passed.) For weeks now, my ego has been negotiating the aftermath — the employers must have known I wasn't desperate for a job, my application system was flawed, I wasn't unqualified but rather not as qualified as other applicants — but the results speak for themselves: three hundred résumés sent, eight interviews, and two real prospects, both doing something I think I would hate. I like to think it's a coincidence that those prospects happened to be in ailing industries, but I'm not so sure. I also like to think I've learned a few practical things that could be useful to others looking for a job — that a folksy cover letter ("Give me a shot, you won't be sorry... ") is more effective than a formal one ("I would love to explain a little more about my professional and personal assets... "), that experience matters a lot in restaurant management but not as much in sales, that you should look to struggling industries for unexpected opportunities — but who am I kidding? I batted, like, 0.006; I'm the last person you want advice from.

No. I tried to find decent paying work and I failed, and after sitting through all the interviews and secretly congratulating myself that I was better than all of this and that this was all one big joke, I discovered that the joke is really on me. Today's job market is brutal — it frightens and offends, exhausts and unmoors, and reminds even arrogant men who already have jobs of the countless things they can never be. It's a bracing realization. But I also realized something else. When that trash-can fire slowly dies out and we all turn to the task of rebuilding the economy, I'm not sure I'll be so uneasy about what I may or may not be qualified to do. I think I'll just be happy to do what I can, whatever it takes to start again.

Richard Dorment Richard Dorment is the editor-in-chief of Men’s Health.

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