The Culture Study Job Fair

Help others find jobs — or post about the sort of job you're looking for

Over the past four months I’ve received a bunch of shitty emails. Not shitty in form, or shitty in intent, but shitty in ramifications. These emails came from people who’d worked for the U.S. federal government in some way (or in an industry funded by the government) who have been unceremoniously (and in many cases, illegally) laid off. They were longtime subscribers, but with so many ex-government employees flooding the market and an already difficult job market, it was time to cut out what could be cut.

I’ve comped a subscription for every person who’s emailed me. That has always been the Culture Study model: I want to make as much stuff as accessible as possible and avoid turning the comments into a place without income diversity. When you can pay, you pay; when you cannot, that doesn’t preclude you from being part of the community.

But here’s the current reality: there are a lot of people receiving this email who are really struggling to figure out what to do next. Either a long-planned career path is now seemingly closed, or there are no job prospects in a field they were about to enter, or they’re burning out in a field that was once their passion. (It’s not lost on me that so many of the “good jobs” from a Friday Thread back in 2023…..government jobs)

There are also a lot of people receiving this email who aren’t LinkedIn JOB INFLUENCERS but who can nevertheless make the sort of connections that feel necessary to land a job when every job search feels like it nets 1000 applicatants. There are people here who can talk about their jobs, and their fields, and whether they’d recommend people broadening their job search to include those fields (and what backgrounds are particularly applicable).

As I know so many of you understand: there is no strife like job search strife. It’s exhausting, but it’s also demoralizing — it makes you question your value as a human in the marketplace, of course, but also every choice you’ve ever made. It sucks. (And if you haven’t looked for a job in the last twenty years: your tricks will not work. This isn’t personal! Just truth! Your advice is out of date. For our purposes today, consider shifting from job-search-advice-giver to what-connections-can-I-make-for-you-right-now).

So here’s what I’m hoping we can do with this space:

• If you’re looking for a job, share your goals, parameters, expectations — your ideal job but also what fields you’re curious to explore. Be expansive! Don’t feel like you have to neatly sell yourself — just talk about all the sorts of work you can see yourself doing and what work you do particularly well

• If you’re looking for a job and want accountability/support, share that too — I know parallel job searching online for an hour or so a day has been really useful for people.

• If you’re not currently looking for a job but want to be an asset:

  • Talk about (very recent, as in the last four years) job searches and the tricks that worked for you.

  • Share any openings at your organization (or others) and your understanding of what they’re looking for

  • Talk about what you do in your job (job fair style) and the path you took (or other people take) in getting there — what other fields do people come from? What skills are particularly transferrable?

  • If you’re willing to get on a call, exchange emails, or Zoom with someone to talk through their search — offer that

  • If you’re willing to proofread people’s cover letters (just be a second set of eyes and help check for typos, no matter your experience or field) offer that too!

But how do we get in touch in a semi-anonymous internet forum???

• You can message people through the Substack app (if that’s how you’d like people to get in touch, indicate as much!).

• You can leave your email (I recommend formatting it with the @ symbol — so, annehelenpetersen at gmail) if you’re comfortable

• You can post that people should email me (email above, lol) with their request to get in touch, and then I’ll send them your email address (which I have access to on the back end, a feature I only use in circumstances like these)

• You can post your LinkedIn and ask people to message you there

I’m paywalling this conversation for paid subscribers to keep it from going off the rails. But as always, if you’re unemployed, on disability, on fixed income, a gig worker, a grad student, or otherwise in a precarious or unstable situation — just email me and I’ll comp you a subscription, no explanation needed, no questions asked.

And as always — this is a private, subscriber-only space. Be kind and empathetic to people trying to figure out how to work and live in the world and let’s keep this one of the good places on the internet.