I’ve spent the past few days on several job sites, and I’m getting more and more annoyed each time I sit at the computer and try every combination of keyword and such that I can think of.

Maybe I’m picky, or maybe I’m too broad in my thinking, but my results aren’t terribly helpful. I’m pretty much looking for any full time job where I can give it a shot with my degrees and all, short of teaching high school. Well, maybe I will give it another crack if I see a few opportunities show up without coaching requirements attached (they always seem to be baseball or football coaches, which I can’t teach or play, and I’d rather be a good teacher if I’m going that route).

But with job fairs, help-wanted, and job search sites in particular, two things really piss me off, and I’d love to know why they happen:

The first thing, when you go to a job fair or a help-wanted, all positions location, I really hate when they say “we’re hiring for all positions!” Every time I go to a place or a line that says that, and give my credentials that would fit certain positions, I’ve always heard “yeah, we’re not hiring for that right now.”

So, my first question is: Why do they advertise they’re hiring for all positions if NOT ALL POSITIONS are available?

That’s probably what made me give up on teaching too early. I went to job fair after job fair, the same job fairs everybody else I graduated with started going to. Standing in the same lines.

What I hated about these job fairs is I became super cynical about the whole thing. I mean, you get dressed up, get to the line, wait a while to speak to somebody who’s supposed to be hiring for all positions (meaning you’re NOT getting in another line, obviously), and then they say “we’re not looking for that right now.”

I mean, they KNOW what they’re hiring for, don’t they? Would it kill for them to be more specific as to what they’re looking for. After that happens 20 times a job fair, I just wanna crawl in a hole. I get angry because it was a waste of time, mine more than theirs. With the several-inches thick stack of paper behind them (because they always take a resume “just in case”), it makes me wonder how good a recycling program they have on site to dispense with all the “useless ones.”

This leads to my 2nd question, mostly about internet job search sites: What the hell does “entry level” really mean?

This is probably the most frustrating aspect of a job search. I mean, when I think entry-level, I think of a job that anybody can pick up, anybody just getting out of school or high school age, with some paid training to get you up on the procedures, and boom, you’re working.

I find tons of jobs on these sites available for me to peruse, and I weed them out by clicking “entry level” because I’d like to see what’s there. I pick a few, set them aside to read, and then get started. After I set about 20 aside, I peruse ’em one at a time.

True to form, I might pick zero in the end, or perhaps 1 every few batches to really think about trying.

I can’t help it. The sort field has marked “entry level” for jobs that require a year of this, or two years of that, or certification in this, or several years of that.

If you have to have gobs of prior experience or certifications, what the hell makes that entry level?

The only “entry level” positions that seem to be marked appropriately are fast food or box store service jobs.

This is where my anger really comes in, because I just can’t stand trying so hard to find a job, only for these brick walls to keep coming in. I want a full-time job that I would find interesting, because even if I didn’t use my degree for it, if I made enough money and had steady hours, I could do more volunteer work that would let me use my degree…and that might lead to jobs due to hands-on experience.

Sheesh–anybody know why this crazy crap happens? I’m getting frustrated to hell and back, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been annoyed by this roadblock.