Finding a job in this market is very tough. Slightly more than 50% of the graduating class of 2012 has found full time employment as lawyers within three quarters of the year. But the others are still treading water. As time passes and the unemployed swell the labor market, graduates are advertising themselves as much as they can. People have started using craigslist and Google to advertise themselves, according to AbovetheLaw.com. Some have spammed hundreds of headhunters using spambots to generate thousands of messages promoting themselves.
As some gradates take part time jobs or jobs in other fields rather than what they studied, economists call this underutilization of labor or excess education. Either way, it causes a Marxist “disposable reserve labor army,” constantly driving down the price of wages as the bidding war for jobs carries forward. And while many recruiters and headhunters will share this picture of a desperate young man with a muscle pic and a short resume and laugh, this guy who sent out job queries and included pictures of his “guns” is no different than any recently graduated woman who sends a query and puts on foundation, or colors her grays, or wears her best blouse with a tantalizingly small bit of cleavage showing. In a way, people laugh at the desperation of the young man who is showing his physical assets, but in these tough times, any asset that you have is one that may be used against a competitor. And as the job market remains in the doldrums, the young man’s concept wasn’t faulty. His execution and targeting perhaps was more problematic.
The young man in question left his privacy settings on Facebook open, so everyone on Earth had access to his pictures, status updates and profile. While his grammar was made fun of, no one can make fun of his sentiment, or the thousands of students that remain unemployed who grow desperate as their loan repayment date draws nearer. There is no comedy in that truth, or in the reality of the desperation in today’s job market.