Job Search Story

Above are all the job listings I applied for earlier this week in the CA Senate, do I think I will get any of these jobs? No.

I think Sacramento and the CA Legislature will continue to do what they have always done with any resume I sent them, which is to toss it in the garbage because there isn't any "job experience" on it.  I am basically being discriminated against being given a job for never getting a job because all Sacramento knows how to do with my resumes is reject it. 

So I thought I would blog about the email responses I get, and first let's look at the resume.  This resume is a version of a similar one I sent them beginning in January of 2023. 

The resume includes the QR codes which link to .epub files of each book, so this one page resume is and isn't a one page resume, it's really close to a 1,000 pages of written work on topics that are relevant to the CA Legislature and politics, and CA and USA History as well as psychology. The resume itself is demonstrative of published knowledge and skills that are easily transferable to the CA Legislature work experience culture and job descriptions. 

The resume itself describes my past experience in participating in the history that has formed the California of today.

It also includes several books that include the history of how we have gotten to today, and plenty of lessons in the past about how we can form a better future. 

All of which is should be important to the history makers and decision makers currently working in the California Legislature. 

But I don't think it is. Here are some of the responses I have gotten back in the first morning after applying for all of those jobs.

(I am leaving out the personal information to avoid being in violation of whatever laws that may be applicable, but it is also a situation where I am not sure of those laws are applicable or not, they are knowingly interacting with a business as a public servant, and their job is for a public politician, the job and email are publicly posted online, and as a business when emails are publicly posted online it is a form of consent. But it is kind of a confidentiality thing and an asshole move to post the names of the people who are emailing me back, (even if their email is their name) so I am not.) 

First Response:

Hello Dylan,

Thank you for your interest in the Legislative Aide position with our office. We appreciate the time and effort you put into your application.

This position is no longer available. However, we will keep your resume on file and reach out should an opportunity matching your skills and experience arise in the future.

We wish you the best in your job search and future endeavors.

Sincerely,

My Response back:

Then you should remove the job listing if it’s already filled.

Second Email Exchange:

Dylan:

Thank you for applying to our office for the open Policy Analyst position. Unfortunately that position requires four years of legislative experience and we will not be able to consider you for that position.

 

Good luck with your job search and have a good Thanksgiving.

My Response Back:

I have four years of experience as an intern, and I spent years studying CA and US history and government. 

At least browse my book before dismissing the resume. 

COF Response Back (Minutes later)

Dylan: I appreciate your experience and dedication to public service but the Policy Analyst position is a mid-management position and absent actual experience as a Legislative Aide in the Capitol I cannot consider you for this particular position. I’d encourage you to apply to open Legislative Aide positions.

 

 

Good luck.

My Response Back

I have actual experience as a legislative aide staffing bills and going to committee hearings just because I wasn’t paid for it doesn’t mean it’s not experience.

During the 2009 session I was staffing the delta tunnel water issue for Senator Wolk, there was three budgets passed during that session including a massive budget deficit.

For about 8 months I was an unpaid intern in the executive level in the Governor’s appointments office handling issues that arose among executives and mid level management.

I would venture to guess that is nobody else on your stack of resumes that has multiple books written on CA and US history and has them available to download via QR code on their resume.

Demonstrated Knowledge of History should be important to the people whose job it is to make history in CA.

And basically the institutional knowledge I have of that place is easily enough of an experience for any job in the Capitol. I’ve seen all the jobs done at every level and know what my experience is worth.

And it’s not simply being a legislative aide which I’ve already done as an intern. 

But you should read my book on history and look at the CA timeline, learning the information contained in the book will make you make better decisions for CA.

Please reconsider,

Or at least fake it, like wait a week and then lie to me saying you looked through my books and still think they provide zero level of relevant experience. 

That’s sorta how Appointments in government work, which is useful information for you know about in your career.

You never know, you may be considered for an appointment at some point.

So obviously I am not going to get that job. But my logic is still fairly sound, and that should be worth something. I also don't see any downside in exchanging emails in this fashion. 

Sacramento and the chiefs of staff to Democrats in Sacramento can go on all they want about the benefits of being nice and how being nice in politics is a good personality trait. However, every American is now living in a reality that is not based on the reality Sacramento politically correct oriented Democrats want to see in candidates. 

Donald Trump is President again, meaning he is at the highest job in all of American Politics, and he got to that point by being a complete and total asshole.
From my perspective what is the worst that can happen by exchanging emails like this?

Sacramento continues to not hire me for a job, and people in Sacramento continue to not buy anything from my website. Eventually this might lead to me and my sister becoming homeless, but that's not really anyone in Sacramento's problem. They will continue doing whatever it is they do rather I ever make a dollar or not.

But the upside is that I gain a reputation of some kind that might be valuable to someone somewhere and people begin gossiping about me. Ideally they would see this is someone who is sticking up for his resume, attempting to get it pushed towards the near top of the stack and trying to keep a roof over his head and improve his future. All of which should be traits that are valuable to people, and even though this exchange is vulgar in the academic sense that it is in the tone of the "common man" it is not vulgar in the same way as Donald Trump. 

But on to the next one. (I'll keep posting the responses here)

This email exchange is demonstrative of the fact that "The Patriarchy" and tradition of earning a "Desk" in Sacramento is completely dead. If Sacramento worked the way it used to work, I would have gotten a phone call by the Senator who is the chair of the Rules committee (Mike McGuire) today and he would have said something like:

"Dylan, stop emailing people, you've done enough over the years to get a job, your desk is waiting for you, just drive to Sacramento and sign some papers, I'll see you in a couple hours." 

But that has not happened, and I doubt it ever will. But it has happened in the past, here is a story that one of the guest speakers of my Sacramento Semester program told about how he got a job in Sacramento. This was about 15 years ago in 2009, and he had 30+ years of experience in the legislature so he began working in the 1970's before term limits when it was a completely different place. 

He told the story of how he went to Sacramento State and was a local guy living at home and going to School. Upon graduating college he was hanging out at home and his parents were like "So what now?" so he had the idea of taking his resume to the state capitol and asking if he could do something. He found an office who looked at his resume and said "yea, you look competent enough to get us coffee and seem okay enough to have around, but we can't pay you." 

So for about year he hung around and got coffee for people in that office while working as a part time waiter, eventually after about six months they began allowing him to answer the telephone. After about 18 months he goes to the Chief of Staff and is like "is there anything else I can do except get coffee and answer the phone? like legislative work or anything?" 

The COF goes "Look man, me and you have the same job, what is it that you think goes on in this building? My day consists of getting coffee, answering the phone, and talking to people and nothing else I have no idea what the legislative people do. The Chief of Staff job is basically being an intern.

Look, take the legislative aide over there he's been in that job since 1952, he went to law school after the war and came up here and got a job, he's been working on the same issues on the same law for 20+ years, he is California's expert on that section of law because he has been working on it for so long. If I told him how to do his job it would be insulting to him, he doesn't allow you to help him because for him to allow anyone to help him would be insulting. The same sort of thing goes for everyone else here, the boss has been elected for a long time but he doesn't know half as much about the laws he votes on as these legislative aides do. There's no work or job for you to do until someone retires. Job titles are just titles" 

So the guy telling this story (who was in charge of the Assembly Rules Committee at the staff level at the time he was talking to my class) continues his story about how he got a job. 

He went to McGeorge law school, and sort of continued to work part time and hang around, waiting for someone to retire, and then someone retired. So after 3 years someone retired and he thought he was just going to be given the job. But the elected official, chief of staff, and other people in that office decided to have some fun with him first. They told him that he would be "Under consideration" for the job and be given the same opportunity to get the job as everyone else they interview for the job. 

So he as an intern who has been there for 3 years is assisting scheduling the interviews for people for the consideration of the job he thinks he earned. He's being nice and professional towards them. The Chief of Staff and boss decide to interview him last. 

So he tells the story of how he is waiting to get interviewed, and out from the office comes a beautiful African American woman who had graduated from Stanford and also had a law degree from a much more prestigious university. He thought his chances were completely done. So he walks in to the interview.

The elected official and chief of staff look at him kind of perplexed and go.

 "What are you doing?" 

his response: "You guys said there would be an interview? you know for that job?"

Their response: "Yea I know, but why are you here in this office and not sitting at your desk doing the job? None of the other people we've interviewed have been getting us coffee for the past 3 years. There has never been anyone else considered for this position, just get out of here and get to work."

The lesson being is that sometimes, you just have to take the job and not ask for it.