Erika Turner is a 2013 Wellesley graduate with a B.A. in Religion. Originally from Las Vegas, NV, Erika currently works as a freelance writer and editor in Boston with a background in creative writing and marketing. She plans to pursue a publishing career in New York and is currently in the process of applying to foster cats with her two roommates.
A year ago, I wrote a post about being comfortably out as a job applicant – that was, of course, before entering the job market. Though I haven’t necessarily grown uncomfortable in these last few months, a question creeps up every now and again, after I start pouring over custom-made cover letters for jobs I felt more than qualified for but never heard back on. In these moments, a heavy question looms over my head – am I too gay for the job market? Should I mention those internships I spent at LGBTQ non-profits? Should I remove that section on my resume where it says I started a queer black org on campus, or that I continue to do outreach volunteering for a national LGBTQ foundation?
I was lucky enough to start working the week after graduation, interning full-time at a digital marketing start up in Cambridge before getting promoted to an entry-level employee. However, for various reasons, my job search has continued. Armed with the experience of three summer internships, three on-campus jobs, and insider information on job-hunting from working in the Center for Work & Service for two years, I am more confident than most recent graduates about my marketability.
So why has it been so hard to find a different job? Or even a freelance writing gig? I’ve probably applied to over 500 positions in the last five months – and it probably took another 500 before getting the job I have now. (No, I’m not exaggerating.) I comfort myself with the reminder that the job market is still awful and, as a millennial, I perhaps have dreams of grandeur that still needed to be crushed. But still, I wonder. After all, companies are still made up of people. People with flaws, with biases, with their own understanding of the world. How many of these people are homophobic? Racist? How many of them feel they’ve already reached their “diversity” quota, regardless of the fact that I base my own ability to eat and pay rent on my actual job skills and not my race or gender?
5 months ago, I would often give the advice that it’s better to work at a company that you know accepts you when you walk in the door than to be blindsided by bigotry when you accidentally mention your partner at the water cooler. I still feel that way, but in my own heart, I have doubts. In the end, I care more about paying my utilities than whether or not that lady on Craigslist knows I’m gay when I apply to edit her website or marketing copy. My identity doesn’t impact my quality of work – I know that. She doesn’t need to.
At this moment, however, my resume remains the same. After all, I’ve still managed to land important interviews and gigs, even if it’s not as much as I would hope given the amount of applications I send out. As Olivia’s father said on a recent episode of Scandal: “You have to work twice as hard as them to get half as far.” Such is the life of the minority.
To help me cope, I think back to the ways things have worked out for me because or despite how honest I am about my identity and the work I’ve done in that regard:
- My straight, married boss whose politics I know nothing about paid me for the two days I would be out of the office to attend a leadership conference for the Point Foundation, because he was impressed by my dedication to community work. “Most kids would be asking to take work off so they can get drunk and going skiing in Vermont,” he said.
- The CEO of a marketing agency once spent the first 10 minutes of our phone interview lauding the work I did in the queer community and discussing the importance of visibility and community-building.
- I’m moving to New York in two months to work with a writer whose already blooming career completely skyrocketed when she came out as a transwoman two years ago. Her book, about being real and true to yourself, comes out in February.
The last part – and the first two, really – puts things in perspective to me.
In short, being open about your sexuality or your race or your gender (or all three) in person and on paper is not easy. It’s not. It will be harder for people to see you as defined by your qualifications as opposed to their misconceptions and, at the end of the day, what’s most important is your ability to feed, house, and clothe yourself. Do what you need to do to be safe and survive in this crazy world of ours.
But when I think back to my short but substantive list of things that have gone well, it makes me believe that I’ll be okay – that things will work out in my big brown and gay life – even if I have to work a little harder and be a little braver than I wish was necessary.