Deer hunters don’t realize how easy they have it. Unless you live in the middle of a city, it’s pretty easy to come across a deer or six. On an evening road trip to Steven’s Point, my friend and I almost hit a deer with our car. Twice. And we weren’t even trying.

A much, much more difficult task is job hunting. Imagine, if you will, what it would be like if deer hunters had to go through everything job hunters go through:

September 9, 2004

Dear Mr. Deer,

I am writing to express my interest in finding and shooting you this weekend. I am a currently an avid deer hunter with more than five years of experience tracking and hunting deer and feel I would be a perfect candidate to hunt you.

During my five years of hunting, I have successfully killed more than twenty deer. In addition to my hunting ability, I also have leadership and coaching skills, having taught both my sons to hunt. This experience will help me lead a small hunting party to track you down in a timely manner.

I have enclosed my hunting license and record for your review. If there is any further information I can provide, please contact me at (920) 555-0236. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to shooting you soon.

Sincerely, Earl Smith

See how easy they have it? Deer can’t even read, so there is no need for all this cover letter nonsense.

I HATE cover letters. They are the quintessential writing challenge, and it really is impossible to write them well. Be formal, but not so formal you sound completely boring and unimpressive. Be personable, but not too personable, since you are writing to a complete stranger. Follow the formal cover letter format, but don’t make every cover letter sound the same. Be specific about how your accomplishments make you write for the job, but make it brief. Your letter should be less than a page. And remember, no matter how charming or wonderful your cover letter is, the reader will probably skim it for no more than five seconds before tossing it in the trash and moving on to your resume. What a colossal pain.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before you can even begin to write the cover letter, you need to find a job opening that gives you reason to write the cover letter in the first place. And that is almost a bigger challenge.

Now I can’t speak to all career fields, but advertising is a particularly tricky field for job-hunting. Fortunately I learned this early on and was able to save myself from future pitfalls.

The summer after my junior year, I began my search for and advertising or marketing internship and responded to an ad looking for “entry-level advertising and marketing professionals for full-time positions or internships—no experience necessary, will train” (or something to that effect). I arrived for my interview, confident that this would be my big break. My “big break” turned out to be an internship selling child I.D. kits at K-Marts and Wal-Marts in the area. Horrified at the prospect of spending my summer in K-Marts and Wal-Marts (surrounded by children, no less), I got myself out of that interview as fast as I could and found myself a nice internship in TV marketing. Ever since then, I know better than to fall for the ads begging for entry-level advertising and marketing professionals. Real advertising jobs do not exactly beg for entry-level people.

Unfortunately, after I weed through said advertisements (because they are posted every single day, often multiple times), there isn’t much left. And of the few jobs left, most if not all demand at least three years of experience, which of course I don’t have yet. A frustrating conundrum.

There are, of course, places that might help me find the jobs I’m are looking for. Some will even help me fix up my resume and write slightly less horrid cover letters. Unfortunately, they also want me to fork over some cash to do so. And since I don’t have a job, I don’t really have extra money for said services either.

Rock. Me. Hard place. Need I say more?

However, like any seasoned job seeker I have learned to look beyond the classifieds and Monster.com. I have learned that networking is more often than not the key to landing a job. I was taught to talk to anyone you know who might have some connection to someone in advertising, cold-call agencies and ask if they are hiring, and try to set up informational interviews if they aren’t hiring. Although virtually no one I know knows anyone in advertising, taking these important steps in the job-hunting process has allowed me to leave several wonderfully articulate voicemails for strangers (“Um, hi, my name is Michelle Stark and I am, um, interested in a career in advertising…I was um, wondering if you might possibly have some time to sit down and meet with me and….tell me a little more about your company and um, about advertising in general. So, uh, if you could just call me back that would be…great.”) Sometimes I did actually get calls back, and the informational interviews that ensued have if nothing else enabled me to expand my business card collection. Thus far, however, only one of those interviews produced a job prospect, and that one fell through because—surprise, surprise--I didn’t have enough experience.

Not that I’m complaining. Informational interviews are better than nothing, and at least it gets me out of the house and into some clothes that do not resemble pajamas.

Besides, once in a while I do get lucky. Once in a while I am able to find a job posting—sometimes even multiple job postings—for real live ad agencies. And they are looking for entry-level people (or people with a year of experience, which I can kinda sorta fudge with my internships). Once in awhile, my hope is renewed that the job for me is out there somewhere.

And then I can begin writing some more of those