Why the Hunger Games’ “Reaping” is the exact equivalent of having a LinkedIn account at age 22

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Here’s why finding a job as a 2012 graduate is almost exactly like the Hunger Games’ reaping ceremony. I’ll start off by saying the number of years I spent in college is equal to the number of times I’ve read the series. Since I graduated two weeks ago.

Let me first connect The Hunger Games with another cruel mistress in my life, Mad Men. When Peeta and Katniss learn they can both win, you sort of know that rug is going to be pulled out from underneath them. Now when Pete becomes head of accounts at Sterling Cooper in Season 3 (?), you don’t think Lane is also giving it to Ken-Cosgrove-love-of-my-life. What Pete would have given for some nightlock berries to shove down Ken’s throat when he finds that out?!

Now, let’s begin with the reaping. You’re forced to know how many other people Effie Trinket’s painted fingers might choose. If you’re like me, you’re about as equipped for interviews, jobs, and the proverbial real world, as Paris Hilton would be as a Hunger Games contestant. In the actual Hunger Games, you might find a tiny glimmer of relief offered as you look around your District’s reaping pool. And you’d be like, “Oh, look at all these other 12-18 year olds who sold their names for some grain and oil, I’m totally never going to get picked!” In this universe, when you look around your reaping pool—better known as the eleventy-seven million 22-year-olds that are definitely smarter than you—it’s an intense feeling of dread; because you ain’t gettin’ reaped for no interview. Plus no one will buy my name in exchange for a grain and oil (or a baconator in this universe), unfortunately.

This reaping pool is rubbed in your face if you have a LinkedIn account. Thanks largely in part to LinkedIn’s soul crushing application that tells you when jobs are “on fire.” To be fair, none of us has really had a real job before. Internship, part-time work, babysitting, tutoring, summer work? Sure, but not a big kid job. So all of our resumes are sort of fabrications, to put it lightly. Those fabrications on resumes and cover letters turn into full blown lies when we realize there aren’t that many jobs that need no experience that are also within our field/geographic area/etc. In any case, you log onto LinkedIn and you’re like, “I think I definitely, definitely want to be a Marketing Assistant today! Let me go easily find a position!” So you’re little naïve fingers type it into the search, choose Greater New York City Area, and click one of the postings. And I shit-you-not the upper right corner says, “ON FIRE! 698 people have applied.” The subtext of which reads, “Everyone on the planet has applied to this job and they’re definitely smarter and better prepared for this than you! LOL sorry! And it’s an entry level position…you’ll never be employed.” The subtext of that: “Good thing you like baconators so much because you’ll be serving them soon enough!”

Let’s play pretend and say your sorry ass does get reaped. As a recent graduate, no matter how good you think you look in your pants suit and no matter how much your mom cries at how grown-up you are (or if you have my mother, it’s more along the lines of, “Even if you get hired, this suit can’t cover up what a giant idiot you are for too long.” She’s an inspiration to us all.), you sort of feel like you look like Effie Trinket. So does your interviewer, so get with it you Capitol phony!

That’s a really big hypothetical though, because you’re not getting reaped. If only you could barge into the office where the reaped are interviewing, knock them out of their chair, put your hands on Effie Trinket’s (or the hiring manager’s) desk and be like, “I VOLUNTEER! I VOLUNTEER AS EMPLOYEE!” This seems foolproof.

Please hire me,
Erin