Lights, camera and take 89 (clap)… “I’m Ms. Jane Doe and I’m interested in position A with your company, XYZ.”

“I see. Tell me, Ms. Doe, what you can contribute to this company?”

“I have these skills … experience in … my goals are … Ten years from now, I plan on … I can be an asset to your company by …”

“Excellent. Thank you very much Ms. Doe. It was a pleasure meeting you. We’ll let you know our decision as soon as we’ve narrowed it down to 50 other applicants who are also competing for this position.”

And cut!

Have you found a job yet?

The question haunts me by day and keeps me tossing and turning at night. It haunts undergraduates who have spent blood, sweat and tears earning a B.S or B.A. It haunts even those armed with M.A.’s. Publishing companies have saturated bookstores and libraries with books filled with advice, hints, do’s and don’ts and information about how to land a job. Too many people are competing for too few positions in a fragile job market. How did we get to this point?

Oh yeah … Republicans took over.

Unfortunately, the game seems to have little to do with developing the perfect qualifications, experience and degrees and more to do with whom you know. They call it networking. I call it “unequal opportunity employer.”

It’s all about performance. You get about 20 minutes to “sell yourself” to a potential employer. Regardless of whether you have all the skills necessary to do the job, if you don’t interview well, you are shown the door with corporate coolness and a polite handshake. You can spend weeks in preparation, yet when the critical time comes to perform, you might accidentally stutter, forget to sit up perfectly straight or develop some kind of other nervous mannerism that immediately disappears when the stress is over.

Obviously there is a lot about the business world that I don’t understand or appreciate. You’re given a limited set of rules at the start and no matter how many different ways or times you roll the dice, you still get nowhere on the game board. I’m not a competitive person. That’s why I don’t belong there.

My first mistake, I must admit, was earning a B.A in English from a university that does best with education and business majors. I was a round peg trying to fit into a square hole. My English professors could have bluntly told me that I was a lamb being led to the slaughter, and teaching English either at the high school level or college level would be my only hope to land a job. Instead, a class was created called “Studies in English as a Profession.”

The class was supposed to enlighten na‹ve, blissfully unaware students like myself — who just wanted to be done with school — to the “endless possibilities” of making a living — in the business world. We talked about interviewing techniques in class and about the importance of being on time, dressing professionally, being prepared, etc.

What we were not told is that even if the interview goes flawlessly, the odds were stacked up against us so high, we still didn’t stand a chance.

But I’m not alone. So I have stopped blaming myself for past blunders and examined some national unemployment statistics. According to The Des Moines Register, job placement services for Central Connecticut State University have been besieged with alumni who have been laid off and still need help finding a job. The article also reports that The National Association of Colleges and Employers forecast a 3.6 percent decline in hiring this spring.

Almost all colleges and universities have job placement services. But are they really serving the needs of their students after graduation? All I remember the job placement employees telling me at graduation was that the job market was extremely competitive. (Gee, what’s changed in five years?) There are no jobs for people like you right now. Good luck.

The Des Moines Register also reported that Des Moines Area Community College enrollment skyrocketed last fall. Out of approximately 10,000 students, 3,000 already had degrees elsewhere. These students were returning to the classroom not to seek continued education and training for their current jobs, but to specialize in something to gain a “competitive edge.” They probably made paper airplanes out of their four-year diplomas, disgusted by the fact that a bachelor’s degree is now equivalent to a high school diploma.

A bachelor’s degree is no longer good enough for my generation in today’s economic climate. Too many people have them. What will it be like for the next generation? Something has to change.

To seniors graduating this spring: Have you found a job yet? To graduate students completing their master’s work: Have you found a job yet?

Have you found a good job? The one you were hoping for?

If so, congratulations. It’s always rewarding when hard work pays off.

Leslie Heuer is a graduate student in English from Des Moines.