I remember that there used to be such a thing as “senioritis.” It was a malady affecting graduating seniors in high schools and colleges across the country, leading them to barely be able to complete their work.

Like many diseases of the world, I have never caught senioritis. I did have bronchitis the winter of my junior year, but that actually allowed me to get more work done because the professor barred me from the classroom.

Senior year has always been the time I’ve been most overworked. I have one class right now, a four-credit Judaic Studies general education class that meets twice weekly on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Unfortunately, despite my theoretically free schedule, I never have any time to do the homework assigned for the class.

You see, the sad truth about being a graduating senior from the University of Massachusetts, or any other institution of higher learning, is that this last year in the relatively safe cocoon of ivory towers and academia must be given over to the last trace of our primitive ancestors’ roots on the savannah of what would one day be called Kenya: the Job Hunt.

`            Back then there were only two jobs: hunter and gatherer. Both were on the subsistence level and, despite automatically receiving a position upon reaching adulthood, there were no benefits whatsoever, since doctors hadn’t been invented and Florida had yet to be discovered. Thus, there was no health care and no retirement.

Hunting in those days meant separating a large game animal from the herd and driving it, or sometimes the entire herd, over a convenient cliff. Some peoples hunted this way right up until the time they first got hold of firearms.

Thanks to selective breeding and evolution, domesticated jobs have developed into a huge number of varieties. There are even still some wild jobs in some parts of the world. Here in the United States most of the jobs that we call “wild” are actually feral. Feral jobs escaped from domestication during economic recessions and learned to survive without human assistance. Many feral jobs can be found today in large cities, where gentrification and anti-sprawl policies are encouraging people to return to inner cities to hunt them.

My own job hunt hasn’t been going too well. They’re elusive creatures, as they must be wooed and stalked as much as hunted. Luck is also an important part of it, some of my friends had successful hunts very early on while others have made hundreds of attempts since the fall without catching a single whisker.

Tracking jobs has gotten easier than it was in the past. When I was younger the usual signs were “Help Wanted” signs. They might not necessarily have alerted one to the nature of the job, but they certainly let you know that they were there. Some jobs still leave these sorts of signs.

Classified ads were also useful; trackers who knew the nature and location of some jobs put notices about them in the newspaper to alert hunters. These days those sorts of signs are left on sites like Craigslist, but the trackers are more coy – some notices won’t even say the name of the business at which the job has made its territory.

Since I’m a journalist, I’ve been looking mostly for feral jobs. There aren’t very many domesticated ones for reporters. Some big news organizations, like the major daily newspapers, the national magazines and television news networks have domesticated jobs, but very few recent graduates get those kinds of opportunities.

The most important tools for capturing feral jobs are the resume and the cover letter. I’ve written a lot of different versions of each and I’m proud to say that my resume looks fairly decent now; it should make good bait if I find fresh job signs soon. I used to fret over my resume; it never looked good enough until recently. Writing a good cover letter has always been a hellish experience for me. It takes patience and creativity in the right amounts to make a good one, or else it won’t be strong enough to hold a job when it does go for the resume.

As frustrating as it is, I remain vigilant and hopeful. My ancestors have always been able to catch jobs and with more patience and a little luck. I know I can too. Maybe I need to expand my hunting area, or maybe I need to herd a bunch over a cliff.

Ssssh! Hold still – I think there’s one behind you. It’s a real beauty, too.

Matthew M. Robare is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].