Job Hunt Drinking Game

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Highly Stressed Senior, and this is my 27th cover letter of the day. Since I have 16 more applications due before the looming midnight deadline, I am in dire need of a stiff drink, and have decided to play a little game.

1. Take a sip for every company you haven’t heard back from. Limit yourself to 20. If you applied to more, and haven’t heard back from any, you should probably be sober more often.

2. Have you had any interviews? Have a glass of champagne for each one, you champ you.

3. Count the number of business cards you’ve collected. Take a sip for each. Finish your drink if you’ve started a Pokemon trading card-esque game with them, “Trade you three associate consultants for one Managing Director!” “Ok, but only if they’re McKinsey!”

4. If a job asks you to apply on Crimson Careers AND on their website, ask yourself if you really want to go through the enormous effort to work at an obviously high-maintenance and diva-ish company that is clearly going to demand too much from you. When the answer is inevitably no, down two drinks, one for Crimson Careers and one for their website.

5. If you’ve had to skip class for an interview or networking event, shotgun a beer to make sure you’re keeping in touch with your college self.

6. If you don’t change out of your suit before making an appearance at brain break in your interview attire, better bring along a martini and a cigar to really ensure everyone knows you are a big deal.

7. Take a drink every time someone asks what you’re doing next year. If you don’t want to spend the next six months in the hospital with alcohol poisoning, take a gulp for each conversation that doesn’t involve your job plans.

8. Take a shot for every person you see at a networking event that you remember from section as definitely dumber than you. Feel better about your prospects of being hired. Then realize there are ten more people there thinking the same thing about you.

9. For every existential crisis you have, where you find yourself curled up on your bed, questioning your purpose and regretting every decision you’ve ever made, take a shot of your own tears and welcome yourself to the next decade of your life.

10. If you’re looking at non-profit jobs, wait until the bankers and consultants buy you a drink.

11. When you resent your pre-med friends for having a clear path ahead of them and a certain career at the end of it, take a drink for every year of residency they’ll have.

12. Any time anyone hears you share your anxiety about job searching and waves their hand dismissively while repeating “You’ll have a Harvard degree, you’ll be fine,” take down the bottle of Grey Goose you have on the shelf of your luxurious single in Eliot, reach for one of the glasses your father, class of ’76, gave to you, and enjoy the plethora of jobs that will keep dropping in your lap thanks to that Harvard degree.

13. If you forgot to change the name of the company before sending in your cover letter, finish your drink. Pour yourself another. Finish that one too.

14. If you get a job offer, congratulations! Start drinking. Don’t stop until May.

15. If you write an article promoting unhealthy drinking habits just in time for potential employers to Google you in your own job search, keep up your sober, academically and extracurricularly rigorous lifestyle, and take solace in the fact that if anyone hires you after this, at least you’ll know they have a good sense of humor.