So, I was having a beer on a quiet, remote resort island, and I asked the young server how he happened to find such a cool job — not that I was looking, because I have a cool job at a way-cool business publication that offers Yoga lessons to the staff and other cool stuff.
He told me that he found the job on cooljobs.com. Who would have thought? I don’t look at Web sites because computers are a tool of the Devil, but if I did, how cool must cooljobs.com be, with jobs at bouncers at New York clubs and cabana boys at fancy resorts.
A help-wanted site that promises to be “cool” would free you from having to sort through all those actuary jobs at Travelers; or that job at the state Department of Motor Vehicles that requires you to tell people who has been standing in line for two hours that they have been standing in the wrong line.
And, of course, you would never, never find a job in public school administration on cooljobs.com. Not only do the 17 different labor unions that control all your employees make the school-boss jobs way uncool, but the school systems don’t do a very cool job of advertising the jobs — thus assuring that most of the job candidates will be way uncool.
For instance, the new senior deputy superintendent (at least, a very cool title) for the Los Angeles Unified School District is a retired Navy admiral with no professional experience as an education boss. What kind of help-wanted ad must that have been? “Ahoy, come on board to the L.A. public schools.”
The Clark County School District (actually Las Vegas!) is looking for an Assistant Superintendent for the Student Support Services Division. The lucky winner will provide “critical support” for such stuff as “Equity and Diversity” programs. Whew. Not too cool.
Location Matters
But what is so odd about the help-wanted ad is that it never, sort of, kind of, hints to the job seeker that he or she would be working in, well, you know, Las Vegas! No, it’s a “licensed administrative position.” That’s what they say. What gets advertised in Las Vegas probably stays in Las Vegas.
One could argue that just the vague notion that you would be working in Las Vegas is so cool that the job might be advertised on cooljobs.com, with no explanation required.
Perhaps. But that explanation gives these uncool educational recruiters more credit than they deserve.
Consider Guilford, Conn., which is looking for a high school assistant principal, to “become part of a dynamic learning community.” Once the job seekers calm down from the exciting potential of working in a dynamic learning community, they might ask, well, what kind of a community is this Guilford, Conn., place?
Is it a snobby suburb, where they could padlock all the schools for a year and the SAT tests would still go up? Is it a gritty mill town where the kids come to school in pickup trucks and they aspire to community college? And what do assistant principals do in Guilford, for fun, when they’re not basking in the glow of a dynamic learning community? No clue in this ad. Not cool.
Groton, Conn., looking for a school superintendent, deserves an apple a day for being just a bit cool in their search for the top dog. Groton is plopped between two rivers, “on the beautiful Connecticut shoreline.” That’s sort of cool. Groton is located “midway between NY and Boston,” so you won’t go out of your mind with boredom. That’s cool. Groton has a “rich maritime history, public beaches, marinas and preserved open spaces.” That’s very cool. I don’t even remember what the job is, but I’m coming to super-cool Groton.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
