Bridgette Williams, 32 year old principal

Bridgette sat down at her computer, cup of coffee in hand, ready for a new day of applying for positions. While her husband was very supportive, she was starting to get frustrated. So far, she had applied to 130 positions, none of whom called back. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the qualifications; she had a masters, 10 years of teaching experience, and a principal’s certification. She knew she couldn’t’ lose hope though. She had been treating it like a job: every day wake up, shower, get dressed in her plain cotton underwear (size B bra) black slacks and light blue business blouse, brown hair brushed, sensible black flats, and sit down to fill out applications.

Her husband kissed her good bye, and left for his job. After he left, she filled open the black laptop and started filling out applications. After completing three, she noticed an ad in the margins for a jobsite she had never heard of . “Career Transformations” was the name. It had a stock image of some smiling businesswomen and an uninspiring tagline “Transform your career today!” Nevertheless, she clicked it, hoping maybe it would lend her some better leads.

She entered in “Principal” into the site’s searchbar and clicked. No results. ‘of course,’ she thought. ‘That figures. Nothing at all for principal? Ok, let’s just try education in general. Maybe something was mislisted.’ She re-entered ‘education’ in the search, and links scrolled down the page. ‘Bingo’. She clicked the first one that popped up, ‘School Position’. Quite generic. The position title popped on the top of the page, but the rest was hidden by a graphic that required her to take a short personality before seeing the position.

Bridgette clicked to take the personality test. It was a bit odd that the site wanted a personality test, but perhaps it used the results to better match her with prospective employers? That was her best explanation. However, it wasn’t surprising that the site would want some personal information before letting her access the open job listings. The first question came up, asking her name. ‘Bridgette Williams” she typed and hit enter.

The next question asked for her to take a photo. She normally wouldn't have considered that, but she'd run out of options on other job boards, so why not. Her resume had a headshot anyway. She clicked the button to give it access to her camera. A little box popped up at the top left that seemed to show some basic stats about her. She wanted to make sure everything was right, but after getting to her name and age, the box minimized and the survey started automatically.

Bridgette felt a small shiver, but shrugged and pressed on.