National Accountant Draft: a celebration of mathletes and careers to come

The summer is settling in.

Former students who realize they can no longer call giving plasma twice a week a job are now on the job search.

Handing out resumes, going to job fairs and searching newspapers has become a daily ritual for even the most qualified graduates. This system is old and in desperate need of an overhaul.

We need to model our job hiring process after professional sports.

Every year, future professional athletes gather around the television to watch their name get called, determining where they will begin their career.

To most of us born as average sized humans, we don’t get to experience this.

That’s why I’m advancing the idea of having a draft for every career. Secretaries, doctors, gas station attendants – let’s have a draft for them all.  

I can see it now.

With the first pick in the draft, Merrill Lynch selects Ernest Gallagher IV, the 5-foot-8-inch, 200-pound systems analyst.

Can we all agree that would be the most suspenseful thing since waiting for someone to do the always-inevitable secret slime action on Figure It Out?

A farmer’s disappointment after not getting their preferred farm in Iowa and instead having to go to Iowa in the second round, the disappointment on a cashier’s face when he gets drafted to McDonald’s — these things would be priceless.

So-called draft “experts” would be shown on TV discussing the pros and cons of each draftee.

“Well, John Smith was in Spanish Club in high school, but he also was arrested for indecent exposure last year. How will he affect coworker chemistry with his character issues?”

“Indeed. I really see Smith as more of a Information Technology Consultant, not an adviser as he was projected.”

Can we somehow get this on TV tomorrow?

If American Idol can last 12 seasons, somehow overcoming the crowning of Ruben Studdard as a winner of anything, I am confident that the National Accountants Draft can become first-rate TV.

Websites, research, merchandise ... you can bet that if I am the first marketer to go off the board I want an official hat to commemorate the event.

I want to stand up next to the CEO of Charmin and get my picture taken as I prepare for my future of creating slogans for toilet paper.

In fact, this whole draft process might be the highlight of the job for 90 percent of the work force.

And if you’re not drafted, don’t worry. You can just go back to doing what you were doing before and searching for a job the old-fashioned way.

But for me? I’ll be sitting in my room. I’m the only entrant so far in the CEO draft. I’ve got my suit on, my entire family in my house.

I’m ready. I’ll be waiting for my phone call from Google.

­— lewicole@indiana.edu