Confessions of an Unemployed Graduate
Warning: This article may make you want to pull the following face...
I’m here. I’m at that point in your life. The point that everyone tells you is going to come. The point that you think is very far off but when you get there you realise how near it was all along. You’re 21. You’ve graduated. You’ve moved back home (or back to square one). All of your friends have moved back home too. Or have found amazing jobs already, some on £50,000 a year starting salary. And you’re at that point: you’re unemployed. For so long you’ve been in denial about it. When anyone bought it up you told them you weren’t thinking about that yet. Now when people ask you what you’re planning on doing, you cry a little bit inside. Sometimes you cry on the outside too and the person asking you the question stutters something about seeing someone they know over there and they scuttle off and leave you to sink in your own sadness. Alone. But you tell yourself it’s ok. You’re allowed a grieving period. A period of being in denial about the fact that now you are literally back to square one. You were on top of the world: First class degree from a good Redbrick Uni, a few work experience placements under your belt, an incredible set of friends, an amazing boyfriend, but now your degree has finished. What the hell are you supposed to do now?
I graduated yesterday. I finished with Uni over two months ago now. There’s a lot been going on. I’ve turned 21. I went on holiday. I had a party with my sister for our birthdays. I graduated. But now I’m in the post-graduation-post-in-denial-post-happiness stage. Everyone has left. All the fun and exciting things that you were looking forward to and were getting you through the horrible job application phase have dried up. And I still don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m applying. I’m rejected. Sometimes you don’t even hear anything back. I think that’s the worst thing. You’re hanging in the balance, not knowing whether you have the job or not. Sometimes you e-mail them back about a month later, but you know by then that they’ve already found someone who has a better degree and has better experience and has a better LinkedIn profile.
It’s the experience thing that really grinds my gears. I mean I know it’s competitive out there. And I know that companies want to employ people who are employable and can actually do the job. But there is nothing more frustrating than being told you lack the right experience for a job. It’s the vicious cycle of all vicious cycles. Sometimes I just want to walk around the Underground with HIRE ME scrawled across my head in sharpie. I want to be like that guy that everyone heard about who handed out CVs around London. I just want someone to turn around and say, you know what, I’m going to give you a chance because you seem ok and not crazy.
The worst thing is, I was warned that this would happen. But somehow I thought it would all be fun and games. I thought I’d graduate, walk straight into my dream job in the centre of London and I’d get your own place, like Bridget Jones’ apartment, and I’d go out with friends every other night. How wrong I was. My evenings now consist of job applications, sitting on the sofa downstairs alone because all of my family go to bed at sunset, and drinking prosecco. I mean the prosecco part is good. But watching late night TV on the lowest volume setting is not.
I have decided to start writing on my blog about what it’s like to be unemployed, to go back to square one. I thought it might be quite funny, to find at least some amusement in my misery, in the endless rejections. I also thought that other people might be in the same boat as me, the same boat that has so many people piling onto it that it’s starting to sink, so I thought it might be nice to feel a sense of solidarity, to feel a sense of, it’s ok if we’re screwed because we’re all screwed.
My only advice (although take it with a pinch of salt because if you are unemployed, like me, then it may not be the best advice to take): keep on plodding on. That’s all you can do. Just keep applying. Keep getting rejected. Keep crying in front of people when they ask you what you want to do. Keep putting yourself out there. Keep getting knocked back. Keep telling people you want to be hired. Pester people. Send yellow envelopes to job places with your CV in. Stand out. If none of these things work, then just embrace the misery, because hopefully, one day, you’ll find something you love doing.
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