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I need to vent about some of my frustration. I tried writing this out one before, but browser logged me out FML even more. Anyway, I'm pretty much writing this stream of consciousness, so please excuse the ramblyness.
About 7 months ago, I finally graduated college. Nothing fancy, just a liberal arts degree, but from one of the higher ranked non-ivy league schools in the country. For the three years before, I had been working in the IT department of one of the university system's administrative offices. Just doing helpdesk and desktop support stuff, pay was not very good but I got some great work experience, they let me work on a number of cool projects, and I actually enjoyed it. But was a student job and as I was graduating I had to leave the position. They did have a more permanent position opening, but as I was finishing school, I wasn't sure that was what I wanted to pursue. I wanted to see what was "out there".
If I had a time machine, I would go back in time and slap myself in the face and enlighten myself that the job market was fucking horrifying. In retrospect, they had some pretty experienced candidates, so I'm not sure I would have gotten the job, but I really wish someone had informed me just how fucking horrifying the job market is.
So I moved 70 miles back home with my parents. I was at the time thinking this would be a temporary situation. I spent a month looking around, trying to adjust my life away from college fun in the sun, applying unsuccessfully to a number of jobs. Finally, about 6 months ago, the HR person at my father's company informed him that they had a temp position open and they would give me the job. Apparently they knew I was out of work, and needed someone they could trust to give access to their proprietary parts drawing and whatnot. It was only supposed to last two weeks, so I though why the fuck not? However they continued to find shit for me to do and it's now been a full 6 months.
And awful 6 months. The pay is shit, (close to minimum wage) the work is mindnumbing, and after they moved the office around, I got seated between two of the most obnoxcious motherfuckers in the whole place. The only thing that makes up for it is the fact that I don't have to work very hard. Some days not at all. The work is easy and I can finish it pretty quickly, but the way I see it the sooner I finish their work, the sooner I'm out of a job. Which could mean working someplace worse. So I probably do about 1 hour of work a day, realistically.
That may sound great, but it's really not. Trying to find something to do for 7 hours a day while still appearing like you could be working (i.e. not playing games on my phone) is difficult as fuck, and shit gets really really boring and mindnumbing very quickly. Granted I spend about an hour a day looking for any applying for real jobs, but there's only so much time you can spend on that. All I can say is THANK GOD for TL, without it I think I would have lost my motherfucking mind by now. (there's a reason my post count has gone up by 2000 in the last 6 months...)
I've applied to dozens of jobs. I've gotten a few interviews, but haven't made any real progress. It's made even more difficult by my situation. The area where I'm living now has quite a few businesses and companies, a few of which are hiring. But virtually all of my friends are 70 miles away, in a city that I would much prefer to live in. But it's a smaller city with fewer opportunities. It's put me in a weird position in terms of where I'm looking for a job, I've tried to be open and look in both places but it's hard not to have bias to the city that you prefer.
Not that it matters terribly. With the economy and the job market the way it is, companies are really only hiring people they absolutely have to, a lot are just now starting to fill vacancies. It's annoying as fuck. Half the "IT" jobs out there right now are shit contract deals, or have shitty pay, or both. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to make a million dollars, but I'm not exactly looking to live in a shit hole either. What's even more frusterating, I know that every job I apply to there's probably 5 guys with 10 years of experience applying since they've been out of work or underemployed for years. How the fuck am I supposed to compete with that? The few interviews I've had, when I tell the person that I'm just 6 months out of college they always give me this odd sideways glance. What? Is that a bad thing? Fuck you!
And the worst, seriously the WORST fucking part of this. A very good friend of mine who I used to work with in college--a guy who I basically got a job there, and convinced him to leave his shit job--got a sweet job with the state that pays very very well and has great benefits and he basically doesn't have to work that hard. He's got like literally half the experience as I do and I know and has probably half the knowlege I do. I was working IT for four fucking years, he does it for a year and a half (in a job I got him) and then snags an amazing job. And I have to find a way to be happy for him, to not start hating him. How do I do that? I'm making shit money sitting next to these dumb assholes and he's got an amazing job. That's just so fucking frusterating...
In all, I feel like I'm going no where, like I'm just wasting my life and time. I know, I KNOW, that there are people worse off than me right now. I actually feel pretty bad even writing this down, given that there are people whose whole life has been fucked up by the recession. People have lost their entire house/car/business to this fucking thing. But that doesn't stop my frustration.
I know I'm not the only person in this situation. I've got a neighbor and a number of friends stuck living at home, and countless other friends working shit hourly jobs--all of them with a 4 year college degree. And I know that there are millions of other. But that doesn't make me feel any better. I'm still going no where, still stuck at this shit job. I don't even have a decent PC to play games on, and I feel almost afraid to spend money (I still have this foolish idea that I may actually be able to pay off my student debt at some point, silly me). I'm young, I'm supposed to be paying off my college debt and living like a normal person. Instead I'm going absolutely no where. FML.
Sorry if this was rambly, but I felt that I needed to write that out...
  
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Just a question-- are you only applying to relatively 'local' jobs? If the reason you can't find work is because there are no jobs in your area, change areas! Easier said than done, but if you can find a good job elsewhere it would probably be worth it. A job is such a huge chunk of your life that I would sacrifice quite a bit to have something that made me relatively happy (or at least not miserable like your current one).
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This is basically my story except i am fortunate enough to be working for my family's business.
I hate that shit too when people you know from college get good jobs and your just like they hired this guy he basically an idiot. Most of times you just need to be in the right place at the right time or you know somebody but im sure it will work out for both of us eventually.
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By the way is your sig a firefly quote i dont recogonize the episode or ref?
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On March 21 2012 01:08 iamperfection wrote:
This is basically my story except i am fortunate enough to be working for my family's business.
I hate that shit too when people you know from college get good jobs and your just like they hired this guy he basically an idiot. Most of times you just need to be in the right place at the right time or you know somebody but im sure it will work out for both of us eventually.
I hope so :/
Though I don't mean my friend is an idiot, he's actually quite intelligent and a hard worker, it's just frusterating as I've got way more experience and knowlege than he does and he snagged a great job. It's just hard to not hold it against him and to be happy for him, if that makes sense.
On March 21 2012 01:06 RedJustice wrote:
Just a question-- are you only applying to relatively 'local' jobs? If the reason you can't find work is because there are no jobs in your area, change areas! Easier said than done, but if you can find a good job elsewhere it would probably be worth it. A job is such a huge chunk of your life that I would sacrifice quite a bit to have something that made me relatively happy (or at least not miserable like your current one).
Not quite that simple unfortunatly...
-edit:
On March 21 2012 01:10 iamperfection wrote:
By the way is your sig a firefly quote i dont recogonize the episode or ref?
It's from the opening sequence of the firefly movie, Serenity.
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It's mostly about connections, or luck. Maybe the two come hand-in-hand. I only got one interview after a whole year of job applications in my final year of university, and I got the yes-you're-hired call exactly like 30 minutes after convocation. Mind you, I had no backup plans (no graduate schools / other jobs). I remember picking up the phone, them telling me the good news, but it was so loud and everyone was busy taking pictures and stuff so I was like yeah can you email that stuff to me, thanks. Haha.
I got that one interview through some impossible personal connection (like 5-6 links between me and the guy who booked the interview for me). Without that connection, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even have considered me.
Seek out your connections. Most of the random resumes don't even get read. You can greatly increase your chance if you can get connected directly to an interview.
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This is actually my biggest fear. To spend all this money on a degree and not be able to find a job. -_-. Good luck man just apply everywhere that has anything to do with your degree, and don't be afraid of moving to a new place. Im sure there are services that help new grads find work as well.
Also I know what you mean about too little work, it's stressful cause you just feel unimportant and unsatisified and bored. I wish I could be busy like 75% of the time to make the day go by. Good luck man update us on any good progress.
And yeah knowing people/connections seems to be the most important part of getting jobs over experience or skills unfortuneatly QQ
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I know what you mean, man. In the meantime while you look, set some goals outside of your career. Like learning another language or something. My suggestion: check out TL HF and get in the weight room. I don't hate my job but it's going nowhere and I know it. However, when I reach my lifting goals I feel accomplished and it makes things better.
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This is slightly personal. But what college did u graduate from? and where are you located?
(also what gpa did you have if you feel comfortable giving it to the internet)
I am asking because maybe I or other people can help you out.
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United States871 Posts
I got lucky to find a job, but it's not at all in my field, and it doesn't pay enough for me to live on my own and pay off my huge debt. I'm $130,000 in debt from college because I "had to go" and it's not looking like I'll ever pay that off.
I feel you, homie. Good luck.
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Hm yeah it's pretty tough to find a job out of college with a liberal arts degree in today's economy. But it's great that you have IT experience, if you are mainly looking for IT jobs maybe you should look into getting one of the many basic IT certifications that would offset you not having a relevant degree in the field.
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Ares[Effort]
DEMACIA6550 Posts
Sorry about your troubles so far, good luck hopefully everything works out for you man!
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That sucks to hear, hopefully you find something with that IT experience.
Is a liberal arts degree even worth pursuing in todays world? I tried to google what jobs you could get and the google search has not been kind with the views on the degree. Most of the top results are people asking if it was useless for them to pay for and what not.
I would maybe try and get into some night or day classes to get the paper that says you can do IT. Seems like it would help you out, but that comes down to the cost of it.
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On March 21 2012 02:36 Kralic wrote:
That sucks to hear, hopefully you find something with that IT experience.
Is a liberal arts degree even worth pursuing in todays world? I tried to google what jobs you could get and the google search has not been kind with the views on the degree. Most of the top results are people asking if it was useless for them to pay for and what not.
I would maybe try and get into some night or day classes to get the paper that says you can do IT. Seems like it would help you out, but that comes down to the cost of it.
The thing of it is, very few college undergrad degrees actually qualify you to do something when you graduate. Accounting, engineering, education, and CS for the most part. I've got a friends with a mass com degree whose got no job, another friend with a marketing degree who works as a bank teller; I mean I can go down the list of my FB friends who've got university degrees and are all working shit jobs.
Most employers are still going to put experience over the type of degree you have, you'd be surprised at how many people have LAs degrees and end up doing some thing completely unrelated.
Thing is, with IT certifications italso costs a lot of money to take the tests, and to be fair the ones I would be able to get easily (A+, desktop support) really don't mean anything. If I could get a decent job, I would probably go ahead and start working on them, but it doesn't really make sense for me to do so now.
On March 21 2012 02:22 Ares[Effort] wrote:
Sorry about your troubles so far, good luck hopefully everything works out for you man!
Thanks. I do really sort of feel bad about complaining, there are a lot of people who are way worse off right now 
On March 21 2012 01:59 Noobity wrote:
I got lucky to find a job, but it's not at all in my field, and it doesn't pay enough for me to live on my own and pay off my huge debt. I'm $130,000 in debt from college because I "had to go" and it's not looking like I'll ever pay that off.
I feel you, homie. Good luck.
Holy shit. My debt is like 20k, and probably about another 5k I owe my parents.
I'm assuming you went to grad school? You guys who graduated in like '09, 10 are so screwed; it's completely rediculous. I used to work with a guy who had gotten a masters in theater, and due to his wife's law schooling, had to move back to the midwest where there was like no chance of him using his degree. Ended up working like a $12/per hour part time IT job for a while. Really nice guy too, I felt really bad for him.
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Ahh thanks for the reponse to my post. I just did not understand how the US post secondary system works. Best of luck to you.
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Canada4481 Posts
I feel your pain, I'm in a similar situation atm, although it's in the natural science field instead.
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Connections make the world go round.
Just applying for jobs can work, but networking is really where it is at. If you detach yourself from whatever industry it is you want to work in, it is hard to enter it.
Think of it like a situation where you have literally no friends. In a position like that, it is very hard to meet new people and expand your social circle. The same goes in the world of business. If you are completly outside the circle, it is very hard to get in.
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No one ever told you the odds and numbers of high paying jobs...
They expect you to think that you all will get the job you want..nothing in life works that way. And when 75% of kids these days all go to college for a degree, what really makes us think that we are all special in some way to the point we deserve to get paid more than most of the population just because we decided to pay some money to go to school?
the recession is tough, yes, but there has ALWAYS been people who do nothing with degrees. It's the way the world works, and thus has sparked my fear of going to college until I can be sure that it would be worth it
^ more or less angry at the way they force us into going into our career paths fresh out highschool before we realize what we are getting ourselves into.. like literally, for most poeple, its 3 months off for summer and straigth into college... like 12 years of school.. and you already have to plan on what you're going to do before you even graduate, so techinically teh 3 months off are just 3 months preparing for where you're going to go...there's no time in there for most people to think for themselves.
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On March 21 2012 03:10 Nagisama wrote:
I feel your pain, I'm in a similar situation atm, although it's in the natural science field instead.
I'll be in the exact same situation when I graduate in a month. At least I have a $10 per hour deli job to pay off my $20k in debt. 
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On March 21 2012 00:52 TheToast wrote:
The few interviews I've had, when I tell the person that I'm just 6 months out of college they always give me this odd sideways glance. What? Is that a bad thing? Fuck you!
Yea, it is a bad thing. Especially so if your only job was on campus. Sorry, that's just the way it works. You've gotta land that first gig and it's gravy from there.
Let me tell you something about the IT guys lining up for every job with ten years of experience: 80-90% of them are shit and don't know HTTP from their asscrack. They are mass applying to jobs in the hope that they can trick someone into hiring them and paying them for a year. Don't worry about those guys.
Figure out why they're not hiring you (sounds like you have no real working world experience) and fix it. If you want to be helping people with computer problems, run around town fixing folks' computers at a decent rate. Try and get a job on the geek squad. Or whatever. It doesn't really matter, but I think you know what is getting in your way, and it's not the economy. Right now there are more IT jobs open than there are quality candidates.
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EPT
