Not to be Debbie Downer but...

So not to be like Debbie Downer from SNL but I was watching ABC's World News tonight and they are doing a series on what is going on with jobs across America. Well today they were interviewing people living in Oakland and one of the men they interviewed was a 45-year old auto mechanic that lost his job in the current recession and even he had to move in with his parents since things are so bad in the job market. And he fixes cars! It's not like cars are breaking down any less these days. A 45-year old man moving in with his parents- well that makes me more optimistic. Not to mention that the more I listen to NPR during the day, the more I feel like they feature a similar story weekly of people (usually with at least one college degree, if not more) who have had to move home with their parents because of the current state of the job market. I love the constant reminder that 1. yes, this situation just plain stinks like a trash full of used baby diapers and 2. that nope, there is nothing I can do about it except keep on keeping on. Yay! Awesome. Totally encouraging.

Speaking of encouraging... so the highlight of last week was a pleasant surprise. And by pleasant I mean gritting my teeth as hard as possible in an effort to make some sort of face that relates to a smile. See, I made the mistake of checking back on the company that I first had a phone interview with and that had decided to go with someone else. It was a social media position and so I made the assumption (correctly) that once the new person had been hired, they would be introduced on the agency's social media outlets somehow. Sure enough there was a new video clip introducing the new hire. Well deeply interested in how talented the new hire must be to have more experience in a subject that I wrote my whole graduate thesis on, I of course clicked to view the link.

Hah! Joke's on me! The new hire is fresh out of undergrad with not enough serious previous experience on the subject to even mention any in the "mini" interview with her online. Her social media skills are probably just as fabulous as any other college student who knows how to check Facebook and Twitter 20 times a day and knows how to let other people know their current spending location on Foursquare. So glad they didn't decide to pick the most qualified/experienced/educated person for the position.
Silly me- why would a company want to do that?

They sure as heck better be paying the new hire half of what they were offering me!

RIDICULOUS

e+u

Welcome fellow pessimists!

Do you currently hold a college degree and yet have been hopelessly applying for jobs like crazy with no luck and really want to complain about it to someone who won't tell you that things will eventually work out and just to hang in there and don't feel blue, etc. etc., blah blah blah, bs bs bs...? Well then this is the place for you!

Since eventually I would actually like to get hired I am not using my real name, nor will I post the names of places of which I apply to or have unsuccessful interviews with. However for all practical purposes, I'll introduce myself as e+u, since "educated" and "unemployed" describe me much better than my name would anyway.

I graduated the first weekend in May of this year and although had been dabbling in job hunting since April, I didn't really get serious about it until about mid-June when I actually finished my last class of graduate school. So here we are. Let's do some numbers:

97- more or less the number of days since I started the massive job hunt
90- ballpark range of how many job descriptions I go through daily
50- the number of days I've felt overwhelmingly discouraged and frustrated
12- the number of times weekly that I feel completely useless
8- the average number of cover letters that I send out daily
5- the number of times I've broadened my criteria
4- the number of times a week that I have to remind myself to be less picky
2- the number of phone interviews so far
0- the number that represents the success I've had so far in my ambitions


Now, don't get me wrong. I am fully aware that some of you have been searching for far longer than almost 3 1/2 months. But understand that this blog is about venting about how unfair our mutual situation is and knowing the fact that if I am following in your footsteps, I'm screwed for a much longer period of time, DOES NOT make me feel any better.

Anyway, I go through enough frustrations on this massive search daily that I figured there must be others who know how I feel and would like to share their complaints with me about the insanity of having a college degree (OR MULTIPLE) and not being able to find a good, decent, real grown-up job anywhere!

oh bother,

e+u