Looking For Jobs Out Of College? Here’s How I Found Mine
I kept trying and now I have a new job!
After months of applying, interviewing, and waiting, I have been hired to mentor college students and encourage them to mentor elementary-age kids. Serving others is a great reminder that the world is bigger than what it feels like when I focus on myself alone.
I am so grateful to have found a purposeful job. Many of my peers—recent college graduates, a.k.a. “millennials”—are struggling to find jobs out of college. Despite the fact that the country’s unemployment levels are at their lowest in years, millennials lag behind. We constitute some 40 percent of America’s unemployed, according to Anthony Carnevale, a director and research professor for Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. As of May of last year, 13.8 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds were out of work. Though this rate is decreasing, it is still startlingly high—more than double the national average.
Leaving College And Entering The Workforce
Now that I have a job of my own, I am reminded of the speech I heard before going abroad about culture shock (and which I blogged about previously). The disorientation I felt after graduating and as I searched high and low for a job of my own was overwhelming at times. Culture shock is like a roller coaster going up and down, up and down. Some days (or sometimes even some weeks), you wonder what you got yourself into. You feel like you made a mistake and things may never get better. But they will. You will come back up to the top of the hill of the emotional roller coaster. And the cycle will continue.
The culture shock analogy fits my experience of adjusting to the changes of life after college. Much of the past year feels like it was spent in the dip of an emotional roller coaster. But good books, good friends, and a great family reminded me that it’s not where life ends. Keeping this in mind will continue to help me as I start my new job, which I’m sure will come with its own adjustment period.
The shock of leaving college, of entering a new workplace culture—both will only help me continue to develop and adapt. It’s a skill that I hope to pass on to the kids I will be working with, as I’m sure it will serve them well in their own intellectual and professional endeavors.
I will follow up this blog when I can since I am now in training. I am glad to share this piece of good news and hope that it serves as encouragement for parents of teenagers and college-aged kids. Searching for jobs out of college is daunting for all of us—whether we are looking for a summer gig, a first-time position, or a new career after decades of work. But once we have come round the bend, we can coast for awhile and enjoy the new accomplishment.