Comments on: Options For Unemployed College Graduates

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:58:54 +0000

I am a 26 year old college graduate with an accounting degree and I work at a call center doing tech support on dvr boxes. It has been a rough ride, the important thing is to research the hell out of a degree before you take it on. I flunked out of engineering school, and couldn't get an interview with an accounting firm because my gpa was "too low". considering that I had over a 3.0 in accounting.

I did my research and am now going into computer science. I am taking the pre reqs in order to get into a masters program and study programming all the time and am loving it. This time when I get out of school. I am going to have a portfolio of programs that I have wrote and I am already networking like crazy even though I still have over a year to go.

The important thing is to plan ahead. If I had to do it over again, I would have done a lot more research on the career that I was going in. Then I would have done tons of networking. Even during my freshman year.

One thing that no one has considered here is the military. I was considering it and am still considering it. When you have a college degree, then they will make you an officer and you start out at around 40,000 a year. If you don't like it, then you can get out after 3 years and you will have ton of leadership experience.

If you stay in for 20 years, then you can retire and get 40-50,000 a year to do nothing.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:07:11 +0000

Senitra, my heart goes out to you. Remember you made it through 4 years of college, which is a lot better than people who don't go or drop out. Be confident in that. As far as job applications, make sure to follow up e-mails with phone calls, and send thank-you notes to anyone that replies. You gotta make yourself stand out.

If you can't find any work, there's a few other options. You could join AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps, which help pay off college loans and usually allows you to defer them. Plus, volunteer experience never looks bad on a resume. Going back to school is another option, and 2-year associate degrees are doing better right now. Paralegals, nurses, and technicians are all jobs that will always be in demand.

Remember, no one wants to see you fail; everyone wants to see you succeed.

By: Bukky

Bukky — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:46:11 +0000

A lot of jobs want tons of experience and want to pay barely above poverty level wages, so I can never leave the nest lol. Especially in major cities where there’s hundreds and thousands looking for work. I wish I hadn’t concentrated on print media so much. I feel like my school was behind the times (no online paper, no digital classes). I had internships but none translated to a job. I have some classmates that lucked out and got something in mass media while I’ve had to take anything and everything else. It seems like most people never find an exact match between what they studied and the jobs out there in the world. I think there is a great disconnect between the real world and colleges. Employers are extremely picky because they can be. Some will interrogate you about unemployment gaps and your major, gpa, everything. Some asked why can’t I look for a TV job, I wanted to say because there are none. When interviewing at media outlets, they would say I don’t have enough experience, despite internships. I didn’t understand why I was only getting jobs that were very entry level (telemarketing, stuffing envelopes, holiday retail-once Jan. comes, you no longer have a job, or part time gigs less than 20 hours per week). I didn’t know my degree would be seen as generic. It’s good to have a specialization.

By: Senitra T. Mccombs

Senitra T. Mccombs — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:10:10 +0000

I have always been extremely shy and I am starting to realize I selected the wrong major which is Communications/Print journalism. Although I was a top notch student and graduated with honors, I am having a terrible time getting hired. In addition to being very poor at interviewing, I have very little experince with the exception of very short term internships and writing for my school newspapers. My mother suggested that I find an unpaid internship to increase my experince level but my mom is on a fixed income and I must have a job to pay for transportation, my personal items and food. She will allow me live with her completely free. She suggested also, I try to get any odd job part-time and do an upaid intership part-time in the week. I have applied to all the local restuarants, all the local retail stores, All the chain grocery stores and I never even get call for an interview or when I call back to check status I was selected. I have run into two situations in my city of Washington DC in applying for jobs such as restuarants help, retail and even clerical work. They require experience in these positons as well. I have only had two paying jobs in my life and they were high school summer positions long ago. I am total screwed up and I am crying daily so depressed and it is upsetting my mom because she loves me so and knows I was always an excellent, hard working student and I am so willing to work now just anywhere. My older sister who immediate following her college graduation had cancer and her degree got very old but she when to a paralegal school accredited under the ABA at Georgetown unv. and now has a very high paying position in the FEderal Government and she suggested that maybe I should try that since it would be cheaper than grad school in my field snd my shyness might not be such a great problem. I am so depressed and my mom is the only one standing behind me?

By: John

John — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:22:59 +0000

I’m a recent graduate, currently unemployed, who sought out retail as a solution to the quick job need two years ago, and let me tell you: I’d rather get evicted and starve than go back to that world.

It’s not that jobs like that are an insult, because if you want insulting, you should see my last couple of paychecks from my previous job and work out how much I actually earned per hour of work (hint: less than $7).

The problem is that waiting tables is a waste of your time and your talent. Maybe you have no talent, and your time is worthless, but at the very least you should realize that having this on your resume is not going to help you in the job search. Employers who see it won’t take you seriously because you’re just a waiter, and if you leave it off they’ll wonder about why you didn’t work at all for a year.

Don’t just think about the money you wasted spending four years at college so you can get a job that high-school dropouts excel at, think about all the addition money society invested in your education: scholarships, grants, subsidies, work study, funding to help defray university administrative costs, etc that run into the hundreds of thousands per pupil per year. If you take a job any moron can do, you’re basically deciding to make all that money a wasted investment on your future.

Far better options include foraging for cash, tutoring, and joining the peace corps or the military. Insult yourself all you want, but don’t waste your education.

By: Would you like fries with that? | TalentEgg Career Incubator

Would you like fries with that? | TalentEgg Career Incubator — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:31:12 +0000

[...] Overall, the important thing to remember is that it takes thousands of different jobs to run a community. Everybody’s role is important. While I encourage everyone to pursue their true passions and work hard to achieve their goals, ensure that you excel even when you’re stuck in the in-between positions. [...]

By: Natalie Steele

Natalie Steele — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:59:22 +0000

I am currently taking an entrepreneurship course, and all of the CEO’s who have come to talk to us, feel this is the best time to start a business. We have little responsibilities and little to lose.

I have a feeling a lot of new companies will emerge out of this recession… it is certainly something worth pursuing if you have a monetizable idea and a way of executing…

By: Jun Loayza

Jun Loayza — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:29:29 +0000

If you’re an unemployed college grad, take the following steps and you should be fine within the year:

1) Move back home with your parents (this will significantly cut your costs)

2) Start a blog and build your personal brand. As a college graduate, your brand is pretty much on the face of a diploma.

3) Read Jonathan Mead’s eBook because it will help you find out what you’re passionate about.

4) Spend every single moment and piece of energy you have to build your authority and knowledge about what you’re passionate about

5) Monetize your knowledge through sponsorships on your blog, speaker events, selling an eBook

6) If this doesn’t work, become a waiter at a restaurant.

- Jun

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:15:42 +0000

I just graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. and I’m a waiter. No shame. I’m off to grad school in the Fall. Waiting tables is good money for the near term. I’m 24. I figure I have time to start a career. Your blog is awesome by the way. Good post.

By: susan

susan — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:33:24 +0000

About.com choose 3 websites where job seekers got the best results -

http://www.linkedin.com (networking for professionals)
http://www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
http://www.realmatch.com (matches you to the perfect job)

For those looking, good luck!