Sometimes, you just have to give your friends the chance to rant. Please welcome guest blogger TB (or as I like to call him “caliboy”) as he shares his woes on job-finding in the post-recession economy.
I hate it when no one wants to offer you a job… yet people expect you to pull 5 years of work experience out your *ss. I’m pretty sure work experience comes from WORKING. Maybe I’m missing something. Oh yeah, a bachelor’s degree… right. Well I guess it’s my fault for messing around from ’02 – ’07 but come on… I’m sure there’s some way a former screw-up can find the job he wants. How can I get a decent job without a bachelor’s degree? How can I get a bachelor’s degree without going to college? How can I go to college without getting a loan? And even with the loan, I still need money. And how can I get money without a f*ckin job? *(Excuse the language… very pissed off here).
Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com seem to cater to the bachelors/ 5 yr work experience crowd and every job agency I called said they can’t help me because my work experience is very random and all over the place.
Maybe moving to the East Coast was a bad idea…although I was talking to some friends in California and they were saying the job market is terrible over there as well. I’m guessing its like this everywhere. All I can do is sit back with a 24 pack of Yuengling and wonder where it all went wrong. Visions of standing at an intersection with a cardboard sign asking for spare change are starting to seem like a disturbing possibility.
Can’t give up…
I hate it too! Only I got the loans to get the bachelors and now I have no job and a loan payment…and oh yeah, a fancy piece of paper on the wall.
TB, as someone who has been down and out so many times it’s pitiful, i gotta say, you are not looking at your options properly.
why not apply for a federal student loan, get your folks to cosign if necessary. Federal loans tend to have a low rate.
Use that loan to go to community college: you get the exact same classes and education as your first 2 years at a 4-year university, but at a fraction of the cost.
at the very least, you leave with an associates degree. or you transition to a 4 year college.
is that you in the picture? you look healthy and able-bodied to me. if you have any trade skills (carpentry, construction), put your shingle out on craigslist.
or food service work, an arena typically requiring no college degree (unless you’re a chef). get a job as a bartender. get a job as a waiter. get a job as a prep cook or a line cook.
handy with electronics? drop by a music shop and see if they need repair personnel. got a bike? try philly pedal coop, they probably need someone to haul recycling.
don’t waste your time at monster or careerbuilder: both of those sites are about as useful as the pope’s testicles. Go with craigslist.
do you have a resume? if not, write one. if you don’t know how, get our host phillygrrrl to help you, i’ll bet she’s a whiz at that kind of thing.
serious man, you have options.
I am a whiz at resume-writing, this is true :)