26/M here. I have applied for numerous jobs over the years including but not limited to:
– apartment concierge
– musical instrument retail
– assistant manager for a local symphony orchestra
– ticketing for that same local symphony orchestra
– drama department technician at a high school
– musical instrument pedagogy
– management for a chamber ensemble
– admin work at an arts organization
– vaping retail
– waiting
– pizza e-bike delivery
– prison librarian
– radio production
– marketting
– copywriting
And I have been rejected from every single one of them. My goal over the past 4-5 years has been to find a job that can afford me sufficient economic mobility to move out of my parents house and eventually move to another city. I was anticipating on moving to Australia or central Europe a few years ago but that was unfortunately foiled by COVID-19. The pandemic has also undoubtedly foiled my performance gigging opportunities.
The head of the music faculty at my uni last year expressed interest in having me as a research assistant but said that there were currently no vacancies to fill that role.
I have been on welfare since 18 and I spent my early 20s finishing an undergraduate degree in music while earning cash from performing gigs intermittently. Every job outside my field is so fucking hyper specialized. I need at least 4 years of customer experience to get a retail job, hospitality experience for a waiting job, 4 years working in any niche, administrative, managerial role. Very few jobs exist where I can walk into with minimal experience and be guaranteed livable income to pay rent, bills, groceries, transportation etc.
Yet my boomer parents – an early childhood teacher and a hospital orderly who have held down their positions for 15 and 20 years respectively are totally oblivious to job precarity. My mum seems particularly insistent that my lack of job prospects comes down to personal deficiencies on my part for not finding work and insists that I should “ask” for work in person, not being aware that everything regarding advertisement for vacancies happens online nowadays and getting work through word of mouths happens within social circles. She has become recurrently insistent over the years that I need to move out ASAP and that somehow will enable them to retire, despite both of them having no contingency financial plan should they be forced to cease working for health related reasons. Both of them are forced to work despite their seniority (dad is 71 and mum is 62) because superannuation pays fuck all for my dad and my mum isn't eligible for it until she turns 62. Both have no savings.
It doesn't help that I didn't get experience, although I did have a casual unpaid role listing online sales for a local musical instrument retailer when I was 19. It's worth noting that I had a performance teacher for the first 3 years of undergrad who insisted her students don't work a 'normal job' on top of practicing 4-5 hours a day and attending lessons, rehearsals, classes, workshops and concerts. I also made friends with someone who was on the cusp of graduating at the time I started undergrad who advised that studying without working was preferable to balancing study and work.