I'm mad I fell for the “you need to go to college” lie my parents told me – I have been looking for a job in the field my degree is in since April when I graduated.
I've had 10 interviews for companies since then and no job offers. Its always “we went for someone with more experience” for entry level jobs in my field. I've been constantly trying to improve, attending interview workshops, asking for debriefing after job rejections, but its always “there was just someone else, you did nothing wrong”.
A gym friend I have works senior level for a large company and encouraged me to apply for a job that required 10 years experience, an intermediate level position that pays about 40k more than my salary expectation.
I applied and she told me to send her my resume after I applied. She printed out my resume and walked it into the hiring mangers office for me. Well today I get a phone call asking for my favorite lunch place so I could have a job interview over lunch. I don't know if the “lunch interview” is a mid level hiring tactic but the whole thing just feels so much nicer than the sterile board room interviews where its me facing 5 people.
I don't really know what my chances are if any of actually getting the job, but I'm here because of someone else, and only because playing by the rules didn't work for me. I feel happy and angry at the same time that this is how hiring really works and working hard doesn't get you anywhere.