I graduated with a bachelor's in May 2023, majored in a foreign language, minored in graphic design, but once I realized that the linguistics industry I'd dreamed about going into is mostly freelance these days and I'd have to find clients and manage my own taxes and follow up with people endlessly to even get paid in the first place, it was too late to switch majors and I became completely uninterested pursuing a career there despite loving studying it.
That said, there technically *are* plenty of other career paths I could wiggle my way into if I networked properly, but… Everything just looks incredibly bleak. I do “informational interviews” with alumni in fields I'm considering and they all just tell me things like, “Yeah I went into sales because I couldn't find a social media job so don't get your hopes up” and “I enjoy what I do but I can't in good faith recommend anyone goes into the publishing industry because it's incredibly toxic.”
How am I supposed to network with *that*? I don't blame these people for their perspectives because literally everyone in every industry at every level seems miserable right now.
I applied to 80-some jobs from May 2023 to November 2023, but somehow only landed interviews for jobs I applied to knowing they were a reach and then got told I didn't have enough experience. I had three second-round interviews in December 2023, just to log onto the applicant portals after the holidays and find out all three had rejected me *before* the holidays without notifying me. So I slowed down my job search at the beginning of this year.
In the spring, I picked up a part-time job that I hate and is trying to give me more responsibility because everyone else is quitting or getting fired or in college and can't take on more responsibilities. Maybe the “correct” way to look at it is “Yay, more hours!” But it just feels like a trap–less time to look for a new job. Anyway, I've only applied to 14 jobs this year and haven't heard from any of them.
I need to start applying to jobs again because I can't imagine myself happy in my hometown and I want to move back to the city I graduated in, but I can't imagine a path toward that anymore. Literally, I'm just trying to find *any* full-time job that pays me enough to afford rent and groceries in a city an hour away in the same state as I'm living now, but that feels impossible.
**Look,** I don't want advice on how to find my first real job. I just need advice on how to look at it from a more helpful perspective so I can actually start working toward something and stop rotting in my childhood bedroom… or figure out how to move on and cope with being un(der)employed the rest of my life.