<p>Wow thanks for posting this! I haven’t had a chance to read through ALL of the replies, but your story sounds similar to mine:</p>
<p>I graduated during the peak of the recession in '09. My academic department promised to help me find a job and help me out after graduation and I believed them. (I started to consider switching majors at the last minute and they pulled out all the stops to get me to graduate from their program). Anyway, I graduated a year early with honors. I made good grades and was involved a little bit in school (work study at the paper, holding an editor’s position as well as other positions but didn’t join any clubs). I lived off campus and rarely partied (was never late to class, never failed).</p>
<p>I started applying for jobs in and out of state my last semester of school, but nothing turned up. I managed to find a temporary position in my city, but only 4 months later they let me go. I’ve been applying to jobs aggressively for 6+ months and have had many interviews. However I’m either over qualified or under qualified. I’ve applied to every kind of job there is. In college I worked in food service and in retail for 2 years. I’ve probably applied to every retail store in this city, unfortunately after many successful interviews I realized that my old boss has some imaginary beef with me and it’s costing me those jobs. (I’m not sure how to check this for sure, unless I call her myself). I’ve had to take that 2 year experience off my resume before it costs me more possible jobs.</p>
<p>I’ve pretty much turned job hunting into a full time job. 60% of jobs on those job hunting websites are scams and I have to do a bunch of research on the company (unless it’s well known) before I even try to contact them.</p>
<p>Out of all the people that I graduated with in my major, only one has a real job in that major. The rest are unemployed or work in retail. Only 2 of my high school friends have found a job (and one of them works for her dad, so that doesn’t count). The rest are in grad school or unemployed.</p>
<p>I decided to go back to school and am trying to fund it myself (I made a thread about it). I’m hopeful this will help me out, but I’m stuck in a big rut. </p>
<p>Emotionally this has been really hard to deal with, because I did work hard on my degree and it’s worth nothing. People say, “if I were you I’d do this…” or “you should apply to more places” etc… It’s so frustrating because I’ve applied to 100+ in every field and done everything (including volunteering, networking) and there’s just not much out there.</p>
<p>My best advice has actually come from random people. I lost my insurance and my mom insisted that I go to the eye doctor/dentist and she would pay. Both the eye doctor and dentist gave me some great advice and made me feel better about my situation. I know it sounds silly, but tell everyone about your situation. It sounds desperate, but I AM desperate, so what do I have to lose, you know?</p>
<p>My mom has been great to help me out thus far and I’m so thankful for her. Good luck to everyone else out there trying to find a job!</p>