What You Need to Know if You Just Graduated and You Don't Have a Job
Episode 257 | Author: Emilie Aries
I want to speak directly to recent college graduates who have yet to land a full-time job. I've got four quick tips for anyone who is struggling to find their footing post-graduation right now or know someone who has and wants to share this blog with them.
1. Put down the measuring stick
What I mean by that is do not compare yourself to anyone else right now. There is simply no playbook for how to handle a post-graduation global pandemic. You were not only robbed of a very special ceremonial time in your life, which the last half of your senior year should have been a happy joyous time. Walking across the graduation stage as silly as it might seem sometimes is a really important transition moment. For me, it was an identity shift and it was about really owning my own grandfather's vision for his family's lives because he really believed in the power of education to transform your life.
And I know how proud he was on my graduation day and I felt that pride. I felt that sort of intergenerational pride from those around me and the fact that you graduated without perhaps as special of a ceremony as you were entitled is awful. So you need to practice and self-compassion right now. There is just no way to measure your progress in terms of where you think you “should be” and you certainly shouldn't compare yourself to the highlight reels that people share on social media right now.
The fact of the matter is everyone’s a hot mess, sometimes even me, that's why my book opens with me calling myself a recovering hot mess. And again my generation, the Millennials, even though we didn't have an easy go of graduating into the height of the Great Recession, it still pales in comparison to a global pandemic. If you are struggling to find your footing right now, please go easy on yourself and know that you're not alone.
2. Ask for the help - early and often
I know it's cliché, but there's this narrative in our heads that once we are grown, once we are graduated adults, we should be able to do this all on our own and it's just not the case.
Ask for the help you need early and often. Don't procrastinate reaching out for support whether that means talking your way into free conferences, or maybe it's asking for scholarship funding for programs that you want to attend. I basically negotiated with my first therapist ever for a reduced rate because I was a hot mess, broke, young, and struggling. That therapist changed my life or at least enabled me to change my own damn life. I remember being semi homeless when I left a very troubling relationship and felt like I had nowhere to go. I had to ask friends for help and couch surfed for a little while there.
When you are down and out, when you feel like you haven't quite found your footing yet, don't let that feeling of needing help turn into shame. Externalize it. Identify the big disasters, in this instance, the global pandemic that is getting in the way from you being able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s not you. It's something bigger that's happening right now. So if you need to ask for help, if you need to seek out assistance right now, do so knowing that it's not who you are, it's where you are. The space that you're in right now is temporary. It will end.
3. Upskill
Find a way to feel a sensation of progress. Whether it's learning to play the drums, learning to get better at a sport of your choosing, learning how to cook, or upskilling in a more formal way. Maybe by taking online courses, learning new skills, asking folks whose careers you admire to teach you something, asking them if you can shadow them for a day, or asking for mentorship. Take this opportunity to upskill and develop your skills beyond the skill that is job searching because I guarantee you as you continue your quest for a job, you will get better at it.
4. Network. Network. Network.
Learn the art of telling your story to a total stranger. If you can tell a powerful story about who you are and what you studied and what you're looking to do in this world, even to a complete stranger over a phone call or a zoom meeting, you will inspire in them that spark of connection that can be turned into a flame that can help open doors for you and lead to growth and opportunities that you couldn't even imagine coming your way.
Reach out to people, even those who you think might be too busy to meet with you. Send the email again. I know it feels weird but one of the best ways to do that is to stay connected with your alumni community and start networking amongst other graduates, whether they’re peers or graduates who graduated a decade-plus ago. Your institution of higher education is there to help you even after graduation day to find your footing so take advantage of those networking opportunities. Recently, I had Justin Nguyen on the podcast talking all about How to Leverage LinkedIn and Justin’s only about three years out from graduation day himself.
The most important thing is that you resist the temptation to recede into your shell. I know when I'm feeling hopeless and lost, my inclination is to just wither up, close in on myself, curl up into a ball, and stay under the covers as long as I can. And while that is a perfectly natural response to how overwhelming and stressful and scary it can feel right now, it's the opposite of what we need. What we need as human beings is connection.
Stepping up as an adult right now, being your own advocate right now, kind of looks like parenting yourself a little bit, telling yourself, “What do I need to do that's good for me that I don't really want to do?” That means reaching out even when you don't feel like talking to anyone. Asking for help even when you feel afraid that it might elicit some kind of judgment from others. Offering help - your skills, talents, and willingness to work hard, to someone who could use it right now as an opportunity to get your foot in the door.
Start proving yourself worthy. Even if it's just for a part-time gig or an internship. You can talk your way into extending that internship into a full-time job. It is only through building relationships with others that we can bring about more into our own lives than we thought was possible before. So resist that temptation to retreat into what feels like safety, but which really is not.
Stay active, stay out there, and stay asking for the help. You need to find your next step. I guarantee you this period of uncertainty and feeling lost is temporary. Reach out to that person on LinkedIn even though we feel like they might never see this message and pound the virtual pavement, in this case, to knock on doors, to make those calls, and to continue to show up for our future selves every day.
If that sounds exhausting, it totally is. Set yourself a small goal like reaching out to one new person a day, sending one email a day, sending one job application a week to make this process more manageable and keep showing up for yourself each and every day. It is not the perfection of that process that counts, it’s the consistency. It doesn’t matter if you work out really perfectly one day, if you don't work out again for another week, but I think of it as the same kind of philosophy. You've got to keep pushing the rock up the hill and I promise at some point you will get to the top. I wish all my recent graduates who are still finding their footing the best of luck. You're not late. You're not behind. There is no playbook for a pandemic so go easy on yourself. Have patience and perseverance with this process.
I want to hear about how things are going
If you put any of these tips to use in your job search right now, I want to hear about it. Join our 100% free online community, The Bossed Up Courage Community, if you want more support from an incredible, powerful, all-supportive space online that’s waiting to support you and brainstorm with you as you figure out what comes next. If you're not a recent graduate, but you found this blog helpful, share it with the folks in your world who you know who could use it.
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