How to cope with joblessness?
I wasn’t able to secure a job before graduation and now I’m paying the price, as my search approaches its 10th month my mental health is the poorest it’s ever been and I struggle to go on.
I know it’s silly to be upset over this when I have my whole life ahead of me, but this is a very shaky first step and it’ll likely affect things down the road. Employers look at your last drawn salary after all…
I just can’t help but feel like a failure. The unemployment rate for fresh grads is ~6% IIRC. Probably less as more time goes on. Yeah I know I shouldn’t compare but I’ve done so poorly it’s hard to see this as anything other than a fail.
Am I gonna be jobless even an entire year after I graduated? Two years? Or maybe stuck working with conniving bosses who take advantage of my inexperience, already had some run-ins with that. Maybe the rest of my life will just be a string of more failures, building up on one another as I fall further and further behind.
How can I cope with these thoughts?
Netizens’ comments
- Talking to your friends help. Whining helps.
What you can do: Network network network. Not even for specific jobs but talk to people, find out what they’re doing, and sometimes it lands you an opportunity. It helps you to find an interest instead of just trying to fit in somewhere, then realizing it’s a soul sucking job you hate. - I was unemployed for nearly 14 months after graduating abroad a decade ago. To make matters worse, what I majored in was not exactly marketable. I had applied for a more than 500 jobs abroad and got 3 callbacks. Eventually, I came back to Singapore. The situation was better but still difficult. I ultimately landed a position in a graduate associate program doing operation work with a local bank.
Fast forward to today, I have been continuously in the workforce since mid 2014 and have even changed industry. Don’t let your job status define you or change your outlook in life. Take care of yourself, go exercise and continue to take courses to improve your situation (Coursera, LinkedIn Learning are relatively low cost). Do a review on your fashion sense, how you are presenting yourself and what do you wear to an interview. Small little things matter.
Don’t think too much of last drawn salary. Land a job first then pivot a year or two later. Changing jobs and promotions can even the ground fairly quickly should you be earning less.
Job application is ultimately a numbers game. Apply enough times and you will find something. Keep pivoting until you get something closer to what you want. And no matter what, don’t compare yourself with your peers. You will only see those doing better than you and not those in a worse situation.
Don’t lose hope!