By: Susana Gil de Real
I recently finished grad school, and after months and months of searching for jobs and applying to countless positions across many, many industries, I managed to land a position in the field I wanted to work in. After so much time and effort — and hundreds upon hundreds of applications sent into the ether — it felt like winning the lottery. Finding a job was so completely impossible, it seemed a matter of luck instead of skill or ability. Throughout the year I was actively applying, the job search process was so frustrating I frequently found myself in tears, feeling helpless and terrified of what my future would bring.
The fact is, we’re living through an unprecedentedly bad job market — possibly the worst one ever. During the time I was unfortunate enough to be looking for jobs, it was hard not to fall into despair. It was hard not to question my life’s work and envision a future where I wouldn’t amount to anything and I’d be drifting around with nothing to do. It was hard not to link my employability with my value and come to the conclusion that I was worthless, useless, pointless, and that the rest of my life would reflect that. It was hard not to do anything except spiral and panic.
One thing that really didn’t help was when well-meaning people offered their advice and kindly explained to me how, essentially, I was doing everything wrong, and that actually this was the right way to go about it. I had enough conversations with my mom where she tried to guide me or correct some tactics, and I know it came from a good place, but these conversations always devolved into me practically snarling at her, shrieking about the fact that the system was rigged, there’s no way out, there’s no winning, and there’s nothing I could do.
It never got so heated with new people, because I try to maintain a semblance of civility when out in public, but I also hated having conversations with strangers about this. Given that one of the main elements of small talk is asking the other person about their job, the question would always inevitably turn back to me.
It was always a challenge to come up with a graceful way of saying, “I’m unemployed,” but after so many times having the same conversations, I managed to store a few classic lines up my sleeve: “I’m still trying to figure things out,” “I’m actually looking for a job right now,” or, my personal favorite, “I just finished my master’s degree, so I’m deciding my next move,” which made it sound like I was super productive.
But when they’d follow up with, “And what kind of job are you looking for?” I found my answer varying every time. I thought I knew what I wanted when I first graduated, but as the months stretched on, my desperation grew and my horizons broadened — and not in a good way. Answering this question required knowing my audience and gauging what kind of answer would interest them the most. Did I tell them I was looking for something creative? That would probably turn into a conversation about the arts. Did I say I was looking for something in Marketing or Sales? For some people, that might prompt them to try to help me connect with people. Or did I say I was, “looking for anything, anything at all!” That kind of response either shut down the conversation or started a new one about this awful job market. Like I said, I had to know my audience. I feared that if I didn’t pique their interest, they’d find me boring and move on. And not only would I be jobless, I would also be friendless and hopeless.
However, if I did manage to capture their attention, I was often subjected to the very bits of advice I rejected from my mother; except, this time, I had to swallow and listen. Everybody always had something or other to say, some knowledge to impart, some tips to give.
The thing is, at first, I would actively seek out these bits of advice. I went to career fairs and wrote to professors, advisors, alumni, to ask for help in the job search process. But I soon discovered that a lot of this advice was often riddled with contradictions. And that really didn’t help when it came to figuring out what the hell to do.
For example, one of my biggest concerns was about the matter of scope. I was told by my mother and my teachers growing up to keep my options open, to be good at everything and not back myself up into a corner. And I’ve always personally thought it’s better to be a Renaissance woman than to specialize in one specific thing. That’s why, after getting my undergrad degree in Art History (admittedly, quite niche), I decided to further my studies in business and management, which could grow into a number of different careers.
But once I started doing my homework in business school — networking, talking to advisors, going to career presentations — I started hearing the opposite perspective. People were now saying that what was really desired in the job market was specialized knowledge, the kind of knowledge that can’t be replaced easily, whether by technology or by other people. Everyone can be a generalist, but not everyone can be an art advisor with a specialization in female minimalist artists from the mid-late 20th century.
(But then again, how many of those does the world really need, and is there room for competition when you’re so specific?)
I could go on and on and on about different bits of advice I was given by some people that then got completely contradicted by others. And I will:
Tip 1: Use a cover letter in every application and update it religiously. If you don’t find the name of the hiring manager, if you don’t mention the company three times, if you don’t use the exact words you see on the job description, they’ll look you over and assume you don’t care.
Counter-argument: Don’t bother tailoring your cover letter for every job because nobody reads them anyways. You’ll waste precious time when you could be applying to more jobs, reaching out to more companies, networking with more people.
Tip 2: Don’t address the parts of the job description where you fall short, because you’ll invite negativity into your application and you shift the focus to why you’re bad for the job.
Counter-argument: Address these faults directly and get ahead of the narrative, or they’ll think you assume they’re stupid.
Tip 3: Do not allow big gaps in your resume because employers will question your capabilities and think you’re undesirable. Take any job that comes your way immediately (I’ll get right on that, thanks), or your marketable skills will expire.
Counter-argument: Don’t take a job that won’t make sense in your trajectory, or it will derail your career. If the jobs in your resume don’t have a clear narrative, employers will assume you lack direction and you’re all over the place.
The advice continued even after I’d managed to snag a job:
Tip 4: Don’t negotiate your starting salary or your offer will be rescinded.
Counter-argument: Do negotiate your salary or you’ll set yourself up for a lifetime of subpar salaries.
Those ‘friendly little tips’ took on a tone of warning, of or else, and rather than feel fortified or guided, I felt like no matter what I did, I would lose. The warring advice would bounce around in my head, repeating itself, taking on the voice of a professor, or my mother, or some random stranger from Instagram reels, reminding me why I was screwing up everything.
It left me paralyzed, incapable of making decisions. Whose advice was I supposed to follow? Who knew best? Was I supposed to do what I’d been doing all along, striking a happy medium — which had borne no fruit at all — or should I bet on a strategy and throw my full weight behind it?
Beneath it all was the underlying fear that everything was for nothing and I would never amount to anything at all and the world was going to end anyways, why even bother when we’re all going to die, what’s the point, there really is no point.
During this time, I often found myself thinking of the worst, racked with fears of my bleak future and of a lifetime of unemployment and purposelessness. These thoughts still haunt me. You don’t spend over a year in limbo without more than a little PTSD. There’s a line between paranoia and legitimate fear, and I don’t know if I crossed it or not during that time. In hindsight, I still think those fears were valid.
It’s a tough market to navigate right now, and I have little to no hope that it’s going to get better eventually. The very technology that was supposed to help us tackle it is actually making it harder to land jobs, and I’m sure that, sooner rather than later, AI will force me back into that godforsaken spiral.
I’ve come to the conclusion that nobody knows what the hell they’re talking about. Not in this economy. Not in this reality. The surplus of information and advice that exists out in the world does nothing to help us maneuver this minefield, and, worse, the contradictions manifest themselves negatively, warning us of the worst that can happen, no matter what route we take, rather than how to cope gracefully.
I think the future is bleak — and I feel this way even after landing my job. I hope that I’m just being paranoid, but I have a funny feeling my fears are justified. If there was ever a time for mass hysteria, I’d argue it’s now. The economy is in shambles, technology is taking over our lives, and too much information about wars and diseases and climate change is keeping us confused, concerned, and compliant.
And by the looks of it, it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better.
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