The Saint
Jobpocalypse
Katie Meyer feels the pressure of the final countdown
April. For some people, this means springtime. The sun setting after nine, planning bonfires on the beach, or picking out a swimsuit for the May dip. These people are not 4th years. Or, they're 4th years with a job, or a plan, or wilful optimism, all of which have escaped me. While some students skip down the sunny side of North Street clutching a smoothie in one hand and a fistful of carefree dreams in the other, I watch them wistfully from the library, the sound of the breeze and birdsong outside drowned out by a ticking louder than that of a 45 year-old trying to conceive.
I feel like the International Development Minister in In the Loop; I, too, can only seem to express my anxiety in random analogies. When a colleague asks him whats wrong, the minister responds: My brain is completely empty, except for a little voice in the back of my head going Oh shit over and over again like a car alarm. For me, that car alarm is two words: Its April. The usually cheery month of rebirth has become a sort of death knell for my future: its April, and I dont have a job, and my only plan is to perhaps attend Lollapalooza in August. Oh shit, indeed.
With twenty job applications now sent out, Ive received one offer of a position at a film company starting in two weeks. It seemed perfect until: Wait, it says here that you graduate when? And so I tried the Career Centres online networking feature.
Until you find yourself in 4th year, your only thoughts on the Careers Centre might occur as you exit the library, faced with a glossy image of someone looking at the ceiling, and think thats the dumbest poster Ive ever seen. However, the Careers site enabled me to email about thirty people who worked in jobs I wanted - journalists, publishers and filmmakers. I restrained my impulse to awkwardly suggest hiring me, and instead calmly asked for advice.
The responses were varied:
I love it, but -- as I see people getting laid off left, right, and centre -- I dont have a whole lot of optimism about the future, said one journalist. Its not a great time to be starting out, as there are few jobs or prospects for growth. Excellent.
Be prepared to do anything without complaining [when you start out], wrote another alumna, because youll be used to do all the worst, most tedious jobs. Getting warmer.
When I called one alumnus on his request, he revealed himself to be one of my heroes in journalism, who has written several books, made BBC documentaries and accomplished feats of journalism that I can only dream about. Mercifully, he answered optimistically on the future of the industry and on my own prospects (just work hard, and there will be a place for you). After hanging up, and once I stopped drooling, I started applying for jobs with a new fervour.
The alumni helped me learn a few solid approaches to the application process - like persistence, and narrowing my focus. However, that advice didnt extend to offering me work, or connections that could lead to work. Perhaps I hid my desperation so well that they took my request for advice as simply that, not the SOS from a sinking ship that it really was.
The eleven kind souls who responded to my inquiries had two universal pieces of advice, which should help the many other 4th years currently experiencing the jobpocalypse, who call their plans for next year a gap year between St Andrews and, hopefully, a job: join LinkedIn, and pray.
I plan on following that advice until I find some form of employment, which will hopefully occur by the time I write my final column. Wish me luck! I need it.
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