Graduate lonely hearts: Disillusioned classics graduate, 21, with GSOH, seeks sparkling arts career for LTR.
Like the thousands of new graduates that have found themselves thrown out into the cold to battle the storms of post-credit crunch Britain, I am searching for the next progressive step.
Having spent the past three years of my life indulging in 5th Century Euripidean drama, and wiling away copious hours reading works by the likes of Propertius, Ovid and Tatius – I am a classics graduate - I now find myself regressing back to the dreaded teen years; living with ma and pa, watching X Factor on yet another Saturday night spent in, and sighing apologetically as the boyfriend, on a rare visit, is shown quickly to the spare room.
So where did it all go wrong? Now, I don't want my reader to get the wrong idea, I did not go to university with the expectation of being handed a one-way, first class ticket to some sort of career fulfilment Mecca, but I did however, go with the somewhat naive belief that a respectable 2:1 degree from a red brick university would provide me with core, transferable skills that would ensure the majority of career paths are open, and welcoming. Well, apparently not.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote: "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake...by an infinite expectation of the dawn." Since graduating in July from Nottingham University I have been futilely ploughing the UK job market for the faint sniff of any sort of vacancy, clinging desperately to this poetic advice.
But with every new day comes the publishing of tear-inducing statistics informing us young hopefuls of the 70 or so graduates vying for every entry-level role. Naive and fresh from graduation I foresaw reams of possible career opportunities; these opened up like the first buds of summer before my bleary eyes. With my crisp degree parchment clasped firmly in hand, and the hopeful words of my career advisor still ringing in my head, I stepped out into the world of adulthood with promise and confidence. However, a few short weeks later Britain finds itself facing the highest levels of graduate unemployment in 17 years, my internship rejection letters have begun to reach double figures, and reality suddenly bites, forcing me to drastically revise my high career expectations.
In reality, today's youth are facing graduate schemes that are made up of more segments than your average centipede (yes, Civil Service Fast Track I am talking about you), gruelling bootcamp style assessment centres, difficult and time-consuming aptitude tests, and covering letters coming out of your ears. So, to lighten the mood, in a series of guest blogposts, I hope to bring advice, tips, and at the very least some amusing anecdotes to the 'one in every 11' like me, as I start the long and arduous process of jobseeking. It is going to be one hell of a long winter.
So, for at least now, publishing has been poopooed, curation curtailed and a journalism career can, erm, take a jump? Phew. Now that my unreasonably high hopes of career fulfilment are firmly quashed, I can now concentrate on my, ahem, "true passion" — sales.
