Leaving university and going out into the big world is supposed to be an exciting time in a young adult’s life, the next step to becoming an independent, tax-paying member of our economy.
With two degrees in hand, I was ready to take on the world. I was a young, inspired and eager journalist with stars in my eyes and dreams I wanted to achieve.
But life does not deal a pretty hand to all of us, and I found myself in the same position as most university graduates, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Of course I did not expect to just walk into a job the day I finished university, but nothing had prepared me for the struggle ahead of me as I spent months searching for a job, but to no avail.
For those lucky few who walk out of university and straight into a job in an established company, I used to envy you. As is commonly known in the world of business, it’s all about who you know, not what you know. I did not grasp this concept properly until I was rejected time and time again from jobs that I know I would have been good at.
That is one thing you need to get used to in the aimless search for a job: rejection.
In high school when you get taught to write a CV and how to act in an interview, the educators do not prepare you for the gut-wrenching feeling you get when that rejection email sent by the company that you were dying to work for appears in your inbox.
Now I don’t know how the rest of the university graduates feel, but personally, I felt cheated.
Parents, teachers and government encourage matric students to further their education as doing so will increase their chance of getting a job, this may be partially true, but they do not mention the time period it may take to get said job.
Almost every job I applied for since November 2012 (which was close to being in the triple digits) wants a candidate with a certain number of years experience, and yes, often to get the experience you need to intern at a company without pay for a while, but with many companies wanting between 5 and 10 years experience, where is the hope for those of us just out of university?
While I was watching the Tim Burton directed film ‘Big Fish’ recently, I found that one of the film’s themes reflects the lives of many people leaving university, the theme of being a big fish in a small pond.
Quoting from the film, “You were a big fish in a small pond, but this here is the ocean, and you’re drowning.”
These words resonate with me, from knowing the small world of university life like the back of my hand, to going out into the real world and realising how much I still have to learn has opened my eyes.
The worst part of the search is not the rejections though, it’s the hope you have each time you send your CV out.
Although I wished at points that I was one of those people who walked straight into a job from leaving university, I now realise that I am so much more grateful for the job I finally got, which is at least in the career path I want to be in, and although the struggle was long and difficult, once you’re in, you’re in and there is nowhere to go but up for this journalist.
