Post-Graduate Life: Job Searching

If you or someone you know is currently unemployed and looking for a job, please visit https://libwww.freelibrary.org/explore/topic/job-seekers for more information and resources.

By Leslie Quan

"Maybe I should look for a job."

 

Admittedly, for this statement, it's not a hypothetical, but a serious endeavor. In keeping with the thematic nature of this series, I'm forced to begin this way. Even though I am the writer, editor, publisher and decision-maker of everything here, I've let convention dictate my free will—unfortunate, yet not surprising. (Almost in a similar vein as Shirley Jackson's The Lottery noting that keeping up with tradition will kill you, literally). Anyways, I've digressed.

I can't imagine anyone who wakes up in the late morning and says, "I am absolutely thrilled and looking forward to joining the corporate world!" While I don't officially proclaim this in the mirror as I brush my teeth, I think I do a good job of convincing myself of this as I shuffle through hundreds of job postings each day.

The job search is a repetitive and mundane process, but I assume that's conducive to the lulls of post-graduate life. Despite this, I find reading through job postings somewhat exciting (or maybe the egg-cooking heat and excessively long residence on my living room couch has led me to believe that LinkedIn is the most exciting place on the internet).

As my affection for the state of Pennsylvania becomes more historical each day like the ringing of the Liberty Bell, I've welcomed the idea of moving to another state for work in order to ring in more options. This is where I find it fun (or as fun as it can be) to imagine what life would be like living in perhaps Illinois or California or even New York (not Texas though).

Fun and games and daydreaming aside, looking for a job is exhausting and headache-inducing. Even when my eyes are strained out of my head and all the text has gone blurry, I'm crazed to believe that the next job I apply to will be "the one," and then this whole cycle of insanity continues on for another two hours.

One thing that has caused a cyclone of turmoil within me involves whether or not my prospective job will be fulfilling. A reasonable concern I think. However, considering my early strides into a pool of opportunities, I'm naive to believe that my first job will afford me anything short of internal fulfillment. 

However, I don't blame my naivety for the requests I've made to companies for a decent salary. (I don't think internship credit offered to a college graduate is a suitable payment.) As much as I would love to live with my mom for the rest of my life in my childhood home that often pushes me towards a state of regression that I fall deeper into as I continue to live here, it would be nice to encounter autonomy and freedom in the form of moving out.

Despite a grueling process of applying for jobs and receiving emails from HR that remind me I am a "recent graduate with less experience" and "would land on the lower end of the pay scale," I am hopeful in my efforts. "Patience is a virtue," as someone who probably never knew the insidious work ethic only found in the U.S. once said.

Thank you for reading. I always sincerely appreciate anyone who willingly reads my writing. If you're keen on supporting my blog through financial means, my Venmo is @LeslieQuan (any amount is welcomed). However, I find monetary support incomparable to moral support, so a comment or a message from a reader goes a long way in helping me sustain my sanity to continue writing.