The end (of college) is near.
A couple days ago, I posted about some of the things that scared me as a child. Now I’m going to post about something that scares me now: finding a job, post-grad. I know this is a pretty common problem among my fellow twentysomethings, but I’m still quite terrified. It certainly doesn’t help that every legit adult I’ve met in the past few weeks has given me the “I’m-so-glad-I’m-not-you” face when I mention that I’ll be walking across the stage in May.
On Saturday, I spent the afternoon volunteering at Kidsfest (a children’s activities festival that raises money for a family-oriented nonprofit in Iowa). The older woman manning the sand art station was very nice. She wanted to hear about where I was from and why I was Des Moines. When I told her I was graduating with degrees in English and magazine journalism, she blanked for a moment. “And you’re graduating this year?” There was that face. “Oh, sweetie, I really hope you can find a job.”
This reaction is getting old. Yes, I want to edit books. Yes, the publishing industry is changing. But no, it’s not dying.
I just spent an entire morning combing through lists and links of available writing/editing jobs. I don’t think the problem is that there aren’t jobs (they definitely exist). It’s also not that we aren’t qualified (I, at least, feel like I could kick butt at most of these jobs). The problem is that most of these positions require multiple years of professional experience, which as recent grads, we just don’t have. It makes sense that companies want to hire someone with proven experience in the field, but this is where the cliche begins. To get experience, you need experience.
So yes, I’m scared that I won’t have a job in June, because student loans will not be far off – but I’m more frustrated that small technicalities can take me out of the running for a job I’d be wonderful at.
Posted on March 6, 2012, in Uncategorized and tagged college, editing, graduation, jobs, professional, publishing, scary. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
the Little Red Bird 
You might not find a job in the actual industry that you’re wanting to coming right out of college, but that’s not something to fret about too much because in some instances you’ll get experience from that and you might find that you like something else. Then again, a lot of the jobs for editors out there don’t really require publishing firms to be involved. I’ve checked the rates for someone to edit a 40,000 word book and they’re pretty high (somewhere around 920 dollars if the turn around required is two weeks). That’s the price that someone wants to pay if they want to self-publish with some legitimacy and a book that’s not riddled with errors. You’re intelligent and you’ve got a lot of talents, so you’re not going to starve or anything and while there’s going to be competition out there for jobs most of them still won’t have college degrees. I think it’s natural to worry like this. Anyone does it before a big change in their life comes around. If it makes you feel any better, I wish I had been more like you and stuck to my guns and stayed with the major to finish college on time. Instead I let the talk of there not being jobs and the industry not being viable shake me up.