No one wants to work anymore?
I’ve spent the last four months applying for summer jobs. I’ve had weekly meetings with an on campus career adviser, curating the perfect resume and cover letter for each application. After submitting 45 applications, I have yet to hear back 24 of these employers, have been officially rejected by 20, and only one has let me know they’ll be reviewing my application in the next week or so.
So why is it that in a world in which “no one wants to work anymore”, a soon-to-be college grad can’t find a single job even slightly related to her field of study?
As of right now the only company willing to hire me is the one owned and operated by my parents. And while I’m of course grateful for the opportunity to continue living at home rent free, after three years of college I should, in theory, be able to land a job on my own accord.
What I’ve learned through this experience so far is that I’m over qualified and have outgrown working as a camp counselor, and underqualified for most entry level marketing or digital writing positions. The job market is so absurd right now that most unpaid internships being advertised in my LinkedIn and Indeed require applicants to be enrolled in a masters program. Seriously, what graduate student is going to apply for an unpaid internship?
Even the algorithm deciding what jobs I’m shown is skewed. I’m three years into a digital communications degree, and have this field as the main filter on all my job searching platforms, and yet the majority of the job openings I’m being shown are research assistants and lab work. Not to mention the complete disregard for the location filters on my search — I’ll ask for jobs within 25 miles of Winston-Salem, and only be shown positions in Ireland that don’t offer any relocation reimbursements.
I’ve had a summer job since I was 11 years old. I happened to pick a rather expensive sport, so from the time I was young I began doing barn chores in exchange for free riding lessons. I developed a strong work ethic early on, and am happy to display this drive in any job I work. I’ve worked on farms, in retail, at restaurants, even as a freelance photographer. And while those are all great gigs, none of them are enough to pay rent or student loans.
The boomers and older generations are all saying that no one wants to work anymore, but quite frankly I’d argue that no one wants to hire. I have plenty of work experience, I’m pursuing higher education and have pretty decent grades, so why is it so hard for me to find work? The jobs are available, but the required qualifications are near impossible to meet. So where do we place the blame then? With the employer, the unemployed, or whatever AI is writing job descriptions?
