Conservative Girl in a Liberal World

The Great Job Search

I wonder sometimes if it’s not the economy that means so many college graduates aren’t getting jobs, but rather the demand for better applicants.  It’s not enough nowadays to simply have a college degree and call it a day, thinking you’ll get any job you apply for.  And you know what, after talking with my father, it seems like it’s always been that way.  What I’ve learned is that it’s about the following:

1. your experiences within whatever field
2. how persistent you are in finding and acquiring a job
3. who you know in the field
4. not being set on a specific job
5. knowing that you will need to work your way up
6. your certifications and/or degree

Maybe the entitlement that the majority of my generation feels is finally catching up to us as we enter the great job search after graduation.

Take me for example:

I graduated a top-notch public institution with a GPA of around 3.7 known for its education program.  I came out with a elementary education certification (K - 5) and an endorsement for middle school mathematics and middle school science.  I scored top scores on all of my Praxis tests, receiving a certification of excellence in my Elementary Education.

One would think with such an excellent record coming out of college that finding a job would be easy.  I certainly thought so.  I was thinking “Look at this.  I have all of these certifications.  I have amazing test scores.  I LOVE teaching.  And my passion is for teaching underprivileged children, a very tough teaching area that not many want to get in to.  How could I not get a job?”

Additionally, throughout my entire college career, at every guidance meeting I had, whenever I brought up the job market after college, I was told that I had nothing to worry about.  That any school would gladly hire me.  That I would make $50,000 a year, right out of college.  Not only did I have my confidence exiting college, I had every single administrator and professor at my campus telling me how well I would do.  It went straight to my head.  I only applied for three jobs.  I only went to one interview, the first round and they never called me back despite getting the interview through a family friend. 

Let me also add now that I was also going through the Teach for America application process in hopes of being accepted and placed in New Orleans.  When that fell through, I began looking to move out-of-state (as a personal decision of no longer wanting to live in my current location), applying for my certification in that other state as well as for jobs out there as opposed to ones in my current state.  This affected the number of jobs I applied to initially after my graduation.

When jobs in elementary education fell through, I started applying to early childhood education jobs in hopes of obtaining any job within the education field and get out of the part-time retail job I had.  I must have applied to ten different jobs within a week period, calling each place a week later.  I only got an interview with one, where the assistant director told me and I quote “You’re exactly what we’re looking for.  Let me run it by the director to make sure that your elementary education degree will be acceptable…which I’m sure it will be…and we’ll get back to you by Friday, noon at the latest.  I really look forward to working with you.”  Not only did I have to call the school that Friday evening, the assistant director refused to talk to me and the director was the most unpleasant person I have ever encountered.  Needless to say, I did not get the job.

I finally got a job outside of my specialty, but within the education field through a random meeting at my part-time job with the owner of a Goddard school.  Despite my K - 5 and middle school endorsements and what every person told me from day one of my college career, I currently work as an assistant teacher at a Goddard school making $21,000 a year, not as a head teacher at an elementary or middle school making $50,000 a year.

I’ll be honest.  I was extremely disappointed by the lack of initial interviews I had as well as the difficulty I had in even contacting administrators at schools.  I was even more disappointed when I started having to look outside of my degree to get a job.  I was supposed to be teaching algebra to pre-teens or the basics of the English language to third graders, not working with toddlers.

Now, I am more than excited about this job.  I love it.  The pay is terrible, but I’m gaining experience and never thought I would love teaching younger children as much as I do.  I’m working towards adding my Early Childhood Education certification to my ever-growing list of tests and certifications in hopes of getting a head teacher position.

My father is not as excited for me.  He sees it as a waste of his money that he paid for me to go to college as an elementary education major and to only get a job as a pre-school teacher seems like a waste to him.  At the same time, he understands that it’s a foot in the door and that from here, I may have an easier time getting a better paid job.

At the end of this lengthy story, I was like any other college graduate.  I went in with confidence, came out with an amazing degree with superb test scores.  I was told for so long how the nation needs teachers and my certifications would guarantee me a job and that I would be making so much money right out of college.  It was my own naivety as well as the lack of actual guidance and help that I went out to search for a job with 1) no idea of what I was doing in order to get a job and 2) not prepared for the hard knocks of how difficult it actually is to obtain a job.

It all boiled down to the fact that I was not persistent enough nor did I have the experience that these jobs were looking for.  Sure, my certifications look great on paper, but that’s all.  They wanted job experience, something I had little of outside of a summer day care job and my student teaching experience in college.  It’s just not enough to go through the motions of college and getting your degree.  It’s also not enough to think that you can get your dream job right after the bat.  I still want to teach third graders or algebra in a middle school, but I might have to wait a few years and get some more experience before I can do that.

This holds true for every field.  My dad is currently looking for a new job within the engineering field, now that military base he works at is closing soon.  Sure, he has his master’s degree, but those jobs don’t really care all that much about it.  What they really care about and what they want to know about is what he’s done, what positions has he held, how is that related to what he’s applying for now.  And he’s applied to numerous jobs, a good thirty or forty, if not more.  He’s still applying, still interviewing.  Granted, he still has his current job and an amazing resume with numerous experiences on it to have a little bit more leeway  than myself in what he would like to take as his next job, but it’s still just as hard and as time-consuming as my first venture in to the job search.  College graduates need to stand up straight, stop feeling entitled, get whatever experience they can, and just keep applying.

It’s a job just to get a job and NOTHING comes easy.