Coru's Void Blog

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear everything about the job :( To be honest, if they were that willing to let you go because of your lack of experience only a week after you got the job, something tells me there were going to be problems with the job overall.

I'm in the same position as you. I graduated in May and have been living with my parents trying to find a job, something that's only being resolved now in August. Job hunting is incredibly disheartening - there's nothing worse than being outright ignored by a job opening, or having a month later an e-mail stating "hey sorry we didn't pick you."

To combat this, I've been doing a lot of soul-searching on what I've wanted to do and reading a lot of advice. The advice is that it's absolutely alright to be rejected from a job and try not to be too beat up over it. The mindset I took is that: You only gotta win once. Out of all the positions you're working towards, you only gotta succeed on your interview and get hired once.

As for having money NOW, I'd say it's okay to get something in retail. It's okay to work other jobs until your passion can support you. If you're in the States, I'd say Target is really good - I worked there for almost my entire time in college and they were very accommodating to my schedule.

I know it's freaking hard, but keep your head up. Remember, this isn't your permanent state, nor are you alone. Pretty much every college graduate I've talked to about this is in the same awkward and anxious spot, unless they were freaks at uni and did fifteen internships and ate golden apples for breakfast. You'll get through this!

Oh no, I'm sorry you had to go through that Coru. The people from that job are ridiculous! They knew how much experience you had and they only have you a few days to get used to working your first full time job?! What were they thinking?! It took me months to settle in at my first job.

I felt the same way when I finished uni. It's hard to get a job in my field too. I didn't think I had a chance so I was questioning all my choices and trying to figure out what I was gonna do with my life. I kept applying to jobs and getting interviews but being rejected because they had someone with "more experience". This annoyed me the most because they already knew exactly how much experience I had beforehand and therefore wasted my time.

It was definitely a really depressing time. Being constantly knocked back or not hearing anything at all is so disheartening. I was lucky to be living at home so I din't have to worry about bills, but I can't imagine how much extra stress that must add.

What I did was try and keep busy. I tried to keep to a routine every day, set my alarm, apply for one or two jobs, have lunch and then do something productive in the afternoon. I decided my back up plan was to be a web developer and I wanted to learn programming beyond HTML/CSS. I started on Codecademy and then lynda.com doing the full stack developer course (I was lucky that I could access it for free through my uni). I kept applying for jobs in the meantime and eventually got very lucky. Maybe you could try doing some of those coding things too if you need something to keep you occupied. I'm not sure how much you've already done, but they're good things to put on a resume and go nicely with graphic design. It's also something you can do freelance if necessary.

Hang in there Coru! What happened at that job is disgusting. It wasn't your fault at all. You deserve much better and you'll get there!!

Yeah, don't blame yourself, a week is by no means enough time to measure a person's skill and ability to do a job. I had a few jobs like that myself. Barely enough time to get a handle on things and I had just barely figured out where the bathroom were before the manager just decided nah and thought nothing of it. Truthfully, it's very unprofessional and it basically says they were unprepared and didn't get their heads straight.

But yeah, dust yourself off and don't take it personally. You've got talent and skills that someone will see the value in.

@Coru I'm sorry to hear that they treated you so badly and wasted your time. :/ I hope you will be able to find a better job soon, because you deserve much better.

I got a reply from the interview I had and I didn't get it. Oh well. I've applied to two more so lets see what happens. Probably going to sign up for Universal Credit (Part of the UK benefits system where unemployed people get a little bit of money to live off while they are looking for a job) so I can at least stop myself going deeper into negative at my bank.
@HorusMyDude Yeah, it seemed very sketchy to me. They paid me for the 5 days but it was cash in hand and there didn't seem to be any official thing to say I was there. I was doing cash in hand client jobs and the others were under the woman's name I would be filling in for as it was Maternity cover. They gave me the job when there were loads of extra work in and they let me go just and it was done, so sounds like they were using me to get cheap work and the client work done. I don't know. It's nice to hear that I'm not alone and congrats on your graduation and job!
I live in the UK so we don't have Walmarts here but there are some companies like that over here and some that pay quite well so I'm going to have a look into that along with applying for Graphic Design jobs on the side. Just so stressful when you want to just take it slow and figure stuff out but you don't have the money to have that luxury. Thanks! :) @Pokemon Trainer Sarah Yeah, I'm still super annoyed at them and my whole family and my friends were all quite annoyed to put it in nice words haha. I'm just glad that I got out of there before it got worse. Realistically I wasn't enjoying it anyway. On my commutes I almost had 3 separate panic attack/breakdowns because I was so anxious and stressed about messing up and stuff. It probably wouldn't have been healthy for me to stay in that job anyway.
I can relate to it being hard and depressing. It just annoys me when they advertise a role for a 'Junior Graphic Designer' which is an entry level bottom of the ladder job and ask for at least 2 years of experience. How am I meant to get a job if the bottom jobs are also asking for experience? There's no internships going round at the moment and they would make my money situation even worse so it's a bit of an annoying cycle. I think a routine is something I could do with doing. I don't do much at the moment, just sleep in until 11 and stay in the house most days unless I'm meeting up with friends so it probably isn't making my mental state better really. Programming could help to be fair. It would go hand in hand and a lot of places quite like to have someone that knows programming and coding such as HTML etc. So I might consider finding a coding course or something.
I'm still living at home, but my dad's mental and physical health really isn't good at the moment. He is unemployed as he has had multiple strokes so he needs to walk with a stick and doesnt have much strength so he can't really work and he struggles as it is without me living at home too so I need my own money to help support him and I'm currently in negative at my bank so I can't do that at the moment. So it's quite stressful. But it'll get sorted soon hopefully.
@Neo Emolga I completely agree. I feel like they either were using me or they made a bad decision. I honestly wouldn't have minded if they rejected me based on my experience. I would rather that than what they did to me. I'm just more annoyed that they wasted my time really, along with them embarrassing me as I told all my family that I got a job and some friends and I lost it before some even saw me to congratulate me so I had to explain to them what happened. But oh well. Hopefully experiencing that stuff now means I won't later down the line haha.
@Cleobel I hope so too. When I have a job, this limbo state is something I honestly will not miss haha. I guess one of the positives of it was that I learned from it and now I can spot when an employer is being shifty or something is off and not be naive. I feel like I was quite naive as it was my first job so I didn't question or didn't speak back when I felt they did something unfair or something. Thank you :)

Oh Coru, that really sucks. =/ What a pack of unprofessional morons, honestly. WHY would they hire you when they know you're fresh out of college, expecting you to be able to do everything already? Absolutely bottom of the barrel employers, those ones. Sorry to hear they put you through that. =/

I don't have particular advice, other than do not think for one second that this is anything to do with you. They're lazy people who don't want to give jobs to people that they need to put any effort into, which is poor business practice, not to mention poor human behaviour overall. They'll get nowhere with that attitude. I'd say you dodged a bullet there, because imagine if you HAD the experience they were after--they'd probably have kept you, treated you like trash, and you would have been miserable. So this was probably for the better. And you deserve much better.

Best of luck with it all. We all go through rough patches unfortunately. But you're talented and hard-working, and those are two qualities that will help you prevail in future endeavours. Make sure you know your self-worth as well, and be very wary if anyone else tries to treat you like that again. <3