Advice for this 21 y/o recent college grad with a career dilemma?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi Everyone!

I’ve been an anonymous reader for quite some time now, and I’ve been debating on over whether or not to post this question to see what kind of advice I may receive from all you Dopers out there (this is my first post, please forgive me!).

A little introduction, I’m a 21 year old female living just outside of Albany, New York. I graduated from a private college in Albany (I grew up in downstate in Orange County–near the OC Choppers!) in early May with a BA in Public Communications, recently moved to the Albany area permanently, and started a job (2 days after graduating) as a CSR in a claims dept. for a Mental Health/Substance Abuse insurance company…

Ok, so what’s the problem right? What on Earth do I need advice about. Well, I absolutely loathe my job, as any of you with Customer Service experience will probably sympathize. I believe that I am relatively smart, I graduated with a GPA of 3.4, and did make the Dean’s list (I know, I know, not that big of an accomplishment in the scheme of things–but it was for me). Bare with me if I’m rambling, I’m getting somewhere…I feel like I could do so much better than this job, and that this will only be a temporary fix to pay my rent and other expenditures, however I already feel like I’m going to be stuck in it for having no better options.

I started job hunting in late February, early March. Taking advantage of the Career center at my college, utilizing every job seeking website I could. And I know the job market is horrible right now, and I know it’s supposed to be difficult to find a job so quick after graduating, but I’m already feeling quite down. Networking is supposedly the way to go, and going to job fairs and conferences. But now that I’m stuck at this job, it’s very hard to take off…

I guess the point of this is, what other options are there for me? (Background: I no longer have any interest in what I majored in, and my dream job of teaching college level English is not obtainable at this time for financial and other reasons).
I was thinking of getting a civil service job, but when I looked into it, most of the jobs require a BS in Engineering, are medically related, or require a masters.
I don’t know, I just need some supportive advice, ideas, and I’ll answer any questions you have if I was to vague about this, or if you would like me to expand upon some things…

I appreciate all your comments, please be kind :frowning:

2

Just some thoughts:

1/ Nobody gets his “dream job” straight out of college, and most people never get it all. Welcome to the real world. Earning a living sitting at a desk with no heavy lifting is nowhere close to as bad as it could be. Walk around some afternoon and just notice what jobs other people do. And at least they’ve GOT jobs.

2/ You’ve worked at your job for less than three months, and you’re 21. It’s a little early to start feeling hopeless. What would you say to someone else in your circumstances with your attitude?

3/ Why are you committed to staying in the relatively small town of Albany? You think maybe that limits your job search? Especially with a degree that didn’t train you to do much, in a field that you are no longer interested in? Even if you had intended to teach English, a communications degree is less likely to take you in that direction than a degree in English or literature. And now you have a degree that apparently doesn’t take you where you want to go at all. It doesn’t sound like you planned ahead very far.

4/ There is no magic solution to your problem. One thing to remember is that almost any job is better than no job: you at least have steady income, and during your search for something better the fact that you are working now at least demonstrates to potential employers that you have marketable skills. If you think you feel bad now, how would you feel if you were unemployed?

5/ The real question is what do you ultimately want to accomplish? The question is not what do you want to BE when you grow up, but what do you want to DO? Answering that question might mean moving to another part of the country with more (or at least different) opportunities. It might mean getting more academic education, or more narrowly focused vocational training. It might mean doing some volunteer work or temp work to see inside different organizations and different fields. It might mean developing some hobbies that give you satisfaction that you’re not getting from your job. It might mean doing some networking with people who have interests like yours. Meanwhile, you might decide to look at your current job as an opportunity to help people in trouble. If somebody calls you with a problem, and you are able to solve it, you could choose to feel good about that.

5/ The classic job hunter’s manual is “What Color Is Your Parachute?” It focuses on identifying your skills and aptitudes, and then finding work that meshes with them. It’s worth a look:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580085415/qid=1089858775/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-3380003-7607213

Good luck.

3

Just a bit of advice.

Look outside the US.

No job is safe as long as the pubbies control things.

4

Not to turn you off of the potential of finding happiness, bur another poster around here, Wesley Clark, has been struggling with some existential issues recently. Here’s a thread of his that you may find interesting.

5

Will your current job pay for you to take classes in another field? If you want to transition out of your field, that may be the way to go.

6

Reeder, the OP is a young person asking for advice. In my opinion, you inserting another example of your mindless political drivel into this thread is not appropriate.

Back to the subject at hand: Try to keep your current job while you look for another one. It may take a little longer that way, but prospective employers tend to look more favorably on applications from persons who are currently employed.

Remember that as a recent graduate and first time employee, you are at the bottom of the ladder. In due course you will climb up a few rungs and things will seem better to you.

Good Luck!

7

Pooglyn, ignore Reeder’s mindless drivel. You likely will not hit one out of the park in your twenties.

My careeer has mirrored that of many of my contemporaries. The good times come when you’ve stuck with a career path for a bit. During my twenties I held quite a few pick-up job positions, all of them low-paying. But I squeaked by the bills and kept going. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I finally got a low-paying professional job.

I caressed and nurtured that job, and eventually made the leap from that job to CEO of my own little company. And then a bigger tiger in the woods came along and hired me away from my own company! Now I make (what seems to me) groovy bucks, and I do what I like doin’!

Good luck, dear!

8

Definitely keep your current job while looking fo another. That you have had a job is a major plus on your side against other young hopefuls; that you currently have a job is an even bigger plus.

9

Thank you all so much for some good ideas and allowing me to see that most people go through what I’m going through. I do feel lucky that I at least have somoe job, which I am off to right now to work from 6:30am-6:00pm (oh joy). I’ll keep my eyes open for other jobs…

10

I’m a 24yr old working in communications for a health insurance company. It’s not a dream job, but as other folks have said, it sure beats a lot of other things. Basically, keep reading the classifides and be ready with a resume if you see something that interests you. Change might not happen immediately, but it will happen eventually.

observer, Albany is small??? Maybe it’s just because I’m from a very small town, but with a number of the country’s 100 largest cities having less than twice Albany’s population, I’d say that ‘small’ might not be the best adjective. :slight_smile:

11

Interesting. Did you go to Siena? You probably know me, then.

In any case, it’s much too early to get discouraged. It took me over twenty years to get to my dream job (I had to wait for them to invent the WWW first), so don’t give up after three months. Stick with your current job, and keep hunting for something else.

If you’re not sure what, ask yourself: What would I like to do most in the world? Work on that skill and you’ll eventually find things falling into place.

12

Three letters.

ESL

English as a Second Language. Take a short course, or volunteer to teach somewhere locally. This will be your passport to the world (you will never be unemployed) and will show you how rewarding teaching can be. Plus, if you have always wanted to teach English anyway, this will be GREAT background for future reference. Nothing like being in the position of having to explain English to a foreigner to make you re-evaluate the language!

13

Although Reeder’s advice does not appear to be helpful. It might be. You say you want to teach college-level English but don’t have the education to do it. What if you taught English to college students in another country? You wouldn’t need to know a foreign language if you were teaching sufficiently advanced students. It’s an idea worth mulling over, at least.

14

Dmark has a good idea: right out of college I taught English in Japan. I learned the language, evenutally becoming fluent, and that has been a big sales point for me.

But let’s get real: jobs tend to suck until your 30s (at least), unless you do the MBA thing early or have massive parental connections. I’m talking sucky money and sucky job itself.

In 1994 I had semi-fluent Japanese and all I could get was a 24k job. I had had a 3.71 GPA in college from a good school. At my job I was treated like garbage from the beginning.

Point: you can have great smarts and a supposedly valuable skill and still not get too far. I had an MBA but in 2002 I simply could not find a job. I had to go back to Japan.

It’s tough. I sympathize, really I do, but there are no easy answers to your problem. Teaching English somewhere could be cool, though.

15

I’ve lived in NYC, Buffalo and Boston. Albany is small.

I just looked it up, it only has 2/3rds the population of Springfield, MA which I consider to be a small city.
One of the problems with small metropolitan areas when looking for a job is that they tend not to have very diversified economies. So you are stuck with just a couple of fields in which you could potentially be employed.

16

My career…

I didn’t graduate (one credit short) with a BA in Film Studies.

Worked for a year in marketing - hated it.

Temped for a year.

Two years after college got hired by a company I worked for for six years:

Worked as a secretary for a year.

Got promoted to bookkeeper/it administrator for two years

Moved to the IT department doing LAN work orders, some technical skills for three years

Became a consultant. Worked for one consulting house for six months

Worked for the next one for three years, eventually becoming a Consultant Development Manager and Lead.

Left when the bottom looked to drop out of consulting. Took a job administering a large directory. Been here four years

Took advantage of training the company offered in statistical process analysis. Been doing that for two years.

I’m 37 years old. In the fall I’m going back to college to major in accounting. I’ve had many jobs I’ve enjoyed - seldom jobs I’ve loved. The same job has ups and downs. I’ve been flexible - which has given me the reputation of being a hard worker and a good employee and opened up doors I wouldn’t have had. Some jobs I’ve loathed - but each step I’ve learned something - sometimes just that there are a LOT of shit jobs out there, and getting paid to do something you dislike is better than not getting paid at all. Most of my friends have followed similar career paths - sometimes working at Starbucks or doing data entry or selling cars - with the same people currently employed (15 years post college for us now) as project managers, information architects and technical writers.

Why am I telling you all this - because, like a lot of recent college grads - you come across as thinking “my college degree should make me qualified to do something more than this.” It may, with time - three months isn’t time. But only a few lucky people get out of school and get great jobs. Most of us - especially us Liberal Arts folks - try a number of things - some which work better than others, and may get lucky (through both luck and hard work) over the 40 years of our professional career.

17

Another possibility… As much as you ‘loathe’ your current job, look for opportunities there. The customer service world has such high turnover that by staying for a year or two and being competent, opportunity may well come looking for you. I’d guess that most of the line managers (ie your immediate boss’ level) probably started out as phone reps. The call center probably also has a communications department, and probably a training department too. So I’d talk to your immediate supervisor (and maybe their boss too if your company is open about such things) and let them know you’re interested in moving to a management/training/communications job if the opportunity arises.

If your management team is not incompetent (and you are not perceived to be incompetent) you should be able to find opportunties to grow in your current position. Does your supervisor hold team meetings where you uptrain on whatever’s new that week? Maybe you could volunteer to do a presentation or something similar.

My experience with managing in a call center environment showed me that since a great many employees are either incompetent, obviously biding their time to jump to something better, or demoralized by a job they don’t like that someone who seeks growth and seems engaged can break out very easily. I know plenty of success stories of folks who by their early thirties are in very senior positions in the company making signficiant money who started out on the phones.

That said, call center or insurance doesn’t have to be your life’s dream. But imagine yourself 3 or 4 years from now in an interview. A 25 year old who has managed a team and/or been promoted a time or two in their first job makes a great impression regardless of whether they’re applying for a job in that field or one that is completely different.

18

Oh, and just to contradict all of my solid middle aged advice in the above post. Don’t forget that at 21 with relatively little debt (though the vague financial pressures mentioned in your OP may mean this isn’t your situation), no one depending on you, good health, and an amazing ability to live on caffeine and ramen noodles… This is the time for risk taking. Taking a flyer on professional photography / script writing / tatoo artistry / professional fishing / etc. when you’re 35 and have a mortgage and your kids’ college to save for, your options to go after the big risky thing is much less.

So if you are interested in trying to hit a home run in some 1 in a million career, now is the time to go for it. So what if you live in your car for a year when you’re 22 if it means not regretting never having tried to make as a (fill in the blank).

19

So it’s the real world :frowning: I’m there right now and luckily I found a job, but there were a few months where I had NO prospects. I was beyond nervous.

You can still utilize your college career center. I went to Siena (and just recently graduated myself) and am always hearing of companies that come to Siena looking for their graduates, no matter how long they’ve been ‘out’. Did you establish any kind of network connections in a field you’re interested in? Take advantage of them for any ideas or job possibilities. Did you have any professors you were close to that could give you advice? What if you went to SUNY to get your masters in English and lived on their campus (loans are wonderful things). You could be a TA to help with living costs, or possibly a part time job. Get some kind of intership in a field you like that pays something. These don’t look so permanent, but it seems you could be happier than you are right now … and they could lead to something more permanent

Good luck and let us know what you decide to do :slight_smile:

20

With a college degree in anything, you’re educationally qualified to become an officer in the armed forces. Long story short, I got involved with the military largely by accident and ended up cutting my hippie-long hair to pursue a really rewarding profession after realizing that I liked the people I’d be working with. Not all of them of course, and most friends who knew me when I was younger are very surprised that I’m in the service.

You might be surprised at the variety of specialties available in each of the braches of the armed forces, several of which may relate to your educational background if that’s what you’re interested in. The pay and benefits are pretty good, and you’ll have a lot more responsibility even at the entry officer level than many people your age in the civilian sector; this can be good resume material in future job searches. The big thing to bear in mind is that the service’s needs come before yours, and ultimately the profession revolves around warfare, even for military lawyers, nurses and TV producers. Something you might look into though. These have been some of the finest people to work with that I have ever known.

Bigger picture though is to consider something outside of what you think you are good at or possibly qualified for to hopefully find something you want to do or might have an aptitude for and enjoy. I’ll use my vocation as an example - you don’t need a college degree in piloting to be a pilot (civilian or military); very few pilots do (though you do gotta have training of course). In this thread, torie is exploring the idea of becoming a teacher which is also something you might have an aptitude for and find quite rewarding. Or not. Lots of young people think that there is only one path to a particular job, and that there is only one type of job for a given education or career path. Not true . . . and don’t be afraid to explore a different career path that interests you just because you might fail on not enjoy it. You might (surprise!) succeed and enjoy it!

Hope my $0.02 helps. Good luck! I’m sure you’ll fare splendidly wherever you end up.