My first job that pays an adult salary, too! It’s a three-month contract at a non-profit that is somewhat, but not entirely, related to my career trajectory. I get paid the average income of people coming out of my grad school, which isn’t gobs of money but is A LOT more than I’ve ever made…like, 20k a year more than I’ve ever made. It’s a fun project, with a lot of responsibility, and will really give me the chance to push myself and advance my career. I understand that there will be options to continue with the organization after this project, although I’m probably going to use this as a three-month opportunity to extend my job search to a more relevant organization.
I’m hoping to spend half of the procedes on tuition for extra classes, so I can graduate grad school on time, and the other half to save in case I end up unemployed for a few months after graduation. I’ll try to live off my student loans (which are so massive and daunting that I can’t do much that’s useful to deal with them right now, but hopefully can when I graduate.)
I ended up there after meeting a recruiter at what appear to be a high-end temp agency at a bus stop. He hooked me up with a low-paying temp gig formatting Word documents at this organization. While there, I busted ass formatting Word documents all day, chatted up everyone I met, and send my resume out widely. It made it to the desk of this project manager, who just happened to need someone with a bit of rather obscure experience I have.
I’m super excited, and finally (finally!) feel like a grown up. So for all you job seekers out there- keep it up. Try temping if you can…if you can make a name for yourself, good things can happen.
