Jenna is our newest Guest Writer, and will be writing a series of diary themed posts from the perspective of a recent Graduate facing the challenges and potential opportunities of the current job market. We look forward to reading Jenna’s posts and I hope you do too….

The Not-Quite-Working Girl – Seven months and counting…

It’s been over seven since months since I graduated last July. Cue overload of clichés: it’s been a whirlwind, an adventure, a rollercoaster, an eye-opener. The truth is though, that mostly, it’s just been a bit crap…
No amount of careers talks or ominous news reports can prepare you for the feeling of uselessness you experience as an unemployed graduate in the weeks after graduating. For me, this sense of uselessness coincided with some major milestones in my professional and personal life. I just missed out on a 1st class degree, finished my internship in an advertising agency and turned the seemingly must-be-an-adult-now age of 21. Let’s just say it was a depressing few months, filled with endless job applications, the occasional interview and the start of a monotonous data-processing job in a bank to pull me through.

But seven months on and I’m in a different place. I still live at home. I don’t yet have a paid full-time job. But instead of focusing on the negatives – which let’s face it, is all too easy to do – I’ve decided to be more optimistic. The philosophy behind The Employable is to stop people seeing their lack of job as a negative thing. By being unemployed graduates, we are also employable graduates. We have a bundle of skills, a solid degree and now, thanks to various unpaid internships, a wealth of experience too.  In fact, whilst today’s graduate job market may seem like a dismal place it has also opened up a world of opportunities.

It took me several months to figure out even vaguely what direction I want my career to head in. Now I know that I want my career to be about writing, about being creative. And I also know what I don’t want to do. Today’s job market just gives us the chance to work through this indecision and figure out exactly where we want to be in a few years’ time. So for now I’m happy to just enjoy having no responsibilities and being able to make the most out of any opportunity that comes my way. A PR internship in Fashion? Great. A part-time gig as a copywriter? Amazing!

This blog is going to be my diary, detailing everyday life as a not-quite-working, but definitely-almost-working girl. And as well as talking about my own personal journey from student to full-time professional, I’ll also be examining some of the wider issues facing today’s graduates along the way.

I currently blog at Decent Online Presence (jennabirks.wordpress.com) and also feature on The Guardian Careers blog from time to time. Feel free to comment and share your own job-hunting stories – I’d love to hear from you all! You can also follow Jenna and her journey on Twitter here. 

Until next time!

Jenna