Soooo... what about when things don't go as planned? Well, I'm glad you asked.
Have you ever been in the situation where you're back to square one, watching the constant reductions in your bank account, desperately searching for some kind of income? Whether you're fresh out of uni, just moved to a new city, or finished a temporary contract, it can happen to the best of us.
To begin with you're so full of beans, motivation bursting from your seams. Scanning every portal with positivity gleamed eyes.
Then the inevitable, the rejections come. And they keep coming. Or, they don't come, and you hear nothing, and you wonder, what's worse? All those hours you spent on perfecting your CV, those endless adaptations of various cover letters. Changing a sentence here, a sentence there. Adding in extra key words that you think they want to hear.
Your hope starts to falter, and your standards start drop. Your eyes wander to other jobs that are only semi related to your expertise, and you think to yourself "hmmm I could kind of do that I guess" and you scrape together some sentiments of experience and pull out your blagging skills for yet another cover letter. Telling yourself that "you have to be in it to win it" and "it's worth a try", knowing deep down that they're definitely going to choose someone more experienced.
The catch 22 comes when the job descriptions state so many years of experience, yet how they expect you to get said experience without being able to get the job in the first place is beyond me.
As the weeks start slipping bay, the desperation starts to kick in. The Fear. You calculate how many bills you have coming out each month and you swallow the lump in your throat as you wonder if it's possible to live on £10 a week.
You've signed up for updates on all the job seeking websites, notified instantly when something new appears, checking your emails 5 times a day. You've even started applying for the basics, the bar jobs, retail, cafes, "I can make an instant coffee... that means I can be a barista right?" You have experience in most of these but you vowed you were beyond that stage in your life, you're a career girl now. Nah hun, who are you kidding? Money makes the world go round, and you need it. Nothing is below you right now.
The worst part though, is talking about it. People ask you "oh what are doing now?", you mumble some pathetic excuse and try desperately to change the subject, feeling an instant stab of embarrassment and shame.
Truth is, there's many of us out there waiting for our "big break" and struggling to make a career for ourselves, persistence is so important and with a bit of luck, we'll get there. Stay positive, as hard as it is, you're the perfect employee for someone, you just have to find each other.
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