this isnt going to be very well written or coherent but:
look, I'm not trying to be the classic reactionary STEM grad who feels entitled to a high-paid tech position because I stumbled through three years of lectures. I'm not that. I've done a couple of years since graduating in hospitality work and that was generally horrible/couldn't get enough hours to pay rent/got misgendered whenever my bosses were having a bad day. Now that sector is in big trouble too so there aren't any jobs going, even if i could stomach going back into it. And apparently chef's work is a black mark on your CV and a lot of employers will write you off based on that anyway?
people say "networking is more important than qualifications". Well, that's great, but as someone who comes from a working class family, I have no idea how to do that, and never knew it was necessary until after the period I was apparently given the greatest opportunity to do it (university). and now it's like, what, am I just supposed to message people on LinkedIn out of the blue begging for work? with no experience? Where do I even begin with that?
I would love to work on the railways or in local government or something but I don't hear anything back from those roles. My best asset is that I spent 2 years setting up a tenant union in a major city, but apparently that's not good enough to even get an interview for support worker role at a charity that literally supports tenants and homeless people. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Every time I get close to a job, it always ends the same way - interview, feel like I did well, get a call back a couple of days later saying "thanks but somebody else had more experience". My experience was literally on my CV, if it wasn't enough then don't waste my time calling me in to interview!
thanks for reading
Are you asking for advice? If so:
spoiler
I'm sorry to hear that. It wasn't the case about 15 years ago when I made the change from catering to infrastructure engineering. Especially for recent grads I've found that any job experience is viewed as better than none but your particular industry/location appears to view that differently?
I was in the same position. I joined an industry association. I started volunteering at events or on committees and started to get call backs for interviews. I'm still involved and I still get head hunting calls. My industry is small though, so your mileage may vary.
Even if you don't benefit directly from the networking, you might learn something about the industry that helps you. For example, you might be missing out on applying for a certain job title because you don't think it applies to you. In my case I didn't realize I could take a certain role to gain experience (including for the various licences I needed). I ended up applying for and getting a job in that role and it turned out great.
Both are typically unionized so it can take a super long time to get in. They typically have to interview and exclude all internal candidates before even being shown the external candidates package, even if they post internal and external at the same time. I work in a similarly unionized field and it took me 13 months after graduating to get a full time job in the field. If I am correct about these being unionized positions you might want to get a hold of the collective agreement for the unions and see if there is benefit to applying to jobs you wouldn't otherwise consider.
Maybe I'm wrong about BoH work having a poor reputation, it's just what I heard a few times in various places. I guess maybe it's more the case that it's just hard to transition from hospitality to other sectors because it's viewed as a low prestige job?
Maybe an industry association would help - that could be a great idea. Thanks. I'll have to look into what sort of stuff like that exists. I'm living in an industrial town and so much stuff in industry feels like you have to take a very specific path to get a look in with having the right qualifications and stuff, and loads of the entry-level work is apprenticeship-based which is not a particularly realistic option for graduates (your degree can be disqualifying and generally they'll be looking for younger people just out of school).
I don't know whether the union stuff applies here since I'm in the UK, we don't really have unionised positions per se. I'm not exactly sure how it all works though. Thanks for the advice and encouragement
I was def speaking with a north american bias, canada specifically. I don't know much about hiring practices in the UK.
I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess you are a civil engineer interested in transportation. Using this guess, I searched for some groups you might be interested in. I just mean this to demonstrate that there are tonnes of weird and wacky associations out there 😊
I'd love to be an engineer, haha, wish I had taken that course. I have a degree in physics, which as it turns out is basically useless because you get outcompeted by people with more relevant qualifications in basically any field.
Those are some super useful links - thank you! I didn't realise these things existed.
I feel like with physics you'd probably need to go for grad school, doctorate, post doc and end up working in academia or labs
yeah pretty much and my grades weren't good enough to do any of that bc i was in a deep mental health crisis throughout my degree and didn't try hard enough (and also there was a pandemic). I'd probably have carried on to master's otherwise. It can be a good degree for software engineering, but again my grades weren't great, and that field is kinda screwed anyway
Yeah, you'd likely need a Masters and your chances would still be bad. Software is fucked for the foreseeable future.
Yeah it's brutal, and funding has dried up for the doctorate and post doc programs. A friend who was trying in the states had to accept a position in Germany and luckily they were looking before the biggest cuts happened because the EU funds a fraction of the positions that were cut in the US.
Not sure if you are committed to staying in US but you could get a TEFL certificate and teach English in another country. It might not be a long term career but it could be a great way to spend a few years, get some new experiences and perspectivesz and ride out the US crash from afar
oh i live in the UK but TEFL is something I've considered before. Specifically I was looking at doing it in China.
oh ok, yeah it might still apply to your situation there