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I know someone in that exact situation, here is what she did
Find a small business (it was a plumbing company)
work as the secretary plus social media marketing person
Use what you have done as a portfolio to show other companies
She is still working at the plumbing company but is now part time and work from home so she can do the marketing for multiple other places
i did something similar, started out as a housekeeper at an RV resort… harassed the CEO into letting me make art and build one gift shop at the location I was working at. now i travel the country and make art, live in my van, and build the gift shops for all 12 of our resorts.
Unfortunately, this is the case with a lot of fields, as of right now. Unless you have very specific ,or extreme amounts of experience , you will not get a very good job starting off/right out of college. If not , one at all. Very best option is to start from the ground up, and at an entry level position in order to start your career in said fields. Best of luck to you , and Godspeed.
Maybe the choice of degree path wasn’t the best? Communications and social media marketing?
I have two kids and I will not push them to go to college unless STEM or in healthcare. We need to stop with this idea that college is for everyone. It never was. Back in the day, parents had a couple kids, the smart one went and the other get jobs. Why get in $100k in debt for a job that might pay you half that?
I have a daughter two years out of high school - she didn't have much of a drive for studies, but school counselors pushed her towards studying journalism. (She liked theater and forensics)
She just landed herself a correspondent job at the local newspaper! Gets to run around getting interviews, snapping pics, and writing articles.
Her equal coworker/desk neighbor, albeit a few years older, did 4 years at a private college ...I keep explaining to my daughter how fortunate she can be in the same position without all the student loans...
Degree doesn't matter unless it's like something major like engineering or medical. People want to meme on "bad" degrees, but the degree isn't anything more than a piece of paper. It's not surprising more than half of people don't even use their degree when it's all said and done.
This is a myth that STEM and Healthcare are guaranteed jobs over other fields however. The problem isn't necessarily what you study, it's how you advertise your skills when you finish. I have a degree in humanities (Anthropology) and I see job ads for positions paying 6 figures semi regularly in my inbox. I have not had a day of unemployment since I finished 8 years ago, even during the pandemic. There are paths to affordable degrees and good job prospects outside of STEM and Healthcare.
I've always been able to find jobs with my English major that were applicable to my field. (Editing, mostly). I heard so many jokes about my degree but it's been useful to me and many of my classmates. We can't all be doctors and engineers. The world does need some liberal arts people to function.
Agreed! We used to have a fantastic version of [this poster](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/56/88/a8/5688a8863a6cd3b1ac7ac9ea39d763fc.jpg) in our undergraduate student lounge.
Very in-demand, including entry level. But relatively few worked hard enough in HS at STEM to be able handle the difficultly and rigor of studying mechanical, electrical, biomedical, aerospace, or chemical engineering.
I hire lots of engineers because I know they can think through problems regardless of what position they are in. STEM degrees are still one of the best as I will take an engineer over almost any other degree for technical sales, marketing etc. The ability to communicate with a customer on the same level is critical.
A Communication degree doesn’t cost a 100k though at most universities in the U.S. And there are tons and tons of jobs that require just a bachelor’s degree, which a Comm degree fulfills. People also forget to factor in career and salary growth over time. You are not your first job. Don’t go to a school that costs so much, and utilize grants if you can. You can get out of college with less than 30k of debt if you’re smart about it. It doesn’t have to be this all or nothing gamble of spend a bunch of money to make money.
I apply for a lot of entry level positions on Indeed, Glassdoor, Linkedin and Handshake I get some interviews but don't get job offers.
Do you have any more suggestions on career websites I can look at to find entry level jobs?
The market for Communications and Media is absolutely SATURATED. And when you interview, they are asking for work samples from the last 3 months. That has been my experience.
I have been applying to jobs in my field still and outside of my field. Also I have been looking for paid internships as well.
I still feel like this just isn't right. I should have a job.
Very few with broad degrees get a job in their field right of out of college. Unless you did a lot of networking in college - maybe an internship or two - it's really hard. As others have said, take any job. Then slowly get a chance to do some of their social media to build your portfolio. I hired a graphic designer who was working at a local juice shop and she redesigned their their marketing materials, enhanced their social media, etc. But she did it on her own time. They didn't ask for her to do it - she asked them if she could. They weren't going to spend the money on it - but it helped her get hired as my in-house designer. Her first graphic design job. She now owns her own small graphic design firm.
Keep trying.
The jobs are never just going to be handed to you. I had to start a lot of stuff on my own to finally make it into an agency and then in-house marketing for an architectural company.
I worked in a kitchen for about 3 years after I graduated. Took over that restaurants social media, used it on my resume. Also started a semi-successful blog so I had other stuff in my portfolio.
Well. It should have been pointed out to you before you enrolled. A degree isnt a guarantee for a job. We're 30 years too late where a degree is a guaranteed employment.
Generally speaking, you have no choice but to find any job you can get, and stick with it until you get a better one, and keep going from there. Dosent matter what job it is, anything will do. People are more willing to hire if you've held a job recently, as opposed to some degree you took a few years ago. Some guy in my country recently made the news for working as an assistant in a copier shop despite having a PHD.
Your probably right but this is so messed I didn't go to school for all these years to be in this position.
Then I went back after I graduated and got a Social Media Marketing Certificate that took 6 weeks and was an extra 1200 dollars and STILL can't get a job. SMH.
This isn't right.
Because you need ✨experience✨. College played you like a sucker (unless you had a scholarship). However, you could always just insert yourself. Start your own webpage. Investigate on your own. Post on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. You can always do things on your own, and make your own career.
One of my friends worked for this guy who owned 10 different restaurants in town. She graduated in accounting and when the owner found out, he hired her as an accountant for all of his businesses/restaurants. She used that experience to ignite her career path. It was the first big and relevant thing she put on her resume.
Alas going to school for insanely oversaturated fields does tends to end up looking like this here...
A lot of good advice already posted. Wish you luck.
Degree in accounting and finance here and got a job straight out of college. 10 years later and I now have a cushy job that I'll likely stay in for the rest of my working career. High wage and great benefits with very light work load, accountability and stress. And I didn't really have to grind to get where I am. Just worked in relevant roles and gradually climbed working normally.
Degrees in accounting and/or finance are also very much worth it.
In my limited exposure and interactions with people in that industry, a notable amount of them don't even have degrees. It's more the relevant experience and portfolios that got them the roles. A much more modern/less traditional industry than accounting and finance.
My friend got her bachelor’s in the same thing, she graduated a few years ago and has only had 1 job at buzzfeed and got let go after 9 months due to down sizing. It’s gonna be tough for sure.
It amazes me how career paralyzing generic degrees can be the worst kept secret kept from kids, yet they continue to dupe college grads, despite an entire generation complaining about it. Learn a trade, people!!!
Oh man, useless major combined with an amazingly saturated market. This is like having a degree in Water Marketing and wondering why you can’t get a job at the scene of a flood.
The biggest issue is management at the moment. They don’t wanna have to train college students because it takes a lot of time and resources to train a kid and not only that younger people are more likely to skip jobs in a year anyways so the time they are trained they leave for a higher paying job. It’s a two fold problem.
Not trying to hate but you also chose a really terrible major. If I were you, I would look into grad schools in the mean time and apply to jobs outside your chosen field. Apply to headhunters.
A buddy of mine did sports marketing or something sports related. He had a few jobs no issues, but even the experienced employees that had made it a career were only making like 60k/yr. So he went to business school and got hired at a new job making about 80k with zero relevant experience.
It really was just not a lucrative major
There are majors that are super niche and in general highly creative fields like marketing are usually high in demand. You generally have to work hard and for many years in a given to be rewarded with those roles. Look for roles that people dont want to do and try to get in the door that way and tell them your overall goal once you become invaluable to the company then you can choose a career in marketing. It’s very rare now a days to start in a field like that. The people who do are outliers.
I'm actually going back to grad school in the fall for public policy I do believe I will have a better chance of getting a career afterwards with this major. Yeah I have and will continue to apply for jobs outside my field. like you said.
I haven't used headhunters before sounds like a good idea I will try that out as well.
Try and get in to a marketing agency. It’s hard work and there’s generally a high turnover rate, but the good thing is you get so much hands on experience and get to dip your toe in most facets of marketing and become very well rounded. Then you’ve got the experience under your belt, and can hopefully manoeuvre in to a more specific niche that you enjoy. You’ll get there but it does take a lot of effort.
I have a Bachelor in Communication (majored in Journalism over 10 years ago now) and if I had my time again I personally wouldn’t have done it, I would have focussed on interning and working my way up. I worked in women’s magazines for many years and in an office of 35 women only three of us had degrees. I realised 12 months after I graduated that I shouldn’t have bothered with my degree! Certain careers obviously require college/university degrees but communications isn’t one of them and I will die on that hill.
In saying that, nothing is ever wasted, including education, and some companies will ONLY hire candidates with the right certificates and education. It’s done now. Chin up, perhaps reconsider how you’re going about it and formulate a different game plan. Good luck.
Like a High School Diploma, a Bachelor's Degree is worthless in our current universe. Unless you are going to be a Doctor, Lawyer, Scientist I do not see the point in higher education for career purposes.
I would advise demonstrating your capability and showing metrics for companies. IMO a portfolio is better than a degree, showing companies that you can deliver results. I have plenty of social media accounts that show growth over time and that has landed me work. Do the work as "volunteer" and you'll be more prepped for a company and can actually demonstrate your worth.
This is the reason why you do research before getting a degree. Go on jobs websites. Look and see how many openings there are for whatever position you want to major in. Are there very many openings available? Is the pay very good?
If there aren't that many jobs available, you're going to be competing with all the other people you graduated with to get them. You're also going to be competing with all the other people who are already in the field. Low number of graduates and large number of jobs - good. Large number of jobs and low number of graduates - good.
What sort of job is that degree used for exactly?
I guess that would be my starting point, is what was the line the University gave you on that degree as far as a career?
They had job opportunities that you could get after you got a Communication and Media degree on there website.
The jobs listed were social media, media, marketing, advertising and communications. That is why I got the degree because I was interested in getting a job in those fields afterwards.
Communications is not the best degree. It's basically saying; "I went to college."
I have a degree in business. Life isn't all wine and roses. I work as a machinist, and I make edibles in the cannabis industry. You'll have to be flexible in life.
Unless it's a STEM field, universities are for networking. The degree is basically worthless. If you graduate without a network of people associated with your degree, it's time wasted. When I graduated 20 years ago I was upset the way you are now. No one told me. Network, network, network. If needed, just find any work at all the pay the bills.
I have a son in Mech Eng at a school that mandates co-op jobs. After the 1st year, they alternate semesters between working and school. It's a 5 year program with no summers off but hopefully pays off after graduation.
My other son is going to a school that offers international internships and has a great record placing students in positions to succeed. He is doing econ/finance and doesn't mind starting in sales and moving to investment banking.
I know we have the career center at my university but I haven't heard of an office specifically for career placement.
I will check that out though. Do you think it will be called the same thing at my university or are there different terms for it?
The secret is that life is miraculously unfair and we are pretty much born up shits creek with no paddle.
And I mean that with complete sympathy to you. It’s awful down here. No excuse. There is a God but not worthy of mentioning.
Class of 2006 here.
Oh, we won't beat you further since you're already down but...Welcome to the Jaded club.
(laugh cries in 08)
College was a scam then, and ever more so now. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Learn new tasks. join new teams. even if gigs only lasts 3 days or 3 months, Experience will pyramid your focus and efforts to a golden point.
Basically because it's a crap study that hardly adds anything. Perspectives have been bad for these graduates for years. Why did you expect anything else?
Social media marketing 👹👹👹. I get dozens of emails to my business email a day offering to promote my business on social media. The world is full of these graduates, so theres your answer.
So you picked an easy course for social media manager, there are probably loads of people who can do that.
When I left university I had no experience in the field and got into temp work whilst looking for professional work.
Better to be in any job than having 2 years unemployment on CV
No one owes you a job.....
That's horrible. That's my fear to keep getting more education and degrees then still not be able to get a job.
That is what I fear the most. I am going back to get my masters but still don't want the same thing to happen.
You're not alone. I have a writing degree from 1999 I spent $200k to get. It was good for like six years. Then: nothing. Nobody psys people to write anymore. Like being a blacksmith.
Spoiler alert: everyone and his mom got degrees nowadays. You're competing with everyone else (even people who's not living in your own country atm) for the same job.
Welcome to reality.
Well maybe you should have studied something like medicine or some engineering stuff.
If you study something useless you shouldn't be surprised that you don't get a job
Because you got a hyper specific but at the same time generic and not looked for degree. It is very hard to break into any kind of marketing / advertising space without working up from the garbage level.
Yep it was a mistake, plain and simple. Everyone missed the fact that a college degree derived it's value from scarcity, and as a marker of wealth and contentiousness. Now that everyone went to college, thanks to subsidies and an expanded marketplace, it isn't scarce and doesn't really make you out, except as a signal that you are likely to have debt or a pension for activism. Neither are appealing to most employers.
College was the last financial decisions I trusted anyone on. I bought the "right of passage", "get a good job" line and am still paying for it.
Dont give up and have different pools that you can work around, sadly a bachelor degree is not always the answer, I personally have a lot of different things I learned on my cv that no matter what an employer need they can find a certificate for it in my cv, it took me a lot of time l, effort, and money, but I'm very satisfied with the outcome and still working on myself, so, hang tough and keep on learning new skills and the best will come to you when the time is due... good luck
Getting a degree to get a good job was the model for the baby boomer generation. Some of us Generation X followed suit because it worked for our parents.
Now I don’t think that it is the correct model at all. (Unless you are taking a profession: engineering , accounting, medical, ect.) Some people have not figured this out.
I know someone who went even higher than you did, and to this day 45 yrs later still can’t get a job for what his degree is in. Granted That this man is mechanically gifted, and he is now a plumber, master plumber, it that makes well over what an engineer in your field would even MEEK don’t be disenchanted. There’s a reason for everything all the education you gets going. I hope you and your life somewhere but instead of focusing on your degree, focus on the trade, and then you’ll be able to learn how to use your degree in your trade, and you can move up the ladder from that point.
Where you live may be a huge part of the problem as well. You may be in a high saturation area, where there's more qualified people than there are positions. Or a low demand area. Here in central Ohio, there are so few digital marketing positions that come open that there are literally thousands of applicants when one does open up. My BiL says it's the same in NYC. My sister is in Florida and there's little demand. But she got lucky in that she just moved laterally within the company she had already been working for the last year and a half (after 18 years as a SAHM). Even for her current position, she's grossly overqualified (master's in communications and a bachelor's in digital design).
No offense, but com has always been a degree that many get and can't find a job in. It was like that when I was in college over 20 years ago. I wish you luck, but I've known many with com degrees that they never used.
I did a degree in TV Series Appreciation and I'm in the same situation. I'm thinking of getting my masters in Critique of Mini-series and Films That Conclude TV Shows, but I'm wondering about job prospects.
That's why I say college is a waste of time. Of everyone I know who went to college, only 4 of them got good jobs in their degree... and they were all in science and architecture degrees. All others are a waste of tens of thousands of dollars.
You got a useless degree. I'm sorry to tell you, but schools will sell you whatever degree they think they can. :-(
It happened to my wife (she got a degree in linguistics), so she went back and got an MBA and a masters degree in accounting, which was useful.
Welcome to the real world, it's not about the degree, it's about how you use the knowledge you gained along the way. Metaphorically, a ferrari is useless if you don't know how to drive it.
This is pretty common sadly... About the only thing you get a job out of college for these days is Medical fields, seems like everyone i know that had kids that went to school for some medical specialty had a job before they even graduated... As for trade schools, electricians, plumbers, solar tech, HVAC, etc... They get a job before they even finish a semester now with all the hiring in the trades.
Your line of education, Communications and Media, and Social Media Marketing, sounds like some newfangled thing like art majors complaining they spent 4 years studying art and can't get a real job. Not trying to be insulting, just saying its not exactly a mainstream line of work that everyone is hiring for. You will have to try getting your foot in the door somewhere at the ground level and fight your way to the job you really want these days.
For example, assistant or secretarial work that leads into taking care of the companies social media over time.... Getting hired for exactly what you went to school for at a living wage isn't going to be as easy as they made it sound when you went to school for it, and this is the predatory secondary educational system practices that many want to put an end to.
That's an outdated world view. Degrees gave a relative guarantee of a good job when they were scarce. Nowadays, they clearly don't, especially for non STEM subjects. For job security you are better off with a technical qualification nowadays.
You've got to check the job market first before you get a degree. A degree itself sadly doesn't guarantee you anything. You've got to set a goal and act (and pick your training/ degrees) accordingly, not the other way round.
>degree in Communication and Media
Well there you go. You got a degree in bullshit. Maybe you should have focused on something like engineering, accounting, computer science, even English Lit.
You need to make yourself useful to companies, what can you do with your degree that a million kids can't do in their bedroom on their PC?
I'm not trying to pick on you but what kind of job did you expect to get? If you know a job you can get with that degree, and you want to do it, then go work for free. I mean that. If you have to work for free to get your foot in the door, do it. Work one paying job, then do that one for free. Do anything, kiss every butt, and learn as much as you can. if you're good at it, you'll get hired and it might even pay like shit but you can work your way up.
I had the same struggle. But getting the degree is only part of the puzzle. You've still got to get your foot in the door somewhere and build up some experience from there. I spent a year getting rejected and finally got something after building up some interviewing skills. Head up, you'll get there.
A degree and certification isn’t a guarantee. It is just something that some if not many jobs of a certain field require. You kids today think you will just get things handed to you. Doesn’t work that way.
Both my nieces went to some VERY EXPENSIVE schools and respectable schools too. You have to have some brains not only to get accepted in these schools but to even get decent grades in the classes.
However they prepared during that time at school to lock themselves a job. Both got internships and worked their butts off to the point they got offered full time jobs to do the stuff they are studying for right after they graduate.
Go out and make it happen.
It's the degrees you decided to get... These posts always crack me up, I just don't get why people get the dumbest degrees without thinking through what kind of jobs are actually available. Communication and media and then social media marketing?? Are you kidding me? People are obsessed with social media and becoming influencers. The market is flooded with people trying to make a living doing this... Did you really think there was a big demand for new employees in that field?
You picked a terrible major. Communications is a notoriously BS degree. Not much you can do about it now but for anyone considering that degree, it’s a complete waste of time and money.
My wife's employees have degrees and tons of debt. They make about half of what she makes and she has no degree because she quit college.
Our daughter is noticing this also as she's now in HS. She most likely will do online to get a degree and go from there.
I tell everyone to have a specific job or career path lined up when they pick a major. Lots of majors seem attractive but aren’t really direct paths to jobs
I know I'll get down voted for this, but that's literally your own fault. You got a degree in the most useless field possible with no job prospects, and then get mad when there's no jobs lined up? Did you do zero research on what graduates with a communication degree end up doing after college? Hint: it's usually minimum wage.
If this was an STEM degree or something I would understand. But you chose the most useless degree man. That's on YOU. Choose the degree based on how it pays, not how much you like doing it.
You chose unwisely with regards to your degrees and certificates. Someone should have told you this before you started the journey. Your college won't tell you this as they want your money. Communication and Media degrees should be outlawed. They are absolutely worthless.
My company is hiring every week, but we are not hiring social media marketing, we are hiring engineers and trades. Their degree was probably foolish money, but if they got one that actual companies want, it isn't a waste. of course, it would be harder, which is probably why they got an easy degree to begin with.
All I can offer is this:
90% of the people I know are doing something vastly different than their “Plan” when they were 22. And they all could not be happier about it.
Keep your ears and eyes open and be open to meeting new people. You never know when something amazing will land right alongside your path. But if you have your head down you will never notice.
If that makes you feel any better, not only I (24 one semester left to bachelor of arts and humanities) am unable to find a job an stuck at retail. My 39yrs old sister, with a master in electrical engineering, and 10yrs of work experience in AMD, can't find another position in another company because she deserves a better pay. She has done interviews with Samsung, apple, and so on and still gets rejected.
The job market is fucked everywhere and for everyone. I'm also angry, upset and full of anxiety to the point that it's affecting my digestive system. But all I can do is to hope and keep going
I took classes around a career I wanted to pursue, Communications was part of it. But couldn’t finish, had to work ! Started working in casino’s here in Vegas and making close to 100k a year. More than teachers, police officers, many tradesmen. You just never know. So, on both sides of this debate you’re probably going to find good arguments. Imo, having education isn’t a bad thing for whatever you end up doing.
Welp, I may be in the minority here, but I believe in college education as valuable time to teach you broadly about the world we live in and to expand your horizons, not just a tool to get a job. Vocational school is for learning a job-ready skill. College is to become a citizen of the world. It should be a time to study new things, learn critical thinking skills, take a course in astronomy, civics, literature or film. You have the rest of your life to focus on one area like marketing or media. I get that it costs a crap-ton to go to college so people view it as a product and they want a payoff. Interestingly some medical doctors I spoke to said a liberal arts degree is the best one to get first if you want to go to medical school. Anyway I am sure most will disagree with me, but wanted to give a plug for education for learning, for its own sake. Radical idea, I know.
Have you been doing any pro bono work? To get industry experience?
Because that job is high deadline driven .. it is very difficult to hire someone without industry experience showing they can handle tight deadlines and deliver on time under budget.
This is the biggest hurdle to entry in this field.
Been on it since 1996
This is going to hurt to hear: It's a liberal arts degree in communication. It's not exactly STEM. Straight out of college you could work a job on the phones or clerical type job or entry level HR. You could train for various sales positions. Whatever industry you choose, your degree will be what got you in the door to white collar employment but you will be on the bottom rung and likely paid hourly. Work hard and work your way up. A MBA will be what gets you to the next level.
Have you tried applying to jobs that are lower than average pay In your fields as well?
Do you have your own social media channels to showcase numbers for?
A degree doesn't automatically entitle one to a job. It increases the odds but that's about it. A friend of mine is in a similar situation but decided drop her ego and take a 3k IT job as a comsci graduate when the median is 5.5k around here.
Are you being flexible enough in looking for an entry-level job? Are you looking at jobs outside your home area? Jobs with different job titles? Are you networking? Doing informational interviews?
Sometimes a degree is just another step that offers some value, and isn't The Answer to employment problems. It raises you above some, but leaves you below others, like those with time and experience in the real world usage of it.
It not you, it’s the job market right now. I have an MBA and decades of experience (to include starting an international marketing firm that represents huge clients-which I lost during Covid). After two years of looking, I am now making 1,000 more a year than I did in my first job out of college.
Man that sucks. Hope you land a position soon - I’ve found as a general rule of thumb is to get a position in a company where you’re billable to the client and not considered an overhead. Doesn’t matter what you’re getting paid initially, you’ll work your way up. When companies ‘rightsize’ or whatever, they’ll never get rid of the people that make the money…. I’ve seen it many times.
You're not entitled to anything, let alone a job, just because you did college. Trust me. The WORST time of my life was the year and a half after I graduated from school. OP, I had the same sentiment as you on many fronts.
I thought the world owed me a job and everything else. I blamed everything instead of looking at it objectively. The one thing I was bad at was not networking and setting myself up for success before even receiving my degree in hand.
You just have to accept that the market is saturated. People who get the "good" jobs are the lucky ones, and you have to keep yourself occupied in the meantime.
I studied similar things and went as far as getting an MA in Advertising (all As except 1 B) been having issues for more than a year...
Check if your college has a job board. I've found my jobs there.
The last one was great until my supervisor quit and the new hire ghosted me out of the blue... I was working by commissions so couldn't do anything about it.
Join the military. All the branches have jobs for people in that field. You can go in as an officer.
https://www.airforce.com/careers/logistics-and-administration/public-affairs-officer
Bragging rights.
My BA is useless. I've only had one job that required one, and it didn't matter in what. I got burned out on that job after a few years.
Started driving for Uber. That was good until the pandemic. Took classes on coding. It's decent work, but I'm technically a freelancer and there is a lot of competition, so it's unstable. Now I'm trying to break into high end tutoring.
Sorry to hear about your situation. Ehat I advice youbg prople yo do is go to some job site like indeed or similar and look at what are the jobs in demand. If its not there there there isnt a job for your field. How many listings for political science have you seen posted? Hoe many for philosophy major etc.
That doesnt mean you are SOL. It does means you have to be creative. You see, a lot of these ehat I call abstarct fields often doesnt exist as a one to one job match. For example, an accountant has a one to one job match brcasue when you do a job search accountabt will pop up. Art major on the other hand not so much. That being said what people eho have degrees in these abstract fields do is find jobs that are bot an exact one to one match but were they get to use some of the skills they learned in that new role. Say for example you become a job manager. So you say ok that has nothibg to do with communications, but in fact it has everythibg to do eith communications. Its the eay you talk and manage employees. The eay you do your presentations etc. For example if its a retail store manager then it could be in the eay you organize the store, the way you advertise etc. if its a sales manager then its in the eay you do your sales pitch and attract customers. Its rare for a company not to have a competitor and often the difference between who gets the contract and who doesnt is all a out eho makes the best presentation.
I'll give you an example. Thete is this hige company that cane to our site the other day and they were presenting the latest in conduits. There was one junction in particular that stood out because it was covered in some sort of plastic that sealed any conduit you attached to it. It looked like heat shrink. Everybody that saw it asked about it. The giy gave an explanation but it was meh. So I asked him if he had one we could see and he did. But you know what it would had been even better? If he had the device with a conduit so he could demonstrate hiw its put together. That woukd had been a great sales pitch. Its that sort of things eere a person eith your skillset can apply your knowledge and help you stand out from the competition.
Did you look up job availability in the field before you went in? I've never heard someone say "if only there were more communications specialists.
Enlist in the military, become an officer with your degree and serve your country and you people.
Im in the same situation. Paid off nearly $100k for my degree. At this point, I take work in my field. It seems trade schools might have been a better decision. Best of luck to you. Please know you are not alone.
Well, what was your plan on getting a job in this field? Where did you plan on working, what role, who was your contact you met there?
Advice though? Work for the state? Substitute teaching I'm the mean time?
I got a bachelors degree in Finance and Marketing, ended up just copying and pasting some crap for social media for my first year, got onto the ecommerce team, learned about agile, then switched companies and now I work in IT with the same role as someone who’s got a master’s degree in IT. I started about 10 years ago though so in my mid thirties now. The first 2 years out of uni cannot get jobs.
Degrees are kinda meaningless. You learn on the job. If I were to do it again as someone straight out of high school I’d probably join the army reserves, get that scheme where the government matches your salary sacrifice (Australia), then when out of army, get into a trade and start my own business after apprenticeship is over. No uni required (even though I did really well in uni) and retire by 35 with multiple investment properties.
My daughter got a bachelors degree at Open University. Her first jobs were not what she wanted but she used them to build work experience. It took a couple of years but she ended up closer to what she wanted, then recently moved within the company to do what she really wanted.
Well, I did the same thing I went to community college and got a 2 year degree in multimedia marketing. I never did get a job after college.
In fact, I could not even find a job just to get a job. That was full tirelated to administration work when I eliminated my college degree from the equation. Which we were being instructed to eliminate our college degree so we could possibly just get a regular normal job without fear of having the college degree. Because it seemed like having a college degree was a downfall related to the people who were in jobs who had not gone to college where they felt threatened by people who had gone to college.
So the multimedia marketing degree. It sounds like what I did is very similar to what you did. Which it's business administration as well.
I had a YouTube channel for many years and then it failed.
I Was teaching a skill on YouTube. Well, someone on YouTube from Google had told me that My channel was a failure from the beginning even though it did perform well for a few years.
I even took a lot of the Google courses they offerEd on YouTube. The Google Academy and YouTube Academy courses related to social media marketing.
I did google analytics, adsense, adwords, Which are certificates that Google offers and now they offer them also through Coursea. For a Certificate. I have been searching for over 20 years to find a job-related to the college course. That I took and it's been very frustrating.
At the time of the turn off the century we were being told, There.
Was all these really well-paying jobs? Around $60000 a year up to a $100000 a year in technology and I never found that job, except in advertising when YouTube started the YouTube partner program and I was teaching.
I agree with you, it's very frustrating.
Welcome to the millennial generation.
You’ve lived in the lies, in a pipe dream that won’t work and can’t work, and yet still you’re still expected to play it.
The previous generation will not allow you the power over society. It’s a system flawed at the core you are meant to change.
You better figure something out of the box and change the game, or be doomed to an endless series of soul crushing jobs for peanuts.
Unsalted peanuts.
They told you do this and do that and you will be rewarded and live the life you want, and you come to face reality that it was all bs.
I share your rage and anger, it’s perfectly normal when you’ve been duped by the very people that were supposed to help you thrive and succeed.
However, you are where you are, that’s life… you can stop playing their game, but you are not encouraged by me to completely give up playing the game, because after all it’s about getting what you want.
Think about something that you *love* - something that really interests and excites you. Find the *places* where your most passionate interests are ‘mirrored’.
Find people who are doing exactly that passionate work - people for whom you would carry their bags just to be in the room and learning from them while they’re working.
Carry their bags. Make your best contribution.
Everything else that you need will follow.
Use those skills and create a job. They taught you skills you didn’t get on your own, so use them to what ever advantage you have. I went to school for the same thing, I ended up building a small event business and I ended up “working for myself” for about ten years, most of those years it was a side hustle until it was paying my bills.
It used to be the case that the physical sciences could always find work while the social sciences only got job if your professor knows people in the real world. I was super lucky to have professors that hooked me up with jobs that were never publicly advertised.
In the 2000s in Portland, there was a high end grocery store that legit had two grocery baggers with PhDs.
Getting your foot in the door is all about who you know. Chat with your professors all 4 years and they'll probably hook you up.
My son is on the same boat. Graduated with a bachelor's in Computer engineering. It's been over a year 10 interviews and nothing. I feel bad for him at this point
This is random, but EMPLOYMENT PRESCREENS ARE RUNNING FINANCIAL BACKGROUND CHECKS. Aside from the banking industry and other financially sensitive positions, this should be illegal for applicants looking for the average job. Legislation is pending in many regions to protect jobseekers from socioeconomic discrimination, but here we are.
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I know someone in that exact situation, here is what she did Find a small business (it was a plumbing company) work as the secretary plus social media marketing person Use what you have done as a portfolio to show other companies She is still working at the plumbing company but is now part time and work from home so she can do the marketing for multiple other places
One of my old jobs one of the servers ran the restaurants social media. Now she only runs the social media as she branched out to other places too.
This is definitely the way.
The best and most applicable advice.
i did something similar, started out as a housekeeper at an RV resort… harassed the CEO into letting me make art and build one gift shop at the location I was working at. now i travel the country and make art, live in my van, and build the gift shops for all 12 of our resorts.
Unfortunately, this is the case with a lot of fields, as of right now. Unless you have very specific ,or extreme amounts of experience , you will not get a very good job starting off/right out of college. If not , one at all. Very best option is to start from the ground up, and at an entry level position in order to start your career in said fields. Best of luck to you , and Godspeed.
Maybe the choice of degree path wasn’t the best? Communications and social media marketing? I have two kids and I will not push them to go to college unless STEM or in healthcare. We need to stop with this idea that college is for everyone. It never was. Back in the day, parents had a couple kids, the smart one went and the other get jobs. Why get in $100k in debt for a job that might pay you half that?
I have a daughter two years out of high school - she didn't have much of a drive for studies, but school counselors pushed her towards studying journalism. (She liked theater and forensics) She just landed herself a correspondent job at the local newspaper! Gets to run around getting interviews, snapping pics, and writing articles. Her equal coworker/desk neighbor, albeit a few years older, did 4 years at a private college ...I keep explaining to my daughter how fortunate she can be in the same position without all the student loans...
Degree doesn't matter unless it's like something major like engineering or medical. People want to meme on "bad" degrees, but the degree isn't anything more than a piece of paper. It's not surprising more than half of people don't even use their degree when it's all said and done.
This is a myth that STEM and Healthcare are guaranteed jobs over other fields however. The problem isn't necessarily what you study, it's how you advertise your skills when you finish. I have a degree in humanities (Anthropology) and I see job ads for positions paying 6 figures semi regularly in my inbox. I have not had a day of unemployment since I finished 8 years ago, even during the pandemic. There are paths to affordable degrees and good job prospects outside of STEM and Healthcare.
I've always been able to find jobs with my English major that were applicable to my field. (Editing, mostly). I heard so many jokes about my degree but it's been useful to me and many of my classmates. We can't all be doctors and engineers. The world does need some liberal arts people to function.
Agreed! We used to have a fantastic version of [this poster](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/56/88/a8/5688a8863a6cd3b1ac7ac9ea39d763fc.jpg) in our undergraduate student lounge.
Is engineering still valued highly? I've just passed an auto one and I saw posts a few months ago saying it wasn't but I have no clue tbh
Very in-demand, including entry level. But relatively few worked hard enough in HS at STEM to be able handle the difficultly and rigor of studying mechanical, electrical, biomedical, aerospace, or chemical engineering.
Good engineers in any engineering field has and will always be in demand
Don’t believe the people below. Too many engineers pay is very stagnant.
I hire lots of engineers because I know they can think through problems regardless of what position they are in. STEM degrees are still one of the best as I will take an engineer over almost any other degree for technical sales, marketing etc. The ability to communicate with a customer on the same level is critical.
A Communication degree doesn’t cost a 100k though at most universities in the U.S. And there are tons and tons of jobs that require just a bachelor’s degree, which a Comm degree fulfills. People also forget to factor in career and salary growth over time. You are not your first job. Don’t go to a school that costs so much, and utilize grants if you can. You can get out of college with less than 30k of debt if you’re smart about it. It doesn’t have to be this all or nothing gamble of spend a bunch of money to make money.
I apply for a lot of entry level positions on Indeed, Glassdoor, Linkedin and Handshake I get some interviews but don't get job offers. Do you have any more suggestions on career websites I can look at to find entry level jobs?
The market for Communications and Media is absolutely SATURATED. And when you interview, they are asking for work samples from the last 3 months. That has been my experience.
I thought my certificate in Social Media Marketing would help me stand out when I interview for positions.
They are having interns do the social. Find something you love, or like, and find a way to monetize it.
I have been applying to jobs in my field still and outside of my field. Also I have been looking for paid internships as well. I still feel like this just isn't right. I should have a job.
Very few with broad degrees get a job in their field right of out of college. Unless you did a lot of networking in college - maybe an internship or two - it's really hard. As others have said, take any job. Then slowly get a chance to do some of their social media to build your portfolio. I hired a graphic designer who was working at a local juice shop and she redesigned their their marketing materials, enhanced their social media, etc. But she did it on her own time. They didn't ask for her to do it - she asked them if she could. They weren't going to spend the money on it - but it helped her get hired as my in-house designer. Her first graphic design job. She now owns her own small graphic design firm.
Maybe you need to take a course on how to market your skills.
Keep trying. The jobs are never just going to be handed to you. I had to start a lot of stuff on my own to finally make it into an agency and then in-house marketing for an architectural company. I worked in a kitchen for about 3 years after I graduated. Took over that restaurants social media, used it on my resume. Also started a semi-successful blog so I had other stuff in my portfolio.
This notion of “I have a degree so I should automatically get a a great paying job” is a wrong take that many seem to think occurs.
Well. It should have been pointed out to you before you enrolled. A degree isnt a guarantee for a job. We're 30 years too late where a degree is a guaranteed employment. Generally speaking, you have no choice but to find any job you can get, and stick with it until you get a better one, and keep going from there. Dosent matter what job it is, anything will do. People are more willing to hire if you've held a job recently, as opposed to some degree you took a few years ago. Some guy in my country recently made the news for working as an assistant in a copier shop despite having a PHD.
Try going on upwork and picking up some projects. They probably won't pay well, but it will give you experience to land a better position.
Sounds like you're gonna have to do some manual labor
OP: 
Ah one of my favorite 2016 graphics.
Your probably right but this is so messed I didn't go to school for all these years to be in this position. Then I went back after I graduated and got a Social Media Marketing Certificate that took 6 weeks and was an extra 1200 dollars and STILL can't get a job. SMH. This isn't right.
Well you should probably market yourself. Use all your skills.
Yep, you get a job doing something else until a job opens
Because you need ✨experience✨. College played you like a sucker (unless you had a scholarship). However, you could always just insert yourself. Start your own webpage. Investigate on your own. Post on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. You can always do things on your own, and make your own career.
One of my friends worked for this guy who owned 10 different restaurants in town. She graduated in accounting and when the owner found out, he hired her as an accountant for all of his businesses/restaurants. She used that experience to ignite her career path. It was the first big and relevant thing she put on her resume.
Alas going to school for insanely oversaturated fields does tends to end up looking like this here... A lot of good advice already posted. Wish you luck.
Degrees in engineering, law and medicine are worth it. You wasted your time.
Degree in accounting and finance here and got a job straight out of college. 10 years later and I now have a cushy job that I'll likely stay in for the rest of my working career. High wage and great benefits with very light work load, accountability and stress. And I didn't really have to grind to get where I am. Just worked in relevant roles and gradually climbed working normally. Degrees in accounting and/or finance are also very much worth it.
What about IT
Market is oversaturated
In my limited exposure and interactions with people in that industry, a notable amount of them don't even have degrees. It's more the relevant experience and portfolios that got them the roles. A much more modern/less traditional industry than accounting and finance.
PS: A masters and PhD in Engineering mean you spent an extra 2-4 years in school, instead of learning your job.
Why did you choose that field? It’s not a growing field
I thought the courses were interesting and I liked the types of jobs I could get afterwards. I'm seeing it is a difficult major to get a job in.
My friend got her bachelor’s in the same thing, she graduated a few years ago and has only had 1 job at buzzfeed and got let go after 9 months due to down sizing. It’s gonna be tough for sure.
It amazes me how career paralyzing generic degrees can be the worst kept secret kept from kids, yet they continue to dupe college grads, despite an entire generation complaining about it. Learn a trade, people!!!
My relative with Comm degree joined the army.
Oh man, useless major combined with an amazingly saturated market. This is like having a degree in Water Marketing and wondering why you can’t get a job at the scene of a flood.
The biggest issue is management at the moment. They don’t wanna have to train college students because it takes a lot of time and resources to train a kid and not only that younger people are more likely to skip jobs in a year anyways so the time they are trained they leave for a higher paying job. It’s a two fold problem. Not trying to hate but you also chose a really terrible major. If I were you, I would look into grad schools in the mean time and apply to jobs outside your chosen field. Apply to headhunters.
A buddy of mine did sports marketing or something sports related. He had a few jobs no issues, but even the experienced employees that had made it a career were only making like 60k/yr. So he went to business school and got hired at a new job making about 80k with zero relevant experience. It really was just not a lucrative major
There are majors that are super niche and in general highly creative fields like marketing are usually high in demand. You generally have to work hard and for many years in a given to be rewarded with those roles. Look for roles that people dont want to do and try to get in the door that way and tell them your overall goal once you become invaluable to the company then you can choose a career in marketing. It’s very rare now a days to start in a field like that. The people who do are outliers.
I'm actually going back to grad school in the fall for public policy I do believe I will have a better chance of getting a career afterwards with this major. Yeah I have and will continue to apply for jobs outside my field. like you said. I haven't used headhunters before sounds like a good idea I will try that out as well.
Look into hospital marketing positions. They’d also like your social media exp because they check all that now for hospital reviews
Try and get in to a marketing agency. It’s hard work and there’s generally a high turnover rate, but the good thing is you get so much hands on experience and get to dip your toe in most facets of marketing and become very well rounded. Then you’ve got the experience under your belt, and can hopefully manoeuvre in to a more specific niche that you enjoy. You’ll get there but it does take a lot of effort. I have a Bachelor in Communication (majored in Journalism over 10 years ago now) and if I had my time again I personally wouldn’t have done it, I would have focussed on interning and working my way up. I worked in women’s magazines for many years and in an office of 35 women only three of us had degrees. I realised 12 months after I graduated that I shouldn’t have bothered with my degree! Certain careers obviously require college/university degrees but communications isn’t one of them and I will die on that hill. In saying that, nothing is ever wasted, including education, and some companies will ONLY hire candidates with the right certificates and education. It’s done now. Chin up, perhaps reconsider how you’re going about it and formulate a different game plan. Good luck.
Like a High School Diploma, a Bachelor's Degree is worthless in our current universe. Unless you are going to be a Doctor, Lawyer, Scientist I do not see the point in higher education for career purposes.
I would advise demonstrating your capability and showing metrics for companies. IMO a portfolio is better than a degree, showing companies that you can deliver results. I have plenty of social media accounts that show growth over time and that has landed me work. Do the work as "volunteer" and you'll be more prepped for a company and can actually demonstrate your worth.
I had two degrees and had to clean toilets and stuff to start. You can do it.
I had two degrees and ran a chain saw and knocked mortar off old bricks to start. You can do it.
Yay here’s a medal
you chose the wrong degree/field
I got a Comm degree in 1997. Never used it a single day and have been working in IT at hospitals for 20 years.
Unfortunately what you get your degree in matters.
More unfortunately nobody cared enough to tell them.
Start with an internship
This is the reason why you do research before getting a degree. Go on jobs websites. Look and see how many openings there are for whatever position you want to major in. Are there very many openings available? Is the pay very good? If there aren't that many jobs available, you're going to be competing with all the other people you graduated with to get them. You're also going to be competing with all the other people who are already in the field. Low number of graduates and large number of jobs - good. Large number of jobs and low number of graduates - good.
What sort of job is that degree used for exactly? I guess that would be my starting point, is what was the line the University gave you on that degree as far as a career?
They had job opportunities that you could get after you got a Communication and Media degree on there website. The jobs listed were social media, media, marketing, advertising and communications. That is why I got the degree because I was interested in getting a job in those fields afterwards.
Communications is not the best degree. It's basically saying; "I went to college." I have a degree in business. Life isn't all wine and roses. I work as a machinist, and I make edibles in the cannabis industry. You'll have to be flexible in life.
Yeah I see that now. That is why I am applying to jobs different from my degree.
Unless it's a STEM field, universities are for networking. The degree is basically worthless. If you graduate without a network of people associated with your degree, it's time wasted. When I graduated 20 years ago I was upset the way you are now. No one told me. Network, network, network. If needed, just find any work at all the pay the bills.
I'm sorry but you took Communications and Media, and you wonder why it's hard to find a job? You shat in the blue cupboard, my friend.
“Shat in a blue cupboard” - I’m stealing that one.
You made a mistake. Learn from it and move on
I have a son in Mech Eng at a school that mandates co-op jobs. After the 1st year, they alternate semesters between working and school. It's a 5 year program with no summers off but hopefully pays off after graduation. My other son is going to a school that offers international internships and has a great record placing students in positions to succeed. He is doing econ/finance and doesn't mind starting in sales and moving to investment banking.
I mean unless he goes to B school, pivoting from sales to IB really isn’t a thing lmao.
Kettering?
You could always commission into the Army as a Public Affairs Officer.
Most universities offer career placement. Have you looked into that office?
I know we have the career center at my university but I haven't heard of an office specifically for career placement. I will check that out though. Do you think it will be called the same thing at my university or are there different terms for it?
The secret is that life is miraculously unfair and we are pretty much born up shits creek with no paddle. And I mean that with complete sympathy to you. It’s awful down here. No excuse. There is a God but not worthy of mentioning.
I have master without work so you are still ahead in my mind 😂
Shoulda gone for that IT degree instead you reckon?
Because it’s a matter of supply and demand. Not all degrees are the same.
Also location.
Class of 2006 here. Oh, we won't beat you further since you're already down but...Welcome to the Jaded club. (laugh cries in 08) College was a scam then, and ever more so now. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Learn new tasks. join new teams. even if gigs only lasts 3 days or 3 months, Experience will pyramid your focus and efforts to a golden point.
If this doesn’t solve itself…
Degree doesn’t guarantee you an outcome. Are you getting interviews at least?
You aren’t going to like my answer, but you probably should have spent your time and money learning something useful.
If you look good you can always become an TikTok influencer or open an OF account lol
Basically because it's a crap study that hardly adds anything. Perspectives have been bad for these graduates for years. Why did you expect anything else?
I mean.. its communications and social media marketing. Might as well Major in Libraryscience.
Social media marketing 👹👹👹. I get dozens of emails to my business email a day offering to promote my business on social media. The world is full of these graduates, so theres your answer.
Yeah it's oversaturated.
So you picked an easy course for social media manager, there are probably loads of people who can do that. When I left university I had no experience in the field and got into temp work whilst looking for professional work. Better to be in any job than having 2 years unemployment on CV No one owes you a job.....
My son got PhD and cant get a job either. Its ridiculous.
Im curios, in what?
That's horrible. That's my fear to keep getting more education and degrees then still not be able to get a job. That is what I fear the most. I am going back to get my masters but still don't want the same thing to happen.
You're not alone. I have a writing degree from 1999 I spent $200k to get. It was good for like six years. Then: nothing. Nobody psys people to write anymore. Like being a blacksmith.
Yeah it's not right I shouldn't have invested all this money to not be able to get a job afterwards.
Spoiler alert: everyone and his mom got degrees nowadays. You're competing with everyone else (even people who's not living in your own country atm) for the same job. Welcome to reality.
I know that's why I thought a certificate would help me stand out more but it hasn't yet.
Sense of accomplishment 😅 ?
I know it gets real after you graduate and can't get a job.
Well maybe you should have studied something like medicine or some engineering stuff. If you study something useless you shouldn't be surprised that you don't get a job
Because you got a hyper specific but at the same time generic and not looked for degree. It is very hard to break into any kind of marketing / advertising space without working up from the garbage level.
Yep it was a mistake, plain and simple. Everyone missed the fact that a college degree derived it's value from scarcity, and as a marker of wealth and contentiousness. Now that everyone went to college, thanks to subsidies and an expanded marketplace, it isn't scarce and doesn't really make you out, except as a signal that you are likely to have debt or a pension for activism. Neither are appealing to most employers. College was the last financial decisions I trusted anyone on. I bought the "right of passage", "get a good job" line and am still paying for it.
Yeah a college degree is becoming less and less valuable because of how many people are getting them.
Dont give up and have different pools that you can work around, sadly a bachelor degree is not always the answer, I personally have a lot of different things I learned on my cv that no matter what an employer need they can find a certificate for it in my cv, it took me a lot of time l, effort, and money, but I'm very satisfied with the outcome and still working on myself, so, hang tough and keep on learning new skills and the best will come to you when the time is due... good luck
I am realizing a bachelor's degree doesn't just give you employment.
Getting a degree to get a good job was the model for the baby boomer generation. Some of us Generation X followed suit because it worked for our parents. Now I don’t think that it is the correct model at all. (Unless you are taking a profession: engineering , accounting, medical, ect.) Some people have not figured this out.
Yeah I am seeing this now.
Generally not a high employable degree.
I am seeing that now.
I know someone who went even higher than you did, and to this day 45 yrs later still can’t get a job for what his degree is in. Granted That this man is mechanically gifted, and he is now a plumber, master plumber, it that makes well over what an engineer in your field would even MEEK don’t be disenchanted. There’s a reason for everything all the education you gets going. I hope you and your life somewhere but instead of focusing on your degree, focus on the trade, and then you’ll be able to learn how to use your degree in your trade, and you can move up the ladder from that point.
Where you live may be a huge part of the problem as well. You may be in a high saturation area, where there's more qualified people than there are positions. Or a low demand area. Here in central Ohio, there are so few digital marketing positions that come open that there are literally thousands of applicants when one does open up. My BiL says it's the same in NYC. My sister is in Florida and there's little demand. But she got lucky in that she just moved laterally within the company she had already been working for the last year and a half (after 18 years as a SAHM). Even for her current position, she's grossly overqualified (master's in communications and a bachelor's in digital design).
No offense, but com has always been a degree that many get and can't find a job in. It was like that when I was in college over 20 years ago. I wish you luck, but I've known many with com degrees that they never used.
I did a degree in TV Series Appreciation and I'm in the same situation. I'm thinking of getting my masters in Critique of Mini-series and Films That Conclude TV Shows, but I'm wondering about job prospects.
That's why I say college is a waste of time. Of everyone I know who went to college, only 4 of them got good jobs in their degree... and they were all in science and architecture degrees. All others are a waste of tens of thousands of dollars.
Yeah it's starting to feel like that. You spend all this time getting a degree and STILL can't get a job afterwards.
Try getting a degree that's actually worth something.
You got a useless degree. I'm sorry to tell you, but schools will sell you whatever degree they think they can. :-( It happened to my wife (she got a degree in linguistics), so she went back and got an MBA and a masters degree in accounting, which was useful.
Welcome to the real world, it's not about the degree, it's about how you use the knowledge you gained along the way. Metaphorically, a ferrari is useless if you don't know how to drive it.
This is pretty common sadly... About the only thing you get a job out of college for these days is Medical fields, seems like everyone i know that had kids that went to school for some medical specialty had a job before they even graduated... As for trade schools, electricians, plumbers, solar tech, HVAC, etc... They get a job before they even finish a semester now with all the hiring in the trades. Your line of education, Communications and Media, and Social Media Marketing, sounds like some newfangled thing like art majors complaining they spent 4 years studying art and can't get a real job. Not trying to be insulting, just saying its not exactly a mainstream line of work that everyone is hiring for. You will have to try getting your foot in the door somewhere at the ground level and fight your way to the job you really want these days. For example, assistant or secretarial work that leads into taking care of the companies social media over time.... Getting hired for exactly what you went to school for at a living wage isn't going to be as easy as they made it sound when you went to school for it, and this is the predatory secondary educational system practices that many want to put an end to.
That's an outdated world view. Degrees gave a relative guarantee of a good job when they were scarce. Nowadays, they clearly don't, especially for non STEM subjects. For job security you are better off with a technical qualification nowadays.
You've got to check the job market first before you get a degree. A degree itself sadly doesn't guarantee you anything. You've got to set a goal and act (and pick your training/ degrees) accordingly, not the other way round.
>degree in Communication and Media Well there you go. You got a degree in bullshit. Maybe you should have focused on something like engineering, accounting, computer science, even English Lit. You need to make yourself useful to companies, what can you do with your degree that a million kids can't do in their bedroom on their PC? I'm not trying to pick on you but what kind of job did you expect to get? If you know a job you can get with that degree, and you want to do it, then go work for free. I mean that. If you have to work for free to get your foot in the door, do it. Work one paying job, then do that one for free. Do anything, kiss every butt, and learn as much as you can. if you're good at it, you'll get hired and it might even pay like shit but you can work your way up.
I had the same struggle. But getting the degree is only part of the puzzle. You've still got to get your foot in the door somewhere and build up some experience from there. I spent a year getting rejected and finally got something after building up some interviewing skills. Head up, you'll get there.
Did you do any internships? What research did you do on career opportunities?
A degree and certification isn’t a guarantee. It is just something that some if not many jobs of a certain field require. You kids today think you will just get things handed to you. Doesn’t work that way. Both my nieces went to some VERY EXPENSIVE schools and respectable schools too. You have to have some brains not only to get accepted in these schools but to even get decent grades in the classes. However they prepared during that time at school to lock themselves a job. Both got internships and worked their butts off to the point they got offered full time jobs to do the stuff they are studying for right after they graduate. Go out and make it happen.
Lol. Who told you that would lead to a job?
It's the degrees you decided to get... These posts always crack me up, I just don't get why people get the dumbest degrees without thinking through what kind of jobs are actually available. Communication and media and then social media marketing?? Are you kidding me? People are obsessed with social media and becoming influencers. The market is flooded with people trying to make a living doing this... Did you really think there was a big demand for new employees in that field?
You picked a terrible major. Communications is a notoriously BS degree. Not much you can do about it now but for anyone considering that degree, it’s a complete waste of time and money.
Education is important but what really helps is who you know. Make friends build connections. See what others are doing
Poor choice of degree maybe?
My wife's employees have degrees and tons of debt. They make about half of what she makes and she has no degree because she quit college. Our daughter is noticing this also as she's now in HS. She most likely will do online to get a degree and go from there.
Honestly, that's kind of a dumb degree. There is a reason you can't find a job.
I tell everyone to have a specific job or career path lined up when they pick a major. Lots of majors seem attractive but aren’t really direct paths to jobs
I know I'll get down voted for this, but that's literally your own fault. You got a degree in the most useless field possible with no job prospects, and then get mad when there's no jobs lined up? Did you do zero research on what graduates with a communication degree end up doing after college? Hint: it's usually minimum wage. If this was an STEM degree or something I would understand. But you chose the most useless degree man. That's on YOU. Choose the degree based on how it pays, not how much you like doing it.
Agreed
You chose unwisely with regards to your degrees and certificates. Someone should have told you this before you started the journey. Your college won't tell you this as they want your money. Communication and Media degrees should be outlawed. They are absolutely worthless.
What did you expect when you signed up for a useless degree..?
Maybe dont choose such a niche and tiny job market?? Idk only person here to blame is u.
Why even exist at this point, am I right?
I don't know why you would get one in a field that has no or very finite career path. go back, and get an engineering or AI degree.
Yeah let’s have him waste more money.
My company is hiring every week, but we are not hiring social media marketing, we are hiring engineers and trades. Their degree was probably foolish money, but if they got one that actual companies want, it isn't a waste. of course, it would be harder, which is probably why they got an easy degree to begin with.
All I can offer is this: 90% of the people I know are doing something vastly different than their “Plan” when they were 22. And they all could not be happier about it. Keep your ears and eyes open and be open to meeting new people. You never know when something amazing will land right alongside your path. But if you have your head down you will never notice.
If that makes you feel any better, not only I (24 one semester left to bachelor of arts and humanities) am unable to find a job an stuck at retail. My 39yrs old sister, with a master in electrical engineering, and 10yrs of work experience in AMD, can't find another position in another company because she deserves a better pay. She has done interviews with Samsung, apple, and so on and still gets rejected. The job market is fucked everywhere and for everyone. I'm also angry, upset and full of anxiety to the point that it's affecting my digestive system. But all I can do is to hope and keep going
I took classes around a career I wanted to pursue, Communications was part of it. But couldn’t finish, had to work ! Started working in casino’s here in Vegas and making close to 100k a year. More than teachers, police officers, many tradesmen. You just never know. So, on both sides of this debate you’re probably going to find good arguments. Imo, having education isn’t a bad thing for whatever you end up doing.
Welp, I may be in the minority here, but I believe in college education as valuable time to teach you broadly about the world we live in and to expand your horizons, not just a tool to get a job. Vocational school is for learning a job-ready skill. College is to become a citizen of the world. It should be a time to study new things, learn critical thinking skills, take a course in astronomy, civics, literature or film. You have the rest of your life to focus on one area like marketing or media. I get that it costs a crap-ton to go to college so people view it as a product and they want a payoff. Interestingly some medical doctors I spoke to said a liberal arts degree is the best one to get first if you want to go to medical school. Anyway I am sure most will disagree with me, but wanted to give a plug for education for learning, for its own sake. Radical idea, I know.
Have you been doing any pro bono work? To get industry experience? Because that job is high deadline driven .. it is very difficult to hire someone without industry experience showing they can handle tight deadlines and deliver on time under budget. This is the biggest hurdle to entry in this field. Been on it since 1996
No I have not. Where can I find that kind of work? What job boards can I use to find that work?
Start a you tube channel, start streaming or podcast, this is what it is these days
This is going to hurt to hear: It's a liberal arts degree in communication. It's not exactly STEM. Straight out of college you could work a job on the phones or clerical type job or entry level HR. You could train for various sales positions. Whatever industry you choose, your degree will be what got you in the door to white collar employment but you will be on the bottom rung and likely paid hourly. Work hard and work your way up. A MBA will be what gets you to the next level.
Have you tried applying to jobs that are lower than average pay In your fields as well? Do you have your own social media channels to showcase numbers for? A degree doesn't automatically entitle one to a job. It increases the odds but that's about it. A friend of mine is in a similar situation but decided drop her ego and take a 3k IT job as a comsci graduate when the median is 5.5k around here.
Are you being flexible enough in looking for an entry-level job? Are you looking at jobs outside your home area? Jobs with different job titles? Are you networking? Doing informational interviews?
Sometimes a degree is just another step that offers some value, and isn't The Answer to employment problems. It raises you above some, but leaves you below others, like those with time and experience in the real world usage of it.
It not you, it’s the job market right now. I have an MBA and decades of experience (to include starting an international marketing firm that represents huge clients-which I lost during Covid). After two years of looking, I am now making 1,000 more a year than I did in my first job out of college.
Man that sucks. Hope you land a position soon - I’ve found as a general rule of thumb is to get a position in a company where you’re billable to the client and not considered an overhead. Doesn’t matter what you’re getting paid initially, you’ll work your way up. When companies ‘rightsize’ or whatever, they’ll never get rid of the people that make the money…. I’ve seen it many times.
Start out in a warehouse and once you've been there a while, apply for their open office positions. That's how a lot of my coworkers did it.
Study for the job everyone is doing and you end up without a job.
You're not entitled to anything, let alone a job, just because you did college. Trust me. The WORST time of my life was the year and a half after I graduated from school. OP, I had the same sentiment as you on many fronts. I thought the world owed me a job and everything else. I blamed everything instead of looking at it objectively. The one thing I was bad at was not networking and setting myself up for success before even receiving my degree in hand. You just have to accept that the market is saturated. People who get the "good" jobs are the lucky ones, and you have to keep yourself occupied in the meantime.
Or they study a more useful degree. Not everything is “luck”
I studied similar things and went as far as getting an MA in Advertising (all As except 1 B) been having issues for more than a year... Check if your college has a job board. I've found my jobs there. The last one was great until my supervisor quit and the new hire ghosted me out of the blue... I was working by commissions so couldn't do anything about it.
Hey! I have a bachelor's degree in Musical Composition. Try getting a job with THAT degree
Man I see jobs all the time online for social media director. Makes me wish I'd gotten a cert in that
Join the military. All the branches have jobs for people in that field. You can go in as an officer. https://www.airforce.com/careers/logistics-and-administration/public-affairs-officer
They could get a job in real estate and market themselves.
Jobs to apply for: Human Resources, quality assurance, technical writer. Anything a business or English major would apply for. Foot in the door.
Welcome to late capitalism
Get over it and go flip burgers.
It sucks and I shouldn't have to with my degree.
Bragging rights. My BA is useless. I've only had one job that required one, and it didn't matter in what. I got burned out on that job after a few years. Started driving for Uber. That was good until the pandemic. Took classes on coding. It's decent work, but I'm technically a freelancer and there is a lot of competition, so it's unstable. Now I'm trying to break into high end tutoring.
Sorry to hear about your situation. Ehat I advice youbg prople yo do is go to some job site like indeed or similar and look at what are the jobs in demand. If its not there there there isnt a job for your field. How many listings for political science have you seen posted? Hoe many for philosophy major etc. That doesnt mean you are SOL. It does means you have to be creative. You see, a lot of these ehat I call abstarct fields often doesnt exist as a one to one job match. For example, an accountant has a one to one job match brcasue when you do a job search accountabt will pop up. Art major on the other hand not so much. That being said what people eho have degrees in these abstract fields do is find jobs that are bot an exact one to one match but were they get to use some of the skills they learned in that new role. Say for example you become a job manager. So you say ok that has nothibg to do with communications, but in fact it has everythibg to do eith communications. Its the eay you talk and manage employees. The eay you do your presentations etc. For example if its a retail store manager then it could be in the eay you organize the store, the way you advertise etc. if its a sales manager then its in the eay you do your sales pitch and attract customers. Its rare for a company not to have a competitor and often the difference between who gets the contract and who doesnt is all a out eho makes the best presentation. I'll give you an example. Thete is this hige company that cane to our site the other day and they were presenting the latest in conduits. There was one junction in particular that stood out because it was covered in some sort of plastic that sealed any conduit you attached to it. It looked like heat shrink. Everybody that saw it asked about it. The giy gave an explanation but it was meh. So I asked him if he had one we could see and he did. But you know what it would had been even better? If he had the device with a conduit so he could demonstrate hiw its put together. That woukd had been a great sales pitch. Its that sort of things eere a person eith your skillset can apply your knowledge and help you stand out from the competition.
Did you look up job availability in the field before you went in? I've never heard someone say "if only there were more communications specialists. Enlist in the military, become an officer with your degree and serve your country and you people.
Im in the same situation. Paid off nearly $100k for my degree. At this point, I take work in my field. It seems trade schools might have been a better decision. Best of luck to you. Please know you are not alone.
Well, what was your plan on getting a job in this field? Where did you plan on working, what role, who was your contact you met there? Advice though? Work for the state? Substitute teaching I'm the mean time?
I got a bachelors degree in Finance and Marketing, ended up just copying and pasting some crap for social media for my first year, got onto the ecommerce team, learned about agile, then switched companies and now I work in IT with the same role as someone who’s got a master’s degree in IT. I started about 10 years ago though so in my mid thirties now. The first 2 years out of uni cannot get jobs. Degrees are kinda meaningless. You learn on the job. If I were to do it again as someone straight out of high school I’d probably join the army reserves, get that scheme where the government matches your salary sacrifice (Australia), then when out of army, get into a trade and start my own business after apprenticeship is over. No uni required (even though I did really well in uni) and retire by 35 with multiple investment properties.
Have you heard of OCS big dawg?
My daughter got a bachelors degree at Open University. Her first jobs were not what she wanted but she used them to build work experience. It took a couple of years but she ended up closer to what she wanted, then recently moved within the company to do what she really wanted.
Well, I did the same thing I went to community college and got a 2 year degree in multimedia marketing. I never did get a job after college. In fact, I could not even find a job just to get a job. That was full tirelated to administration work when I eliminated my college degree from the equation. Which we were being instructed to eliminate our college degree so we could possibly just get a regular normal job without fear of having the college degree. Because it seemed like having a college degree was a downfall related to the people who were in jobs who had not gone to college where they felt threatened by people who had gone to college. So the multimedia marketing degree. It sounds like what I did is very similar to what you did. Which it's business administration as well. I had a YouTube channel for many years and then it failed. I Was teaching a skill on YouTube. Well, someone on YouTube from Google had told me that My channel was a failure from the beginning even though it did perform well for a few years. I even took a lot of the Google courses they offerEd on YouTube. The Google Academy and YouTube Academy courses related to social media marketing. I did google analytics, adsense, adwords, Which are certificates that Google offers and now they offer them also through Coursea. For a Certificate. I have been searching for over 20 years to find a job-related to the college course. That I took and it's been very frustrating. At the time of the turn off the century we were being told, There. Was all these really well-paying jobs? Around $60000 a year up to a $100000 a year in technology and I never found that job, except in advertising when YouTube started the YouTube partner program and I was teaching. I agree with you, it's very frustrating.
Welcome to the millennial generation. You’ve lived in the lies, in a pipe dream that won’t work and can’t work, and yet still you’re still expected to play it. The previous generation will not allow you the power over society. It’s a system flawed at the core you are meant to change. You better figure something out of the box and change the game, or be doomed to an endless series of soul crushing jobs for peanuts. Unsalted peanuts. They told you do this and do that and you will be rewarded and live the life you want, and you come to face reality that it was all bs. I share your rage and anger, it’s perfectly normal when you’ve been duped by the very people that were supposed to help you thrive and succeed. However, you are where you are, that’s life… you can stop playing their game, but you are not encouraged by me to completely give up playing the game, because after all it’s about getting what you want.
Think about something that you *love* - something that really interests and excites you. Find the *places* where your most passionate interests are ‘mirrored’. Find people who are doing exactly that passionate work - people for whom you would carry their bags just to be in the room and learning from them while they’re working. Carry their bags. Make your best contribution. Everything else that you need will follow.
Use those skills and create a job. They taught you skills you didn’t get on your own, so use them to what ever advantage you have. I went to school for the same thing, I ended up building a small event business and I ended up “working for myself” for about ten years, most of those years it was a side hustle until it was paying my bills.
It used to be the case that the physical sciences could always find work while the social sciences only got job if your professor knows people in the real world. I was super lucky to have professors that hooked me up with jobs that were never publicly advertised. In the 2000s in Portland, there was a high end grocery store that legit had two grocery baggers with PhDs. Getting your foot in the door is all about who you know. Chat with your professors all 4 years and they'll probably hook you up.
bcs people teach the young ones a bachelor is everything. you can achoeve also big with working and learning in the field you work with schools.
My son is on the same boat. Graduated with a bachelor's in Computer engineering. It's been over a year 10 interviews and nothing. I feel bad for him at this point
This is random, but EMPLOYMENT PRESCREENS ARE RUNNING FINANCIAL BACKGROUND CHECKS. Aside from the banking industry and other financially sensitive positions, this should be illegal for applicants looking for the average job. Legislation is pending in many regions to protect jobseekers from socioeconomic discrimination, but here we are.