For many students, one of the most difficult parts of life after graduation is trying to find a full-time job.
In my own experience, and from what I’ve heard from people I know and people online, job hunting can be tricky and exhausting. There seems to be no end to the number of employers who ghost you after one email. Many won’t even let you know that the position has been filled or that you aren’t being considered. Most people, especially graduating seniors, are tired of it.
It’s a tedious process, especially when it seems to have been easier for our parents or grandparents. Who doesn’t wish you could just walk right into the business, say you’re looking for a job and have an interview later that day? Like many things in our day-to-day life, I think this changed greatly with the rise of the internet.
Now it’s so much easier to post a job to your company website or to one of many job-hunting websites and get hundreds of applicants in mere days. If you want someone with a lot of experience in the field, you’ll likely find someone as soon as you finish ignoring everyone with entry-level skills applying to this entry-level job. You can find people from all over the country to apply to your position now, whereas before you would likely be restricted to people in the area if you weren’t a very big company. This inflates the number of people applying to any given job.
There are also companies who will leave job postings up for months without hiring. This could be an effort to keep their staff small so they don’t have to pay employees as much while still appearing to be searching for a new hire. In reality, there are likely a lot of qualified and eager people who want to work for that company; I’ve seen it happen. I’ve applied for a job listing, gotten no response from the company and then seen the job listing posted again a couple of months later. Maybe this isn’t the reason, but if that’s the case, then I don’t know why positions would be open for so long. Again, because of the rise of the internet, there’s no way that nobody has applied.
I can’t come up with any solution to this myself. I’m just a senior student who has no control over large companies and hiring managers. I’m in the job hunt myself, going through interviews that go nowhere and sending out resumes with no responses and applications that get rejected. It’s frustrating. All we can do is hang in there and know that there are resources available to help you.
KSC does have a Career Services Center, which can help you with pretty much anything job-related that you might need. They will also take appointments from alumni, so even after you graduate, they can help you out. There are also spaces online where people will give you advice and tips on how to do things like writing a cover letter or not being awkward at interviews. As annoying as it might be, it also doesn’t hurt to ask your family for help. They might have connections in companies that are in your field or have any general advice from their own experiences.
It’s a tiring process and anyone currently job-hunting is probably sick of hearing about it but you don’t have to do it all alone.
Orion Corbin can be contacted at
