25 and never found a full time job? Boat already sailed?

[FlynnFlynn]

Yo guys, I was wondering if ya'll could help me out a lil' bit (catch the 50 Cent reference I snuck in there?). A little bit of my employment history, I got my first part time gig 7 hours per week when I was nearly 20 (two months before my birthday) and then I held that until the company lost the contract when I was 23. It was a 1 hour per day job cleaning a library 11 miles away. Crap I know, but I had to take what I could get. During the last couple of years of that job I used to come home from uni on the weekends to do it for two hours at the end of the week.

Since coming home from uni in sept 2012 after a 6 month stint of unemployment (apart from the cleaning job) I found a part time 5 hour contract with Royal Mail which I started in march 2013 and I am currently still doing it. I normally only get 5-10 hours a week with that, just about goes to pay for my food and fund my motorcycle lessons and a few adult treats every now and then Last year I tried to join the army but was not accepted because I was described as too introverted, so that took up most of my time last year.

I really feel like the boat has already sailed and that I won't be able to find a full time gig, does anyone have any ideas? Also I always looked for jobs even back when I was at the age to go to connexions but I was never lucky enough to find anything.

I went for my first interview for a position at Waitrose at 17 but I was unsuccessful so I have suffered from years of rejections. I would really like to get a full time gig so that I could save up enough to purchase a Subaru Impreza WRX STi (my dream car thanks to Colin Mcrae and Richard Burns RIP both).

So yeah, any help etc? My parents say I am still young and there is loads of time yet, but I think they still see me as a 17 year old rather than a 25 year old! Thanks in advance :P

[FlynnFlynn]

Wow, great advice lads! I am quite surprised that I am receiving positive replies actually, from reading PH for the last five years it seems that most people by my age were well into the grown up world with employment, some even starting families. It seems my position is not too uncommon though from your posts. Another thing is that I do feel quite the "man child" in my situation which isn't the most helpful thing for my self esteem.

It appears the suggestions are for the stuff that I am not good at and even resent. i.e. networking and canvassing jobs. I find that so utterly distasteful. Not meaning to offend anybody that has had success with those areas, I just hate to be that annoying person asking for "favours" from people, my pride won't let me. There is a trend actually as I hate my generation of self obsessed narcissists taking selfies all the time and putting them on bookface. I shun all types of social media and keep my online profile to a minimum apart from forums which I really enjoy.

MentalSarcasm said:

No, I don't think the boat has sailed, like many in our age bracket (under 30 but over 21) there's been a problem with getting decent full time work thanks to a wobbly economy. I finished my MA just as the recession bit deep, got a part time job at Waitrose, left it to start my own business (which didn't go well), and then worked part time for the National Trust before finally getting a full time job in the Civil Service at...25!

For the more experienced PHers to answer you I think you need to give the following information;

- What was your degree in and how well did you do?
- What do you WANT to do?
- What kind of jobs are you applying for? Apart from the army and Waitrose obviously.

I can assure you you're certainly not alone in this boat, and it's definitely not sailed.

I did my HND in Information Technology which to be honest bores my TITS off! The only side I am reasonably interested in is the hardware (recently built my own desktop rig) and comms side of things, hence the military idea. There are of course other things that appeal to me about the military as well, but that is another story. I just scrapped a pass in my HND, my interest was waning towards the end and I had depression at the time as well but I didn't tell anybody so that probably effected my performance as well.

Why did I do Information Technology you might ask if I am so bored by it? Well picture this, I had just left a special needs boarding school at 16 (long story), no friends or contacts in the area, no idea or clue about living in the real world, just my mother's suggestion that I am "quite good" with computers. Which to be honest I am not really, she just doesn't know about computers so therefore I appeared good to her. So anyway I do a BTEC first diploma at my local FE college, then after completing that course I ask if I may switch to mechanics (I am now a keen amateur mechanic anyway) but they said no as I would have to do the first mechanics course and that would be another BTEC First Diploma, essentially going "sideways" rather than up and they wouldn't facilitate that.

One thing I didn't mention is that after the army failure I applied to the navy first thing this year (failed my second army attempt in December last year) and passed the recruitment test and initial interview for the navy, but I am in two minds about that because I am in the second half of my 20s now and starting to feel quite settled in my home town.

The type of jobs I applied for recently just off the top of my head are things like; 1st line helpdesk operative, personal trainer, gym assistant, warehouse shop floor assistant, delivery driver, cleaner and loads of variations of the above. The amount of jobs I have to waste my time clicking on, just to find it is some bullst arse part time 1 hour per day 5 days a week type of gig 15 miles away is ridiculous. Either that or reading the whole description, getting down to the end and then it says something like minimum 5 years experience essential. Hell, I could make a whole thread called "job hunting frustrations" on that subject! When I started working for Royal Mail I was full time pretty much for nearly a year (25-30 hour weeks) and during that time I took a break from applying for jobs and paid off 2k of overdraft and 2k of student debt with the money.

In terms of what I would like to do I guess being a BT engineer would be quite interesting, I am quite interested in telegraph poles and the street side cabinets so unlike most of their engineers I would actually have an interest in what I am doing. I also wouldn't mind being a mechanic but for the short term before it does my back in! As I have been warned by being friendly with a couple. Really hate Royal Mail though, if anything is soul destroying it is that! Although IF they gave me the hours I would probably do it 4 to 5 days a week just so that I can be earning some money and get a motorcycle. They won't give me the hours though.

Gargamel said:

Plenty of time to find a meaningful job, Think of the Italians, very few of them actually start working until 26 or even later, for graduates anyway.


I wonder about a few things

Any tattoos, unusual piercings, unconventional haircut or something that might give the "wrong" first impression.

Obviously from your post you are applying for anything, but. I wonder what you really want to do?

I really don't like the culture of waiting until you are in the second half of your 20s before you start taking life seriously. Since I was in my late teens I have tried to avoid that, hell I even tried Kleeneze in an act of utter desperation when I was 19.

As for your queries, no, I don't have any anything, in a way I feel like I am almost too normal, maybe if I was a few inches shorter that would be the case actually but lucky being 6ft and not a lanky bean pole anymore people seem to take notice of me, especially since growing my beard. My hair cut for instance is a no nonsense grade 2 all over so quite smart, I am pretty much as conventional as you can get. The only thing might be that my personality doesn't match with my appearance. It might be said that I look like I should be more confident than I am. I am not a massively shrinking violet anymore (I was before 21 though), but I don't have much life experience compared to some people my age which makes me less confident.

As for what I really want to do, car journalist? Motocross racer? Rally driver? Yeah, those are my dream job options, but I would settle for BT engineer (very hard to get into) or a mechanic in the short term, but you can't do anything these days without certificates coming out of your ear holes even if you have the skills. Something like building computers as well would be quite appealing, again, all about having the contacts with that one though.

davepoth said:

From your post your written English looks good, which is a start.

[/ph response]

Getting the interview mindset is tricky, especially if you are a little introverted. It can be difficult to really sell yourself.

As a recent graduate you're stuck between two stools - employers for menial jobs will be worried that you will ditch them the second something better comes along (justified, probably), and employers for better jobs will be looking for evidence that you can operate in a business environment (again, probably justified).

If I were in your position I would do one of a couple of things, depending on how tight the money situation is. If you can afford to be in your current financial situation, I would contact some local charities and ask to volunteer in their offices for a few days a week. That will get you the experience you need, and crucially a reference.

If money is a concern, sign on at a lot of employment agencies and tell them you want to do outbound sales. That means you'll be sat in a call centre trying to sell tat to people who don't really want it. They'll usually employ anyone who won't be smearing faeces around their cubicle, so the bar it pretty low. You may even find one that you can work from home with, using an internet connection. Utterly soul destroying but again it gets you experience and a reference.

Meanwhile, you need to be a bit ruthless with "networking". It's a horrid concept to my mind but it's worth a go. I assume they've been doing it already, but ask your parents if they could remind all of their friends that you're struggling with the job market, and if they know of any openings, please let them know. Do the same with friends, and anyone you talk to from university too.

I really think I am quite strong in interviews actually, I find getting to the interview stage hard. I did not have the opportunity to do GCSEs so that is already a big gap from my CV and no matter which way you spin it when there are gaps you can't redesign the CV around them, I have been to the job centre CV experts and they basically redesigned my CV to the opposite of what I was told at uni. Everyone tells you something different.

I have tried the charity route, I got an interview in the local library for voluntary work and then it didn't progress any further, I think there was some trouble obtaining references maybe? Yeah, it might have been that actually, the boss from my cleaning job was utterly useless and basically disappeared after the company lost the contract, so I only had one educational reference from uni and no work reference which screwed it up massively.

Sales and networking, sounds like my worst nightmare! I only have one friend and he is not in a position to help me at all (he went to the same school as I), my mother doesn't work since she had us (I have two brothers) and my old man has recently left the army and now works as a delivery driver for Tesco and at the tunnel so he is probably the most well connected and he always looks out for stuff for me as well as still searching for his own jobs.

Wow, this post has become massive, I hope I haven't come across too negative, I think the theme that you will notice is circumstances are leaving me fairly high and dry, I am not looking for anyone to post the "answer" or anything. Also another thing to mention is qualifications and experience are a major problem in this day and age. If you have one without the other it is normally no good, although I think employers look slightly more favourably up on experience than they do on qualifications because experience proves you can actually do something rather than just having learned about it.

So thanks guys, don't feel like you have to reply with any solutions or anything, I think I might have gone too deep into my personal circumstances in this post but it has taken me the best part of an hour so I might as well post it. Also it is hard to explain my situation without going into my circumstances but the replies I have got have been massively encouraging, I expected a more frosty response and accusations of laziness