How did you get there?

Nix said:
The thing is, silly little things are really, really getting to me at the moment. I've moved back home (something I don't like to begin with) and I'm stuck in a small room which can be best described as a cupboard in a town I absolutely loathe - it's incredibly depressing. Couple that with the fact my social life has taken a complete nose-dive, I have practically zero disposible income and absolutely no sense of control: I hate everything about where I am at the moment. There's this absolute unbearable desire for change which I'm having to ignore and push to the back of my mind and it's horrible. My daily life has become the most mundane of battles from which there's no respite. I try and look for work now, and it mentally exhausts me as if I'm on some sick game-show where the things I didn't win are paraded out in front of me. :(
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No offence mate but perhaps you should consider speaking to someone, a therapist maybe mate, I feel where your coming from I really do, I've been in the same situation for ten years now and I'd hate for you to end up in the same situation, your at an age where you can really shape your future in a positive manner, don't waste it, get out there, take chances, you've got nothing to lose, you'll be fine mate your an intelligent lad.
 
Nix,

Have you tried your local council?

I graduated last year with a 2:2 in business and marketing, had a few temp jobs and after 4 months got a job at the council.

£20k a year, 37 hours a week and it give me a bit of experience while i figure out what i want to do.

Get anything you can and apply as it's easier to find work when your employed, even if it is £5.75 p/h.
 
For myself now: I'm an accountancy trainee but my degree was in law and the previous degree I started was in computer games technology. I've temped or worked in a variety of jobs prior to getting this one so you could say hasn't been the most straightforward of paths to here. What I did learn along the way is several jobs I didn't want to do and a certain amount of knowledge about my skills.

Nix: Your degree isn't necessarily the handicap it appears in relation to jobs with more practical applications - another of the trainees for accountancy did geography also. I'm not suggesting it is a career you'd want to consider but I'm merely highlighting that a degree doesn't automatically always direct you down a particular path. Any degree proves to an employer that you can learn which is what a great many are looking for rather than any specific skill - it also means that you may not have the preconceptions on what is or is not workable that someone who has studied an area at university may have so there is a certain amount of latitude and flexibility that the business gains. The issue is in how you sell this to the employer but provided you make a decent argument about it then it becomes less of a problem.
 
Clear your debts, pack your bags and move.

My family did this and it was the best thing ever. We left so much baggage behind and actually refreshed our life.

Its tough at first, but if you feel you have it within you...
 
Stuck my cv on the job sites, and then one afternoon flying back from a customer visit in Italy, I got a call to ask if wanted to go work in the telco industry. I couldnt say no.
 
Costs Draftsman working in the City, advising law firms etc.

Graduated, went back home (Cornwall) - spent 2 months working and applying for jobs here and there, before getting bored and so landed a 2-week contract moving boxes for a law firm - moved up to London on the back of that and haven't looked back.

I'd just move up to London tbh, what are the cons? If you've got no money, get a credit card and shove your first months rent and deposit on that, gamble a little, what's the worse that can happen, you end up back where you started?
 
I was stuck in this situation all last year, if i wasn't being screwed by someone I was missing out purely on bad luck. Ended up finding a new job beginning of the year that I'm really enjoying, even though it's paying £10-15k less. At times you feel like giving up but it won't solve anything. Keep struggling on mate you'll eventually find what you're looking for.

MW
 
My career in it's few years has been quite wierd.

As I was going through school, I wanted initially to join the police as a PC, but after health/weight problems that became an impossability..then roll on Year 10 work experience..

I did 2 weeks in a Primary schoool and I absolutley loved it, supporting older children in the classroom, I did 1 day a week at a Primary school (Plus some extra time on my college day off, this all during my NVQ 2 in Childcare) I then managed to secure a job as a Nursery nurse and get settled there but unfortunatley the wages in that line of work were just not enough for me.

Roll on GRG/RMSL, doing vehicle recovery for the Police, as some people used to notice I was on here a hell of a lot (Whilst at work on nights and days we were allowed to surf the internet between calls, and on nights we were even allowed to bring Laptops etc in to sit and play games) I did that for around 18 months, I applied for a Supervisors position and got shot down.. this was the make or break for me staying there as at that time I was applying for the Ambulance Service.

And now i'm a year and a bit into working with the service, initially starting as a 999 call taker, after 6 months (And 2 pain staking interviews) I moved onto the actual Dispatch side of things and i've been doing that ever since,this involved operating the Radio position and working on deploying Ambulance on 999 calls. Whilst working in dispatch i've had a variety of opportunity to do a lot more, first starting my development on what was once our 'Responder' desk, 3 positions in the control room which would manage all of our car resources.

Now a few months later and having a secondment already to the position I am being interviewed for a substantive position on Wednesday for 999 call taking Supervisor. This would mean managing a team of of around 20 call takers for a 12 hour shift and managing breaks etc.

A little bit of a wierd path but my job as it is and the shift pattern, I can't complain for 19k a year (Along with as much overtime as I can want, and if I get the position Wednesday a massive increase to 26k a year, and at 21 I don't think that's half bad)

*Continues to enjoy his week off* :D

That said though, it was difficult, I applied for countless times for a control job within the Police but was never successfull, as well as being shot down for the Supervisory position. Just keep trying, you'll get there :D
 
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i was a bit like you - graduated last year, took a while to find a job - got very lucky finding one on gumtree.

They had 300 cvs sent in, and they seemed to like mine, had interview, and so did about 10-15 other people I think.

They just loved my personality :p said I would fit in perfectly, and got my 1st ever full time job, as a helpdesk assistant, only £17.5k and can be pretty boring sometimes, but its only about 30 mins travel away, and im just working to try save up some cash to buy a 1 way ticket to South America to live with my girlfriend :cool: Better then staying in this country!
 
graduated from uni last year, ended up getting the most basic entry level job I could find, but with massive potential to develop from there, job never started, back to square one, working part time in terribly soul destroying electronics retail chain :/ woooo...
 
What made you choose Geography out of interest?

I can sympathise with your situation, Nix, but hey it could be worse...got a roof over your head that isn't going to swept from you due to money, right?
 
I'm a psychologist. Got there through the usual route (uni etc) and landed a good position after Uni. While I agree that the going is tough in some sectors, there are a number which haven't been hit too hard at all; thus, I think that there is probably more you could be doing. Where do you live, Nix?
 
Im a gemologist, work for myself/own business. Eventually ended up branching out into this from a small shop buying scrap gold. Thats what i did after uni before going fully into diamonds.

I have only skimmed through this thread so sorry if its already been suggested, but go and get qualified for what you want to do, and in the mean time, take anything to get you through. I worked on night club doors to pay for uni 20 years ago, its was murder.

Anyway keep your chin up my man.
 
I graduated about 2 months ago, 2.2 Beng computing, Imperial plus 3 a's at A-Level.

Jobs weren't looking great considering the area I was looking in, Brighton/Hove. Eventually found practically a perfect position (c# grad/jnr dev) in an ideal company (small and rapidly expanding).Phone interview went great, proper interview went great. Didn't get the job due to no commercial experience. Was a bit miffed as I really liked the company/people so emailed back saying I would be willing to work for free for 3-6 months to get some experience. Got a call a couple of days later from my interviewer offering me the position I originally applied for with a 25% pay cut but with a pay review every 3 months for the first year to gradually put me upto full salary.I start tomorrow and I'm over the moon :)

To try and get yourself out of a rut maybe try and do some volunteer work or offer to work for travel expenses in normal companies. It's better then sitting at home all day and in most cases you can stay on the dole if you are working for free.
 
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There are a lot of people with mixed-degrees - leaving university without a specific marketable skill. If you study a mixed degree, anyone who focused on either subject will be better at it than you.

Then there are subjects like history, sport, etc - which don't lead to a profession either. People are taking courses because they are interested in the subject - rather than viewing a degree as a very expensive investment in one's own employability.

In my opinion this is mis-information from the school, college, university, or whoever. A degree is expensive, if a person can't justify the investment then they would be better off learning a skill, or working their way up the corporate ladder. There's no reason why anyone -should- go to university, and I was always told I had no choice.

Students are graduating with debt, and an ego which prevents them from working at Tesco. If they had started working at Tesco at 18, and taken the offered training, they could be middle-management by the time they're 22.

@Nix, list all your skills, then aside each one - write how you can use that to make money. If you are stuck, start listing ways to make money without any skills, and start there. Offer window cleaning, cut your gran's grass, sell your car, walk a dog, wash cars, there are lots of ways to make money - they just require the swallowing of pride, and some elbow grease.
 
I've always been intrigued in how things worked, so as soon as I could hold spanners I was taking stuff apart.
Took a college course in engineering welding after school (I didn't have much of an education) and carried on with my hobby of tinkering with cars, ended up repairing mates motors once they learnt to drive and wanted a hand, then onto their families cars and then their friends cars (quality and customer service :D)..
That then became full time, I was lucky I had space to do all this at home as I live on a farm. I also helped out another business who rented one of our farm buidlings that did structural steelwork in times I had no work on.
That was easy money and became much more regular until I pretty much didn't have time to do any car work of my own. 8 years later and I'm thinking "hang about, where did my little car business go, I enjoyed fiddling with nuts and bolts much more than welding chunks of metal together and then get cold and wet putting them up.
Of course I still had "fast cars" in the blood and had built up a pretty modified car over the years, all work I'd done myself, learning as I went.
Next thing I know I find out a local tuning shop had moved premises and I said I'd go take a look, WOW, their new place was somewhere I wanted to be.
"don't suppose you are looking for anyone to join you are you" I said half jokingly.
Well actually they were, they knew I was half handy so offered me a place there and then on the doorstep.
Been there since 2005 :D
 
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Nix.. Start with the basics..
what are you good at?
Have you got the gift of the gab - could you sell ice to Eskimos
Have you got a good eye for detail
Have you got good literary skills
Are you good at working things out mathematically
or are you more hands on.. this may help you and us try and decide where you should be heading

I couldn't even get in to sixth form with my GCSE grades... You just have to follow what you are good at!

A prime example is a kid we had / have as work experience. He knows al about which model of car is which and could tell you at 20 paces what it is from it's silhouette, he knows all the F1 grid positions, follows the GP, Top gear and is TOTALLY into cars.
HOWEVER, he is totally ****ing useless with a set of spanners and will never make a good technician because although his heart is in the right place he's not following what he's actually GOOD at.
 
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Nix said:
The thing is, silly little things are really, really getting to me at the moment. I've moved back home (something I don't like to begin with) and I'm stuck in a small room which can be best described as a cupboard in a town I absolutely loathe - it's incredibly depressing. Couple that with the fact my social life has taken a complete nose-dive, I have practically zero disposible income and absolutely no sense of control: I hate everything about where I am at the moment. There's this absolute unbearable desire for change which I'm having to ignore and push to the back of my mind and it's horrible. My daily life has become the most mundane of battles from which there's no respite. I try and look for work now, and it mentally exhausts me as if I'm on some sick game-show where the things I didn't win are paraded out in front of me. :(
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You've made the first step by talking on here, which is a good thing.

How do you get on with you're family, hopefully well as you need a little support at this time and I mean the emotional sort as well.

Focus on the positives, there are always more than you think, try not to focus on the things you don't have in a destructive longing way but picture how you will work towards your goals.

You need to undertsand yourself and what you want from life, big ask at 23 I know.

You are clearly a bright educated person with a lot to offer, remember this is a transitional period in your life and no where near the end of the journey.

I know this is all easy for someone else to say but we often don't see it ourselves. I have no doubt you will get there, it's just not easy to see where there is at your young age.
 
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