Okay, sure, they brought in some past-students who had either branched out or stayed in Portsmouth, but hardly anyone is really going to reveal the secrets of their success, we're the new blood, and we're competition. Perhaps that is a cynical way to look at things, but that seems to be the vibe that I have received from most professional photographers that I have encountered recently, but maybe I've just been unlucky.
The point is, I have maybe been applying for jobs seriously for around a month now with almost no success. More to the point is that I have been searching casually since the beginning of my final year, last September. I suppose in one way I have been lucky, I have covered one event through freelancing, and worked with the NUJ (which was great and so much fun) and I was asked to return to the Village Voice. In terms of experience I may not be top of the ladder, but I've had some. So why won't anybody recognise how nice or how professional I am?
I'm blaming the Digital Age. Every job that I have applied for that has been within my degree's discipline has been applied for online, via e-mail. No one ever really realises how impersonal e-mails are until their thrown into the job market post-degree. It must be all about luck, these companies must pick names out of a hat and decide who's e-mail to read that month. But then maybe I'm not as good or as qualified as I think I am, or the competition of Arts graduates seriously is as fierce as it's made out to be.
The worst thing about this entire process so far is the lack of response, the blatant rudeness of simply not bothering to correspond. I recognise that there may be some companies that I have submitted an application to that get hundreds, maybe thousands of e-mails a day, but even an automated e-mail would be nice. I have only encountered one company that promised to get back to me whether I was successful or unsuccessful, and hats off to you, ASOS.
It's the rudeness that gets me, if someone was trying to talk to you in real life, standing right by your face, you wouldn't just ignore them or walk away, that would be rude, but online, it's perfectly acceptable behaviour, apparently.
Then there's the nearly-jobs. Perhaps they're worse, you get a response, finally and it's great, but then you must some how mess it up, because they'll never get back to you after that. What did I do to make you suddenly become so uninterested when you were clearly interested before? I've actually become excited over these e-mails, thinking they were the ticket, then days pass by and you realise that you've messed up again. I feel like ending every application letter with, 'No? Okay'. Follow-up emails are also a waste of time, particularly to whatever e-mail addresses they provide you with at Reed. I've got a whole load of pent-up resentment for Reed.
Maybe I need to just get out into the real world, maybe I'm just feeling hella bitter today because I'll have officially graduated by the end of Friday and I will be no better off.
To be honest, I'm probably angry and frustrated on a personal level really, I've found out Moon is sick and like I said Graduation is close so I'm feeling pretty bad for how selfish I'm feeling. I think I'm just having a bitter day, but that's why blogs are good, because otherwise I'd be screaming at someone, just another example of how impersonal the Internet is, with creeps you don't even know reading about your life and stress. I hope some other sad, Arts graduate reads this and agrees at least, job hunting sucks.
TL;DR: I'm mad over my current job hunt, ok?
On a lighter note, if there really are some proper creeps out there, although I know that really it's mainly people I know that read this. I graduate at 2:30pm on Friday 15th July and because the University of Portsmouth is so technologically hip, you can stream it from here, so you can watch me fall flat on my face from the nerves I'm battling with over wearing heals in front of so many people..
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