Success Is Worth The Wait

It was bound to happen.

Wednesday, perhaps the darkest of all my job-hunting days, stretched out longer than most. It was a bad day, illustrated by my need to create a mockup of myself as Jennifer Lawrence, posing with bow in hand and with flames behind me. My girlfriend wasn’t impressed with that and I wasn’t impressed with myself. Negative, fed up and in the largest rut this side of the Grand Canyon, it was all going so wrong. There are only so many enquiries a man can send, there are only so many interviews he can attend before his confidence takes a hit and he camps his deck chair outside Hotel Rock Bottom. Was there ever to be a job on the horizon? Was there ever to be a job at all? Categorically, it seemed there wasn’t. I was Titanic, slowly sinking into the freezing cold waters of my irreparable and inevitable demise…

And then, out of nowhere, a door appeared with more than enough room for Kate Winslet and I to snuggly float out of those dark depths together on. The job hunt was not done with me yet and, as the gloomy cloud above began to shine brightly around the edges, new light flooded into my life. The momentum and drive that had been persuading me not to give up, not to give in and, under no circumstances, not to go back to McDonalds gallantly returned just as I thought it was lost. You see, the clichés are right. The darkest hour is just before the dawn, the grass is greener on the other side and you can make the sweetest lemonade out of even the bitterest of lemons. This was the day that those old chestnuts were to have their moment. All it took was one simple email, and my darkness lit up, my rut flooded and my happiness unavoidably soared to new heights. A job offer has been found.

The Clearing has come through for me. The perfect position, for the perfect company, in the perfect city. Will Nicklin, Junior Writer. A name fit for a king (of writing), all the long winding roads have led here. A month ago I entered the hallowed halls of the contemporary branding consultancy agency under no illusion that I was probably under qualified, out of my depth and about to be bamboozled by a hundred other graduates with more potential than a young Raheem Sterling. However, I have astonishingly prevailed. I have embraced my inner-Katniss and I have sprinted to the finish line, arms overhead and eyes popping out just like the great Mo Farah himself. 2 interviews, 1 copy test and 96 of the most painstakingly long hours waiting have proved critical. I am employed, I am a man, and, my god, I am relieved.

5 months, 150 applications, 16 interviews, 2 Assessment Centers and around 4 days spent on the train have resulted in this. While my journey would make one beautiful, statistically deep infographic it will also remind me the torment that it took to get a job. A job I will so profoundly cherish, that will take me to places I want to go, teach me new skills and help me meet a ridiculous amount of likeminded creative people. Rejection, despair and disbelief will soon be replaced with a new experience. A pay packet will find it’s way into my bank every month and I will finally be able to start living a life outside grungy t-shirts and sports shorts. With a view of the Shard on the way to work every morning I will be moving into the big city, and the journey to save up for my beach house retirement home will irreversibly begin.

This is my very own Oscar speech for my cherished blog. My last words in a journey that I have held dear and, hopefully, the final musings you will ever hear me spout about being unemployed.  This diary, so correctly titled ‘To Find a Job or To Lose One’s Mind’ has not only proved my desire to become a writer but let me entertain, piss off and inform anyone and everyone of each one of my baby steps to employment. I have found a job, and in doing so I have well and truly lost my mind. There is no ‘or’ in this equation, just a big fat ‘and’ that defines just how meticulously mind-bending the job seeking quest can be. I have a new task now, to reclaim my mind and start a career.

I guess that’s it. Goal achieved. Target hit. Everest scaled. Time to pick up a new pen and get writing. Hopefully my blog will live on, like a Doctor Who regeneration, under a new guise and heading. That’s if I can think up a new title. It’s been a long journey but one that I think is necessary. I’m glad I’ve found a job I really love and, even if it meant being unemployed for 5 months, I’m happy my nerves didn’t get the better and see me just chase any old paycheck. Unemployment really isn’t the worst thing in the world. All I can do is leave you with my favourite clichéd phrase of this experience, the words that spurred me on to my final resting place.

Onwards and Upwards, everyone. Onwards and Upwards.

The Employment Games

This morning I woke to a message. The message wasn’t a prospective employer offering me a job, it wasn’t a Creative Director wanting to get to know more about me, it wasn’t even LinkedIn advertising yet more roles I have no interest in. This message came through Facebook from a dear friend and a fellow job seeker. For months we have enjoyed discussing the lack of graduate opportunities this fickle world offers and today a thought suddenly struck my friend right in middle of her noggin.

Likening herself to Jennifer Lawrence, albeit without the looks or the humour, she wisely compared the graduate market to the scenario that faces dear Katniss in the Hunger Games. A frenzied bloodbath where only one shall proceed, I think her analogy is quite fitting for today’s post university job hunt. Gone is the friendly and relaxed career search.  In it’s place is a free for all, last man standing death match where only one can prevail and the rest shall pitifully fall away. Even second place now means nothing. There’s no silver medal in job hunting.

Realistically, maybe I’m overegging the pudding a little, but genuinely is there a graduate out there that wouldn’t sink to the lowest levels to come out on top of their rivals and enjoy the endless perks of real life. Assessment centers are filled with anxious stares and sizing up of competitors and interviews are vital to asserting yourself as the top dog. Challenge after challenge befits each suitor who wishes to lay claim to the job throne and yet, ultimately, there can only be one victor. The odds, from the off, are quite heavily stacked against you. While The Hunger Games might only have 24 on edge competitors, each job I’ve seen myself apply for consistently has way over 100. Even with the eye of a hawk and the bow and arrow skills of Robin Hood it’s a ruddy big ask for me to eliminate the other 99 stage by stage, and one by one.

This similarities are obviously stacking up, but I think the main reason I enjoyed the parallel between The Hunger Games and my job hunt, was due to my increasing dislike for both. After struggling through 2 and a half hours of the energetic and erratic Catching Fire in early December, I found my desire to avoid the third chapter surge rapidly. Unfortunately, after 2 and a half months trying to find a job, I feel my enthusiasm for scouring LinkedIn and company websites is also beginning to waver. This week’s task is therefore to break this cycle and look positively upon my job hunt once more. Lulls are no doubt part and parcel of this rigourous process but with 3 interviews in the next 2 days hopefully once more I can enjoy the sensation of trying to beat multiple people to the end of our death match.

People constantly remind me that ‘I’ll get there in the end,’ that the job for me is just around the corner. Unfortunately, at times, it seems that there’s a rather long queue to get around that corner and I’ve been perched in it for longer than the average Alton Towers attendee waits for Oblivion. The hunt for employment is truly one of life’s unique waiting games, and one that I am now ready to escape from. I know deep down that my inner Katniss is ready to leap out and sit a top of a pile, but in all seriousness I’d be just as happy playing the part of the hopeless swine of a companion she so defiantly drags through with her. Anything to skip a queue.