A few weeks ago I went to the career fair and left with a bag full of trinkets, a free shirt from a company that told me they didn’t have any jobs for me, and whole lot of questions. Needless to say, it wasn’t particularly fruitful. I would even go so far as to say it was a waste of my time (though I do really like that shirt).
The problem with the career fair is that I did my research, and I knew that there would be very few companies attending that I would ever want to work for. There were plenty with jobs I could have done – corporate and internal communications and marketing, for example. But I talked to them, and I realized that not only did I not want to do those things, I didn’t want to work for their companies.
I only went because everyone told me to.
And I think part of being a writer who is looking for a career is to look for things that you want to do. Don’t listen to everyone else for once. Yes, people settle for jobs all the time, but settle for something you won’t hate doing after three days. Settle for a job that has enough work/life balance for you to write on the side. Settle for a job you won’t feel like you’ve settled for.
As I draw closer to my December graduation date (74 days), I’ve been faced more and more with what I’m going to do with my life. It’s hard not to just apply for every job and hope I get one. But I’ve told myself before that I’m applying for jobs that sound like something I wouldn’t mind spending my life doing, and that’s what I’m going to do.
(Sidenote: It’s not easy to look so far into the future when senioritis has kicked in and I just want to skip class, go get some coffee, and write all day long.)
YES! I can’t agree more. This is exactly what we were talking about yesterday… Don’t settle!