$100K blown on an education with no tools to find a job
Why the Millennial Generation is screwed
Dear Dean Vernon Warner,
I am a recent graduate of your prestigious college. My graduating class wants to thank you for one of the greatest life lessons. I have your college experience to thank for it.
I spent the last 4 years trying to offset future college loans by working 25 hours a week with a minimum-wage job. Despite all those hours I could have spent studying, I am still in debt of $85K. Your school is $25K a year, and after 4 years, I spent $100K on tuition. This doesn’t include the books I purchased for $100.00 and then 3 months later was able to sell back to the school for $15.00. This doesn’t include the lab fees and the room and board, which ran $10K a year while sharing a room with three roommates. I consider myself lucky. I have several friends who could not graduate in 4 years and will spend another year in school to finish. You raised tuition this year and they will pay an additional $27K.
Dropouts are screwed
Other millennial generation friends couldn’t afford to finish and had to quit after 3 years. These folks are in debt for $105K (3 years of tuition at $25K and 3 years of room and board at $10K) and worse off than me. I feel more badly for them. With only 3 years of education, they won’t qualify for jobs requiring a college degree. Like me, this leaves them in debt and unemployed. Unlike me, they are not qualified for jobs requiring a college degree.
Four months ago, with the diploma in hand, my fellow millennial generation graduates and I were ready to take on the world. I was looking forward to the American dream. My peers have finished our educations and hold your signature on my gold leaf embossed diploma to prove it. I even spent $75.00 on a natural wood frame at the university bookstore to frame my newly minted diploma. We were ready to start a new job and climb the career ladder.
Flat-out depressed
I have sent out hundreds of resumes and have had two phone interviews and one in-person interview. After the interviews, I haven’t heard from the hiring companies, and the situation feels hopeless.
Because I have not found a job, I have moved back into my parents’ basement. To make matters worse, they question my work ethic and intelligence. They don’t doubt me; they doubt the entire millennial generation. Intelligence and work ethic?! I just went to four years of school and graduated with honors!
My parents want to kick me out of the house because these last few months have have been DOG months. They may feel like each month is the equivalent of 7 months for them, but each month under their roof is 14 months for me. My father reminds me that the average rent in Seattle is $1,800.00 a month and I should be “chipping in”. He says I will learn more on the street than in college.
A job offer!
I have a friend with a college degree who is a Barista at Starbucks. He says he can get me a job as the guy who writes the customer’s orders on the cups and rings up the customers. But hey! At least I get free coffee weekly and will be eligible for benefits. Hell, they even have a college reimbursement plan. Maybe I will go back to your school and get my MBA!
While attending your prestigious institution, I worked 25 hours a week at a national burger chain. Now, I am “overqualified” for that same job. They don’t want to hire someone with a degree because they fear I will quit when I find my desired job. (don’t list the college degree on the resume; just list the 4 years of hamburger experience)
School prepared me for the rent paying world
Over the past 4 years, within the confines of your prestigious academia, I took English, math, physics, accounting, astronomy classes, and 3 years of Spanish. I took art history, business and computer science, Quantitative reasoning, Cultural Diversity, Critical Thinking, Natural Sciences, and English, to name a few. And this is NOT a liberal arts degree. I feel sorry for the folks that busted their asses for that degree. When did you last see a job description on LinkedIn that was looking for a liberal arts degree? It takes a lot of balls to offer that program. I thought I was a well-rounded individual. I thought I would use this diploma to land a good job and contribute to society.
As of my graduation date, I can:
- Recite the periodic table by heart.
- Name 100 artists and their paintings from the Renaissance and Impressionistic periods.
- Explain the Big Bang theory and identify the Milky Way through a telescope.
BUT I CAN NOT F*&%ING LAND A JOB INTERVIEW!
When I was going to school, I figured anyone charging a kid $100K knew what they were doing. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Now I know what I don’t know.
What I know: I just spent $100K to get a piece of paper I thought would help me land a job.
What I don’t know: I don’t know how to write a resume that will grab a recruiter’s attention enough for a callback. Even if I land an interview, I don’t know how to conduct myself in a job interview.
How do I know I don’t know how to write an effective resume?
If I did know how to write an effective resume, you would think that by sheer odds, one of the hundreds of companies I applied to would have at least sent me a “We received your resume and would like to talk to you about a potential opportunity” email. Crickets bitches. . .crickets.
If I don’t know how to write an effective resume, I sure as hell don’t know how to interview effectively. When I ask my unemployed friends if they took a class on interviewing, they all just shake their heads in silence. Nothing is listed in the curriculum. Who would have thought?
Class on negotiation???
Where was the class on how to write a resume? Where was the class on how to interview in Corporate America? God forbid we have a class on negotiating a raise or a promotion.
I spent 5 hours a week learning the periodic table and 5 hours a week for 3 months learning the paintings of 100 Impressionists. No class on interviewing?
Yes, there was that 1-hour session in the business class where a couple of recruiters came in from Acme Publishing and gave the 300 of us a crash course on how to find a job. The only real practical knowledge we walked away with was:
How we should introduce ourselves at a career fair.
We learned how to shake hands with a recruiter? Yes, we all lined up to practice shaking the recruiter’s hand and introduce ourselves. We were all slightly insulted when we were done and realized the lesson was over. Question for you: If I need coaching on introducing myself, don’t you think I need coaching on the interview?
(HRNasty quit volunteering at these “how to find a job’ sessions at the local college when I was assigned to role-play the career fair introductions with 150 students, which consisted of a single handshaking exercise. This was all we could help folks with within the 60-minute sessions, and no Purell was provided.)
WHAT THE F*&# HAPPENS AFTER THAT?
How do I answer the question: Tell me about yourself
How do I answer the desired salary question? Hell, What is my desired salary? I need to pay off my $100K student loan. The average price of a home in Seattle is $504K and not only requires a 20% deposit, a home requires a J.O.B! The average rent in Seattle is $1,800.00. Where was that discussion? I didn’t get drunk in school, and I attended class. I was a good student. Why can’t I find a job?
The lesson I took away from my 4 years at your institution for the bargain price of $100K?
Buyer beware
For every sucker out there, there are 10 to take him for it. And if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Yes, I am the sucker, you took me for the $100K, and will take thousands more following in my footsteps. Why did I think spending $100K on an education would get me somewhere? What I need to know is how to write a resume, how to interview, and how to manage my manager. I wish someone out there could make a difference. I would pay for access to a blog or something I could research for real help.
Thanks for nothing,
The millennial generation, Class of 2021
See you at the after party,
HRNasty
nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.
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