What It’s Actually Like To Apply For Jobs

By Victoria Robertson on November 17, 2015

Applying for a job is a mess. By the time you’re done with it, you’re sick of your resume, you’re exhausted and you’re still pretty sure that you’re unemployed.

Filling out extensive application materials, interviewing multiple times for the same position, spending all of your time preparing for a job at a company that’s going to turn you down in the last hurdle of the application process: who has time for it anymore?

If you haven’t had to apply for post-graduation jobs yet, consider yourself lucky. Don’t believe me? Here’s what it’s actually like to apply for jobs.

1. You’re motivated.

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You’ve been working your entire college career to get to this point and you’re finally going to start working for your dream company doing your dream job at your dream location.

2. Reality sinks in.

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You don’t have a place to live, you don’t have money to buy a place (or pay your student loans, for that matter), so you’re stuck wherever your parents live. At least you get to see your pets though, right?

3. You’re not qualified.

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You send out job applications by the dozen, each time finding the company doesn’t believe you’re qualified enough for the position that you’re applying for. I’m sorry, I was apparently supposed to start my internships when I was in pre-school? My 4-year-old self is going to be very upset.

4. You shrink your expectations.

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You start to lower your expected salary as well as the starting position you were hoping to get at that dream company. At this point, I’ll just take whatever entry-level position in that field that I’m qualified for.

5. You shrink them even more. 

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You then realize you can’t even apply to entry-level jobs because you aren’t qualified, you don’t have enough experience and you’ve basically wasted the last four years of your life because it did nothing for you.

6. Frustration takes over.

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What does “experience” even mean?! You were pretty sure you had it until now. I wasn’t aware you had to successfully run a company while in college to apply for a secretary position. Learn something new everyday.

7. You contemplate working at McDonald’s.

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I hear they’re going to be making $15 an hour now anyway, college was obviously a waste of time.

8. You learn you aren’t qualified.

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Seriously?! What was the point of going to college then? If someone could explain this, that’d be great.

9. You sit in depression for two weeks.

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What is happening? Did I really just waste the last four years of my life?

10. You enter the stage of acceptance.

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Fine, I’m going to apply for a job that doesn’t even remotely have to do with my major, but it happens to be the only job I’m even partially qualified for.

11. You send in too many apps to count.

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I honestly couldn’t even tell you what companies I did or didn’t apply to.

12. You start getting responses.

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Yes! Someone finally realizes that I’m an educated human being that is just looking for an entry-level job anywhere that’ll take me. I really don’t ask for much!

13. You take the first job you can.

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Hey, it’s slim pickings out there. I’ll take whatever I can get, even if it is answering phones for 10 hours a day. $20,000 a year? Great!

14. You immediately regret that decision.

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I don’t really want to work at a Wal-Mart as a sales associate …

15. You begin the process again.

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Well, back to square one I guess. Or maybe I’ll just go back to college and rack on the debt until I die. I don’t really care which at this point.

16. You scrap all efforts and live in your parent’s basement.

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Who needs a job anyway? They’ll feed you, do your laundry and make your doctor’s appointments for you. And hey, they said you can always come home, am I right?

Like I said, applying for jobs is stressful, hard work that makes you feel so small, especially when you start with the feeling that you can take on the world.

The truth is, the real world sucks. My advice: stay in school for as long as possible. Super seniors know what they’re doing – and hey, maybe by the end of their six year run, they’ll have enough experience to work a minimum wage job at the local Dairy Queen!

That’s saying more than you can right now, am I right?

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