Unemployment is the worst job you'll ever have, and searching for a job is the hardest job you'll ever have.
After spending endless hours searching for jobs online, you find a few who are looking for a recent grad (or more likely, have vague enough requirements that you think they may accept you). Then you must customize a cover letter for each position, and some say customize even your resume, and perhaps do other specific tasks for that one job application. After doing this for months, you are told that there's only a 30% chance that an actual person viewed your application! And then you're given a lecture about networking. Whatever happened to a meritocracy? Besides, networking is hard enough if you're looking for entry level positions in an industry that you have little to no experience in, but it's nearly impossible when you're applying for a new location in an industry that your parents and their friends are not involved in.
Then you're lectured to just enjoy your time of unemployment. Living with my dad, I've been touring the east coast on the weekeneds, but during the week there isn't much to see. Besides, what makes going out or vacations fun is that you're taking a break from work, but when you're unemployed these breaks aren't nearly as enjoyable and are accompanied by a certain degree of guilt.
In the news I saw grads from mediocre colleges with mediocre grades not getting jobs, or not getting jobs they want. The real story is that even if you have top grades from a top college, a liberal arts degree is not marketable right now.
So it may be time to shape up and ship out of the U.S. of A and move to Europe: Au Pair jobs offering a free room (or even free individual apartment) plus hundreds of euros in cash for a 40-hour a week job with the opportunity to learn a foreign language (and live in frigging Europe) are looking mighty good right about now.
