Job Situation=Lose/Lose Situation

After spending seven long and frustrating months looking for work, I decided to take a look at the Gallup website to see what the job situation is like for many other citizens of the United States and it's no secret that employment or lack thereof is a problem. Between the U.S. car companies laying off thousands of employees at a time, companies downsizing just to keep from going under, and companies that don't want to hire qualified people because they have to pay more, it seems as though we are in a lose/lose situation. Just see for yourself...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110134/Gallup-Daily-US-Job-Market.aspx

It's discouraging to watch people who worked so hard to earn their degrees spend months looking for work, only to end up settling for jobs that they are over qualified to do just to pay the bills. Truthfully, it sometimes angers me when I read about all these people getting laid off after they have invested blood, sweat, and tears into their job but end up being forced to walk away with nothing. All take and no give; is this what the economy has become?

Honestly, when it came time for me to graduate from college I was so confident that it wouldn't take long for me to find a job. Despite everyone around me saying "you're graduating at a bad time kiddo. The economy is going to swallow you up along with the rest of the people out here looking for work," I just KNEW that graduating with TWO degrees and plenty of working experience, someone would give me job in a matter of time and I would prove them wrong. Needless to say, in seven months, I've been on a total of five interviews, two of which were with temp agencies, and I am still unemployed and broke. I am a member of every job website there is on the World Wide Web as well as a faithful job seeker on craigslist. Not to mention I get the Washington Post Monday through Friday and on a daily basis I will apply to anywhere from 10 to 15 jobs. It gets to a point where I begin to question myself. Did I get a degree in the wrong thing? Did I graduate from the wrong school? Is there something I'm not saying in my cover letter? At the end of the day you get tired of asking the same questions but you have no choice but to wake up the next day and go through the same routine all over again.

A lot of people told me that going through a temp agency is the best way to go in times like these because they always have something for you to do. Well, I've been through two temp agencies and neither of them managed to get me an assignment. After applying to a third temp agency, here is the response that I got:

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in CityStaff. We have reviewed your qualifications and are writing to inform you that unfortunately we do not have any suitable job matches at this time.

Thank you for your time and interest in CityStaff. We wish you all the best in your job search.

Best regards,

Ryan Marks
Recruiter

Phone 202.861.4200

Fax 202.861.4209
www.citystaffdc.com

I've come to the conclusion that if a temp agency doesn't have any job matches for you then that company is either really bad at what they do or the job situation is a lot worse than it seems.

Whatever it is, the fact still remains that the hunt for employment will continue as will the disappointment and frustration of so many people. So I have one question; who can you really blame when people resort to illegal messures to make money? After all, as the saying goes, "desperate times call for desperate measures." Right?