The Endless Search

[Legion]

Hi Everyone!

I have been out of work since December 23, 2010. I was laid off from a local school photography company in New York where I worked in the office editing and retouching photos. Since then I have been on unemployment, worked for a printing company in NYC for about a month near the end of 2011 and endlessly searching for a job.

I have a bachelors degree in Graphic Design which I obtained in 2005 and I am yet to work one professional job utilizing my skills. It is a tough field to get into but living in this mecca of NYC I thought I wouldn't have problems but I do. I think I am partially to blame for my lack of finding a job. After college I decided I wanted to move south, so I did. It didn't work out, so I ended up moving to another state for a little while and ultimately decided to come back to NY after that. I had a great job working for a software company but after about 11 months a family member convinced me to move out west, which I did. I had a steady job, but at the same time I was involved with a woman who now is my wife and it just wasn't working for her out there so we decided to move back to NY. So since 2005 I haven't held a job for longer than 12 months...and in between jobs it would take forever to find a new one. When we came back to NY in 12/08...it took me till October to find the job at the photography studio. Now here I sit a year and a half after that job still searching. I'm almost on the verge of wanting to move again just because of the dead end feeling I have about my job search. I do a lot of freelancing and projects from home but it isn't cutting it. Guess employers are looking at me as a liability and say why I hire this guy who hasn't held a job for over a year, which I can see their reasoning but not entirely true. Through college I worked in a bank, started part time and worked up to a teller line manager which I was there for a good 5 years. With all the moving my credit took a stumble and now banks don't want to hire because of a credit score...amazes me.

Well that is my story...I got married in Oct 2010, lost my job in December...and have been searching since. has been hard on our marriage, no one expects this to happen from the start. Has been very stressing. I am almost contemplating starting my own business if I can't find a job soon.

[CleeIB]

Hi there,

You can approach this situation in terms of options. The most general one would be working a job utilizing your degree vs. a job not utilizing your degree. If you are willing to consider the latter, then that of course opens up your possibilities.

If you only want to work a job utilizing your degree, your options would be "employed by someone else" vs. "self-employed" (or a combination of both). Both options can be had by brute force (presuming, of course, that you have skill and maintain it).

You are right in that NYC should have a lot of employment opportunities. But it also presents a lot of competition, so you need to be out there every day hustling, whether sending resumes, networking, or doing freelance work to build up a portfolio and client base. A killer portfolio speaks for itself, so if your portfolio isn't killer, you have to make it killer in order to compete with all the other killer portfolios. If you are out there every day promoting a killer portfolio, you will get a job.

Don't worry about job gaps. That's spilled milk. Concentrate on putting your best foot forward with an awesome portfolio, and the job(s) will come.

Good luck!

[maSkraP]

CleelB responded very well (above).
To add onto that, why not get an easy job just to help you pay off bills?
If it is taking you longer than 3 months, I would recommend throwing away pride and sucking up to jobs even at McDonalds.
Minimum wage is better than no form of income at all.
Search while you're receiving minimum wage.
It may even give you more motivation.

[peanutbutter]

Hi Legion. Have you posted your resume on the forum for feedback?
You seem to have plenty of qualifications and experience, but they are hard to look at in one big paragraph.
If you've been freelancing, you can add that to your resume too and if you're lucky, perhaps some of your clients are willing to give you a letter of reference or a recommendation either on paper or perhaps on LinkedIn.

I would recommend against moving again. It will give your credit another crush and it won't make the job search any easier.
Stick with NY, the graphic design chances there are multitude. You just need to jump in and look.

maSkraP is right too. Perhaps it's time to take a job to pay the bills, to show your willingness to work even if it's a bad burger flipping thing.