Argh blargh economy

August 16, 2010 8:58 AM

Soon-to-be college graduate strategy: move and then look for jobs, or look for jobs and then move?

I will be graduating in December with a degree in advertising/journalism and anthropology from UNC. Next semester- the semester before I graduate- will be spent in China. Fun! Unfortunately that means I'll be returning to the States with no school to go to, no job, no car, and no apartment. I'll have about $1000 to my name, and around $30,000 in student loan debt, no other debt.

I am welcome to stay with my (current) roommates when I get back, but I'd be paying rent to sleep on the couch and I doubt they'd put up with it longer than a month or so. I can also move in with my parents, an hour away from my college town.

Currently, I work for Caribou Coffee, a pretty extensive chain. My old boss would rehire me, and I would likely be able to get another job at any other branch. It pays just over minimum wage, though, and there's no way I'd get 40 hours a week.

My short-term goals are basically just to get any decent job, probably in advertising or marketing because that's where my experience is. Ultimately, though, I want to get a degree in urban planning and make that my career. (This can't happen for a while since I need to take the GRE first... also, if at all possible I want to get experience in the field first, to see if it's really for me.) It would be nice to work towards this goal by working in communications for a business involved in planning issues. I'll also apply for actual planning jobs, but with no experience it's a long shot.

My options, as I see it, are:

-Move in with my parents, work at Caribou or other such job in their town while applying for other, better jobs elsewhere. Free rent, but the town is not a place I want to live and I have no friends there. Every time I'm home for a while I get depressed, frankly.

-Move in with old roommates, take back my old Caribou job, apply for jobs elsewhere but move out and get a 'real' place to live if unsuccessful after a month or so. All my friends are here, but rent is expensive since it's a college town.

-Apply to Caribous in large cities I'd like to move to. This would allow me to apply for jobs in a city I actually live in, which I think would improve my chances. The problem is, I don't know if I can live in a large town on minimum wage, and if I don't find a job, there go my savings.

-Some other thing like Americorps, teaching English in China if I like it there, etc. But I feel like I'm just killing time if I don't try to get some actual work experience now.

Best-case scenario is, I apply for a job from China and get it, and can move wherever as soon as I get back. But what are the odds of that? My GPA is good, I have good experience in marketing (though it's all internships, obviously), but I have no idea if I will be able to find a real job in a timely manner, and I need to know what I'll do if I can't.

posted by showbiz_liz to Work & Money (20 answers total)

How long until you go to China? Start looking for jobs immediately. Set up Skype so you can learn to do videoconference interviews from China. Have your resume polished and ready to go. Plenty of people line up jobs before they even start their senior years of college.

And if that doesn't work -- industry isn't in to the video interview thing, bad economy, blah blah blah -- move in with your parents. Disliking being at home will motivate you to work hard to GTFO.
posted by olinerd at 9:09 AM on August 16, 2010

Response by poster: Plenty of people line up jobs before they even start their senior years of college.

Outside of the business school, I don't know a single person who was able to do this. Most of my friends didn't get jobs for at least several months after graduating, despite their efforts. It's that bad right now.

Also, I figured no one would care to hire me and then wait 5 months for me to start working, when there are tons of people willing to start immediately. My plan was to begin applying a month or so before I returned.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:14 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you can work at Caribou, live at home, and save like crazy, you might have a better chance of moving to a more productive job market. You also might find that after China, your goals have changed, and that your experience there could point you in a different direction.
See if you can sell some freelance pieces about living/working in China (not to any big-time media outlet, but more like your home-town paper.) And blog while you're there.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:22 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

I believe a single person can move anywhere without first lining up a job and survive just fine, if she has suitably high ambition and low expectations. I moved cross-country after graduating to a place where I knew no one and had no work lined up in advance. It took me six months of job hunting, including a brief stint of outside-my-career work (in my case, chauffeuring) before I found a low-paying, entry-level position in my chosen career. I chose to stay optimistic and enjoy the journey. I viewed it as an adventure worth taking.

If you're independent, resilient, and determined... go for it. If you cave under pressure, or expect to launch straight into an awesome and lucrative career right after college, this is not the route for you. It's also made more difficult if you have others financially dependent on you, like a spouse and/or children.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 9:23 AM on August 16, 2010

IMHO, you need to determine what sets you apart from the thousands of other humanities/liberal arts/social sciences grads.

First, your China experience. How's your Chinese language? The better it is, the better for you.

So many companies want Americans that can coordinate with the companies' Chinese business interests.

Your in-country time will help too.

Based on this, I'd set up some monster.com keyword alerts NOW with the words chinese, china, chinese language. As you read the alerts you'll get a sense of what is out there.

Second, you have an 'in' with Carabou. If you set your eyes on a certain organization to work for but they only have unpaid internships, you can probably balance the two jobs.

Third, the loan debt. YES live with your folks if it means paying down the debt. (Go to the Dept of Ed website and figure out how much you'll be paying per month.) That debt is a prison. You're going to need to have a decent income in order to pay it monthly and that precludes you from unpaid internships.

Fourth, don't attempt to be an urban planner before interning with one. What if it sucks?
posted by k8t at 9:27 AM on August 16, 2010

While you're in China, can you submit pieces on urban planning issues to Planetizen, Cyburbia, etc.? Setting aside the money issue for the moment, can you give us a better idea about where you want to live (either a specific place or via character description)? IMHO (IAAUP), planners should experience life in communities in different parts of the country and at different scales; it broadens perspective.

Oh and what aspects of planning do you find most compelling? Did you take planning classes, geography classes or both during college? And when you mention your goal of "working in communications for a business involved in planning issues," what, exactly, do you envision so we can help you brainstorm?

It's a huge field and the money isn't necessarily on the side of planning ideals, especially if you hew towards environmental work; not to be harsh, but would you be comfortable doing, say, PR for BP? The big planning consulting firms have marketing departments, but you're promoting the firm, not the field.

BTW, UNC-Chapel Hill is one of the best urban planning graduate school programs in the country.
posted by carmicha at 9:27 AM on August 16, 2010

I forgot to ask whether you would be interested in working for some of the organizations and think tanks that deal with planning issues (e.g., APA, ULI, LLI, AFT, Brookings, etc.). That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
posted by carmicha at 9:30 AM on August 16, 2010

You might have to take a risk and go with:

Apply to Caribous in large cities I'd like to move to.

I'm not in your field, but speaking from my experience, employers had zero interest in interviewing someone from BFE who was applying for a job in Big City, USA when they already had 100 resumes from people IN Big City, USA. It's not like they were going to fly me in to interview me for an entry level job, and at the time, video conferencing wasn't as much of an option as it is now.

Skype and it's relatives are pretty common now, but I think you'll encounter a lot of skepticism of using it for interviews, especially in larger or more traditional organizations. And if they don't routinely interview through Skype, if there is a suitable pool of local applicants, they probably won't bother to try to get it set up.
posted by jingzuo at 9:32 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

You're so young- move in with Mom and Dad if they're willing and give it a year to find your parachute.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 9:45 AM on August 16, 2010

Your current roommates are going to charge you to crash on the couch when you get back? Wow. That's cold. Are these people your friends, or random strangers you rent a room from?
posted by Sara C. at 9:50 AM on August 16, 2010

Response by poster: Oh and what aspects of planning do you find most compelling? Did you take planning classes, geography classes or both during college? And when you mention your goal of "working in communications for a business involved in planning issues," what, exactly, do you envision so we can help you brainstorm?

I took one class called Solving Urban Problems my senior year. That was through the planning department. I wrote my final paper on urban food system planning, which I'm very interested in, but my understanding is that it's so new that it's difficult to find work in. More generally, I'm interested in preparing communities for rising fuel prices (so, increasing self-sufficiency, walkability, local power generation, etc.)

I also took an envirosci class where we designed and implemented a survey of the local transit system, and an urban anthropology class (which is what got me interested in the first place).

I wish I had found this field earlier, so that I could have done UNC's minor in planning. I do plan to apply here for grad school once the time comes.

Submitting to those sites you mentioned sounds good, but how exactly do you go about doing that?
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:51 AM on August 16, 2010

Response by poster: Your current roommates are going to charge you to crash on the couch when you get back? Wow. That's cold. Are these people your friends, or random strangers you rent a room from?

Ha, no, I offered to pay. These guys have been my friends for like eight years. I'm not going to set up my life in the middle of their tiny living room and then go to work every day without paying them anything at all. It would be far less than I pay now, like $100 as opposed to $500.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:53 AM on August 16, 2010

I believe a single person can move anywhere without first lining up a job and survive just fine, if she has suitably high ambition and low expectations. I moved cross-country after graduating to a place where I knew no one and had no work lined up in advance.

I did the same thing five years ago when the unemployment rate was half what it is now. I think it's pretty dangerous advice in this job market.
posted by enn at 10:12 AM on August 16, 2010

>>no one would care to hire me and then wait 5 months for me to start working

Very true for retail jobs, but you're not talking about trying to line up retail jobs. Plenty of employers take *months* after doing interviews to make a final decision, and a fair number of other employers are willing to wait for the right person, if they've concluded you're worth it.

Don't take yourself out of the game by assuming the timeframe is a non-starter.
posted by Ys at 10:17 AM on August 16, 2010

I think showbiz_liz is correct in assuming that there are very few entry-level liberal arts jobs that are going to be hiring 6 months in advance. Especially if, OP, you're looking in advertising and marketing -- those types of agencies/companies hire as positions open up through turnover. They run on tight margins and almost never have the ability to know, half a year ahead, that they're going to need someone at the junior levels (which I assume you'd be applying for). Additionally, those types of jobs don't need a ton of specialized experience, just verve, smarts, and eagerness, so they tend to be easy to fill pretty quickly. Of course, you should still look for them and apply if you see anything awesome, but I think your basic assumptions are correct.

I also agree with jingzuo about companies not bothering to interview outside of their cities when they already have so many applicants right there.

However, I'm also a BIG fan of "crashing with mom and dad for free for awhile." It is never a bad thing to save up a little bit and get a cash cushion, while searching for a job.

When I was in your situation, I went home to my mother's (in northern VA) and searched for jobs in NY (my industry is centered here). I had a really hard time getting an interview despite my fairly extensive internship experience in the industry; finally, one person I had a phone interview with told me flat-out that she almost always immediately threw out resumes w/o NY addresses, and told me that I should just lie and say I lived in NY.

I did this, borrowing a friend's address (with her permission) for applications. When I got an interview I would hop on a bus from DC and go up to NY, and when I got a job, I was ready to move within a week so that I could start more or less immediately (since I "lived" in NY already). Some people might be grey on the ethics of this, but I was fine with it because all the inconvenience was on me; it didn't negatively affect the company in any way.

Would this be a possibility for you, too? Do your parents live close enough to any of the cities where you would apply that you can work this angle and still save $?
posted by alleycat01 at 10:41 AM on August 16, 2010

Well, you're probably looking at approximately $400/month due on those loans, depending how they're set up, which pretty much screams, "livin' with your folks," especially considering the type of degree you've got and the state of the economy. If you're going to be overseas, enjoy your time there (trying to do the job search/interview process overseas would be a huge pain - something like a 12-hour time difference and all). Do what you can now, before you go, then plan a year or so in your parents' guest room/basement to figure out what's next. Not very glamorous a future, but not too uncommon either these days. Just be glad your parents have the generosity (both of resources and attitude) to take you back in (not all families do).
posted by 5Q7 at 11:32 AM on August 16, 2010

I went straight from college to law school, so I don't really know what the job market looks like for newly-minted college grads (aside from grim).

That being said, I would caution against moving to a new city without a good job in hand. The professional job market is national in scope - it's easy enough to use idealist, monster.com, and so on to find jobs all over the country. Further, consider that moving is *expensive* - renting a truck, paying a deposit (and usually losing part when you move out), etc. You do *not* want to do that more often than necessary.

Find a job, then move to where the job is.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 12:26 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Keep in mind that for federal loans you have a six-month grace period after graduating before you have to start paying. If you have no income, you can also get deferments if necessary, though interest continues to accrue.
If you want to move to another city, your best bet is probably to get rehired at Caribou in your town, work there for a while, apply to jobs in other cities, but if you aren't hired at any of those, ask for a transfer to a store in another city. This should be relatively easy, as pretty much everyone I've known who worked in chain retail or food service has been able to get requested transfers within short periods of time after their request.
posted by elpea at 1:39 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

*note, this grace period/deferment stuff might have changed since I first graduated or might have been specific to my lender at the time (this was well before it got converted to direct loans).
posted by elpea at 1:39 PM on August 16, 2010

If you take time off, take it off to have an experience you grow from and can defend as such. Which experience is more valuable to you: career or life? I'm not saying you can't have both, but one might need to take precedence.

AmeriCorps is one such experience. So is living in China even if you just work at a coffee chain there. Moving to a big city for the experience is a valid option. Interning in the field of your choice could be another one. Hell, opting to live out of your car to see what it's like might be the best thing you ever do.

In my opinion, working at Caribou while living with your parents is not the best choice. It won't help you grow; it won't give you experience you can bring up in an interview.

Finally, I think you could relocate without finding a job first, but why wouldn't you at least schedule a couple interviews with all the resources available online?

Best of luck, and be brave. There are a lot of people who have resigned themselves to a mediocre or simply comfortable life of work-couch-sleep-work. But that is your choice to make.
posted by jander03 at 8:10 PM on August 16, 2010