Unemployed and living in parents' basement, losing hope

I graduated in 08'. Not exactly the best time to get out in the job market. I had issues finding work as well. What I ended up doing was getting in with a Investment Advisory firm and my interview was essentially

"look, I want no part of this career. at all. but I'm desperate. so lets call it what it is. you want to pay me shit and I want your contacts"

So for the next year or so I was paid horseshit but I spent that year talking to all of the advisors in that office and getting to meet business owners, bankers, etc. to get my name out there. It was a terrible damn year but I did what I had to.

Stay hungry man. Usually the biggest breakthroughs happen when you're just about to give up but instead you keep going. If you keep going you will be successful. Did you think this would be easy? Be easier on yourself.

Spend some of the time you're playing games/drinking to instead analyze your interviews. What went well? What didn't? You must stay focused. Watch videos on personal development. Maybe your resume needs a face lift? There is always room for improvement.

If you don't like the results you're getting you need to work more on yourself to be able to add value; also important is the ability to demonstrate your capacity to add value. Are you tailoring your resume for each application? Could you be doing more preparation? Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results. You need to go back into the lab and re-calibrate your approach.

Here's a video to get your mind right:

Go slum it on the couch with a few of your friends in big cities for a few days, and set up info meetings with companies you want to meet with beforehand. "I'm in town the week of the xth, Do you have a few minutes to meet for coffee one morning?" You'll probably have more success with reaching out to alumni / cold info interview requests, and it'll help you get back to reality and keep connected with your friends

might as well post a link to your resume (remove name and enough details to make it anonymous...then share it from your google drive and post the link)

freydo:

Have applied to ~500 jobs, have had 10 phone interviews, 1 in-person interview. Have contacted ~80 alumni, barely any responses. Day after day, its the same fucking thing.

If I could read your future and tell you exactly how many times you'd have to try and fail before you finally broke through, what would you do? I expect you'd enthusiastically go out there and keep trying and failing until you finally hit that number.

You're discouraged because you don't know the number. But believe me, it exists. You're a college graduate, and you're not going to be unemployed forever. You feel bad about yourself right now because others are out to a faster start. In five years, you'll have forgotten all about that. Run your own race.

Reconsider what thebrofessor had to say. He knows more than you and he's giving you good advice about how to fail better. You dismiss him at your own expense.

And if nothing else, stop drinking out of boredom. The rest of these issues are in your head, and won't matter in five years. But a bad drinking habit will follow you.

Actually, I was in the same situation but when I say middle of no where, I mean population of under 1000 with the nearest town 80 miles away. Barely any cell-phone signal.

Took me a year to find a job. Drinking that beer and playing video games isn't going to help. If you aren't using every dying second to apply and study for those interviews then you're wasting your time.

I set a deadline for myself and made it during the last month. My problem was that I wasn't great at technicals and really focused on improving in that area. If I went passed the deadline I was going to use the 18x contract to give army special forces a shot.

Misery is relative but watch this and tell me if you still feel sorry for yourself:

I would consider speaking to someone if you suspect you are depressed. Personally, I have never found anyone that was worth a damn at therapy when times are shit, but you may. What I have found is that, for me personally, there were medications that helped me get through a very rough patch (the difference was night and day). It may be tough to compete for positions if you are suffering from major depression. Everyone has rough patches and do not be ashamed to get help (depression has claimed multiple “tough guys” in my family).

With that being said, you are inherently at a disadvantage as a long distance candidate with no experience. I would recommend moving to one of the “It” cities that is growing at an enormous rate and trying there for jobs. I am not sure if you have any friends or family you could bunk with temporarily until you get established, but having a local addresss is helpful for getting through one of the HR screening mechanisms. I know at my current employer we hire inexperienced people left and right (just a F500).

If your problem is just related to work then start prepping for the GMAT and head to grad school.

I agree with the above post, OP might be depressed. If that’s the case, it’s incredibly easy to feel that everything is pointless. With that mindset from the get go, it will impair your execution and good intentions. And people or firms you meet with won’t know that you have a negative attitude because of circumstances... they’ll just simply see the negative mindset and assume the worst (he won’t be a good fit / team player / won’t be hungry or proactive and etc). Might be good to chat with therapist / psychiatrist.

There’s really nothing I can add here since thebrofessor and the others covered it in detail. But I would echo / add a few things:

• Try a different approach - as thebrofessor said, your current way isn’t working, so what have you got to lose by trying something different? People here all shared their stories of failures and how they were able to turn it around (and this could take 6-9+ months). You’re at the start of it. To develop relationships, build a knowledge base, develop leads on potential opportunities takes time. Doing all the things people outlined above is like planting seeds - it takes time to materialize.

• Cast a wider net and keep an open mind - have you looked at other roles outside of finance ones that still offer an “analytical” component (strategy/ops, bus dev, maybe certain product teams) and outside of finance industry. Some startups for example might offer opportunities to do a bit of everything... and it’s a good way to figure out what you like and dislike.

• Set smaller / short term goals, take breaks - don’t try to do everything at once - cold emails / networking, industry research, building up technical skill sets, prepping for interviews is a lot of work. I would say set realistic short term goals. If can be really overwhelming to say... get a reply from an alum to meet tomorrow out of the blue, then frantically trying to cram industry research and technical study in a day. Consider setting aside some time to focus on only one or two things. Maybe it’s technical study (valuation, financial modeling) and industry research on careers you want to pursue. Do that (at a measured pace, and fit video games or exercise or meeting with friends in with some downtime). And then getting to a good baseline level of comfort you can reach out to firms and networks again. That way, you have more confidence, context, and comfort to have a more fullsome discussion with people (and a better likelihood to develop a positive first impression). By having baseline fundamentals down, it also allows you to better internalize the advice and knowledge that professionals you speak with share, and it creates a better feedback loop into your knowledge base.

• Get out of the House / meet friends / exercise - this will help you improve your mindset. Having people to talk to, providing yourself with occasional breaks. dont stew alone. It’s really easy to get down on yourself and lose perspective if you try to do too much too fast and by yourself.

Man, some of OPs responses have been so cringe worthy that I'm hesitant to even get involved. But here's my $0.02 - take it or leave it.

1. Sack up, get out of the basement, and interact with the world. Go down the street in your small town and get a job. ANY JOB. Learn what a hard day's work looks like. Get your sense of pride back. Stop playing victim and start making moves. Literally any move is better than what you're doing.

I know how depressing it can be and how hard the initial move is to make. I spent 6+ months living in a windowless closet washing dishes a the restaurant below my apartment. The situation was so depressing that washing the dishes became the highlight of my day. 6+ months. At least there WAS a highlight to my day. Go find your highlight (a productive one ie Job) and embrace the process.

2. Develop your social skills. From what you've been saying and the way you've reacted to people's advice (specifically on following up) I can tell you have very little understanding of how people work socially. Step 1 will be a big help with this. Hell, you can even have your beers, but do it at a bar and force yourself to meet someone new with each round.

When you've started making moves and learn how people work you'll be setting yourself up for success. People work with people. So know how people work.

If all else fails you could always teach yourself how to code ;)

The first step is to stop drinking completely since you are an alcoholic.

You gave very little context here.

What kind of school did you attend? Is it even ranked?

Do you have any internship experience? Hard for firms to consider offering you full time roles if you barely track record. At this point you might have to consider doing unpaid just to get experience. You have to make yourself seem somewhat appealing to the recruiter. Step into their shoes and think I chose freydo because of xyz and abc

And of course you aren't retarded but don't play as if it is you against the world.

TWO THINGS YOU ARE GOING TO DO

Get adobe acrobat reader, the free trial for seven days, and "edit" out that shitty gpa on your transcript and replace it with a good one. DON"T FUCKING ANYONE GIVE ME SHIT FOR THIS....you're in an ass position, time to make some ball busting moves.

Do the same with your resume.

Hopefully You will have more luck from now on. Only apply to entry level positions that will see your "edited" experience as a plus but not as a requirement or stepping stone. By that I mean if you add some research or tech experience in your resume, don't apply to tech positions ( I know you won't) that will considering hiring you based off those fake qualifications, instead go after consulting positions that don't care that you had good tech experience but will consider you as a better candidate because of it. By doing this you can fake your story better.

I still think you're an ungrateful moron, but this should be a good start. You seem like the person who would cut corners, so fucking go ahead and do it, Don't listen to that dishwasher guy, you don't need to scum so low.

Best of Luck

Master of accounting

Tradeschool

Coding boot camp

Military

Those are your legitimate options. Don’t go into too much debt, if at all, for the first two.

The posters here are well-intentioned but the reality is that a bad gpa from a bad state school makes you about as employable as a high school graduate. Actually less maybe, since a high school grad could learn a trade. There isn’t some magic bullet to get you out of your situation. You can “network”, get a new suit, follow up with alum, but there is simply no compelling reason for someone to hire you when they can hire someone with experience or hire someone who interned for them.

I am not trying to make you feel bad in any way, but this is just the reality. You are not getting job bites because you don’t offer anything to potential employers. You, likely through minimal fault of your own, completely missed the boat on post college professional opportunities. You need a complete reset to have a chance at a modest life.

have you considered working for the govt?

Code Academy isn't the only option for learning how to code. There's also Udacity, Udemy, and edEx, and they're free. There's also Free Code Camp, too. And yeah, I get it that learning to code is hard and that not everyone can do it. Or at least, not do it well enough to get a coding job.

As a disabled 52 year old woman from generational poverty that struggled for six years to re-enter the workforce after decades of being out, trying to get a chance for a job (only to not ever get one) against the obstacle of age discrimination (on top of sex discrimination and straight-up classism on the part of the gatekeepers), who was a non-traditional aged AND first generation college student who went to a backwater state college, I understand what barriers to employment are all too well. If all else fails, here's what you do: Get a small amount of money (minimum of about $500), either from selling your video games or putting some stuff up on eBay. Then, take that money and open a trading account with Ameritrade and request level 3 options trading privileges. Download the Think or Swim trading platform. Learn your way around the platform. Then, start paper-trading. Don't put real money on the table until you've gotten a firm grasp on how to read and interpret the charts of a few stocks and ETFs that are highly liquid that many people trade. Learn the patterns. And learn the assets (the stocks or ETFs you picked to track - i.e. the SPY is a good one). Look for a pullback setup, and buy 1 Call option on it, with an expiration date 3-4 weeks out. Watch it over a 3-4 day period, but probably shorter. You're looking for a 20-50% profit. Take your profit, close the trade. Then patiently wait for another good setup. Rinse and repeat. There's TONS of really good free trading tutorials out there, so this is not that hard from an academic standpoint. You won't make a million with a $500 or even a $2000 account. But you CAN get up into the tens of thousands within a year or two, if you play it right. And from there, you can compound it upwards - as in, the sky's the limit. When nobody else will give you a chance, make your own opportunity.

With all due respect, what did you think was going to happen by going to a shit state school and not even getting a good GPA? Like you've clearly not put in the work and effort thats required for the jobs that you are applying to. My advice would be to get a sales job, and apply to a master program in a couple of years (accounting or finance).

here is another idea...apply to be a guide/counselor for outward bound (or a similar organization). Get you out of your routine to energize and shake things up. Will also help you find direction and inspiration (while getting paid), and you'll be in a position to help younger kids who need to learn leadership skills (you'll learn some yourself also).

Hey man!

Thanks for posting this as I'm going through something similar, even though you might be second guessing posting it :). Keep in mind my advice isn't about changing one thing to get an interview, but what I’ve learned that makes this process less dreadful - I hope you might see it as relevant and helpful. Some will be irrelevant, but read through it, it might help. I’ve also taken the liberty of skipping over most of this thread because the advice isn’t worth filtering out the drama, and I don’t give af. The brofessor's initial advice, which I think is spot on, is tailored to be universal and may not be directly applicable to your situation, like seeking a shrink or suggesting you're going into interviews with socks and sandals. It's not like you're going to blow your brains out because of being in job purgatory. Don't take that stuff personally; you know it's not the case.

A lot of negativity from the frustration with your situation is seeping into and reflected in your posts, which is why this thread has morphed into an MTV reality show/youtube comment section. I do appreciate some of it, though, as the drama precedes a blatant barrage of more advice that can help me :). Anyways, their comments are in direct response to the negativity stemming from the natural perception of your situation, creating a cycle that is making your situation worse. They leave unchanged, but you’re definitely going to feel bittererer applying to jobs later. Understand that so you can leave here unscathed. I’m sure I’d feel a little butthurt if some of these things were said to me.

My personal situation: I'm switching from corporate finance into ER/IB. Went to a target school – I still think this terminology is egoically elitist, but I’m partial having come from one – and got into a solid finance rotation program. I was on a fast track within the corporate world and knew most of the execs, but felt that it was an endless stream of learning menial tasks and repetition. Even the underlying concepts felt ritualistic and relied on a relatively straightforward cause and effect notion. It was less the drastic strategic changes in case studies and more-so keeping the business alive by feeding it reports and journal entries. Everybody left at 5 and I found myself degenerating into a corporate drone. I lost my drive and had no idea what to change. I also kept getting conflicting advice about the necessity of MBA’s/CPA’s/CFA’s, so I didn’t pursue and feel like I was getting smarter. So, after discovering corp. fin wasn’t for me and finding this godsend of a website, my life now has meaning lol.

I’m familiar with the void that a resume seems to enter. It was much easier in school; they came to us. But now my resume is not competitive with anyone who has IB experience/referrals. My target school & stellar corporate finance track record are bogus without that IB exp. And without meeting me, there’s no way for these clowns to realize that, instead, the other applicants are who don’t stand a chance.

Anyways, the division/company I worked for shut down and I decided to redirect towards the unknown. I started out with what I hope was a worse mindset, otherwise you might actually might want to see a shrink. I binged t.v shows and a bunch of video games, when I didn’t even enjoy them, because I avoided considering leaving a strong career path to start over. I was Castaway lost, but once I made that decision I had a goal and more clarity. Besides, I don't want to have to answer what I did these past months jobless with "learned some Fortnite dances or some bullshit." When I found a specific "why" for what I do, I rekindled the drive I lost and could turn that Tony Robbins thunder to action. I removed all the garbage habits (t.v, video games, etc.), not doing them at all, and now wake up at 4 after 6 hrs of sleep, work out twice a day, started learning French and Japanese, practice guitar and drums, bought whatever books were recommended on here – Warren Buffet likes tomes, not picture books btw – among quite a bit more. More importantly, my situation doesn’t affect me, and therefore not how an interview will go should I get one. While I don't get the sense you're at the bottom yet, your current trajectory is headed there solely based on the language of your post. You’ll have to change your outlook; your situation can get worse.

Personally, I'd disregard the self-help Tony Robbins stuff. While well-intentioned, it's only helpful to those who can point that motivation in the right direction. It's analogous to taking pre-workout for a race and having no idea which way to the finish line (hopefully that makes sense lol). I watched a lot of those videos and was inspired for 30 min before regressing. However, I appreciated it because today was leg day.

Furthermore, they posted that because they see through the negativity in your post and believe that to be the issue, as if that is conveyed to a recruiter or indicates a lack of effort on your part. I see that you’re merely reacting to all of the bad stuff going on and that there must be a better way. But by reframing everything going on, doing what it takes to get into finance gets way easier. The stuff that’s been recommended is actually necessary and I’m realizing it, too. I’m averse to cold calling, even though I know it’s not going to be anywhere near that bad. Maybe I have some genetic trait that makes me avoid being told to go away by HR. Maybe frame it as someone paying you a lot of moola (signing bonus) to cold call a ton of people. That’s how I’ll be thinking of it calling these bozos. Here’s a link in case you haven’t found it:

https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/the-best-networking-cold-calling-a…

For the coding bit, the advice is solid, but misses the mark that I'm sure you're aware of: knowing how to code and putting it on your resume isn't the missing piece of the puzzle to landing an interview. However, being that I have been unemployed for an absurd amount of time, and wasted what I would presume more time in negative habits, can say they lead to a downward spiral. Being unemployed is painful to my ego and therefore is an all-day job. You'll feel bad for wasting time and then do it some more to feel better because job hunting is pointless etc. From my own experience, once I cut that garbage out, became proactive, and starting doing a lot of healthy habits (not just learning how to code), your mindset changes and you gain momentum. One habit won't make an impact, but a lot might change your mindset from "about to send another pointless app that I know will get rejected" to "I'm sending them more because I'll be successful and I'll call these mofo alumni up so they can reference me when I ask for 'advice,'" or something equally gung-ho. Never give up

@thebrofessor: Thanks a ton for the advice as it's a huge help. From what I've read you're more of the resident psychiatrist than the resident sucker :). Obviously, don't take offense to whatever bloodshed occurred in this thread, this stuff blows and what appears as disregarding your help stems from the frustration with the situation/low success rate.

@Jacqueline Homan: I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you had me at “you can get up into the tens of thousands within a year or two.”

Don't blast me into the past monkey trolls if you disagree haha and silver banana my prose, English majors, so I can evolve.

freydo, I'll offer you some things you wont hear from the rest of these guys. First, I feel your pain, I was in a smaller town in fly over country with a degree from a non target liberal arts school (waste of time and money), had a subpar gpa, and even was charge with a felony (went joy riding with the school presidents golf cart -- charges were later dropped and sealed from record 6 months after graduation but plenty of damage done and had uphill battle) so just so you know it could be worse. You could've made your hole even more deep. Many primary/secondary educators (especially females -- sorry ladies) are rife with the socialist mindset. Someone else will always help me achieve what is necessary to achieve. Why? Because you now believe its up to the guys on this site to help you…I was similar after leaving college. Hoping for the best but thinking it would be someone else who will help you get there or get you there. THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN. Sorry for the honesty. I think these guys have some good things to say especially brofessor so I do not want to discount their advice, only want to give you incite into personal reality change; helping spread the idea. The sad truth is, that one guy from that fucking movie you like to day dream about calling you will never happen by pure happenstance, unfortunately, and you won’t just go into an office you’ve never been rejected from and know how to run into the right guy at the right time. You have to channel/figure out your dog. You have to be more of a dog. Clearly, you can wash your face, shave, type, and find wall street oasis but so can 100 million others. People all want this shit bad man. You disrespect yourself and the profession you get into if you think it’ll just happen one day because someone liked your name. Then you won’t even respect the job, yourself, and your life. Listen, I do not know it all, I know very little. What I do know is you have to turn into more of a grinder. Unplug the video games, those are by far the worst addiction. I have less of an issue with beer assuming you aren’t sucking them down like water but limit yourself, it can easily make you weak, soft, lazy. Download audible and listen to atlas shrugged, fooled by randomness, skin in the game, 12 rules for life, mastery, etc. Listen to podcasts “we study billionaires”, dan carlins hardcore history, etc. Get some tools to help gain attributes people in the jobs you wish to have would desire. The information will also make you and your conversations more interesting and in depth. Get to the gym more. You got defensive about the gym/30 push ups earlier. Harden yourself. I am sure you are in perfectly FINE shape but most others are too and what are you? Someone with a low gpa, from a state school you are not proud of.. why risk being perceive as being more mediocre if you are not? Get up at 6 am, seriously, and work out. Make a coffee, do what you have to do, just like if you had to go to that job you really want, get a real breakfast, TREAT YOURSELF DON'T CHEAT YOURSELF, then grind, consume information, whether it be audiobooks, paper backs, coursera, news aggregator sites, this site, whatever it is that is sellable/useful information aka not video games and similar bull. Get another workout in at noon or 2 pm when you feel tired. Get out during the day and find anything you can do for a little money even if its painting or cutting grass, get yourself a little money. Money to take a trip to a city, buy some better dress shoes, save up for a security deposit for an apartment in a city, get a video camera and make a vlog series about trying to get a job as a kid from the middle of nowhere in a big city. I don’t know but do something. Be great man and do not do it for a job do it for you. Then once you start being that dog you always want to be you stop day dreaming about getting there because you will be so caught up in improving yourself and your competence.

I know this is not what you want to hear. You probably won't get that job in a month or even 3 months. If you want be great though you’ll get that routine down, that, “I’m going to be a beast no one wants to fuck with.” Then you’ll get that look in your eye like you are serious and you’d do some zero dark thirty shit to get where you needed to go. Then you’ll be less depressed and not focused on how everyone around you your age has it and you don't…why? Because you will be out being a dog. Waking up early to grinding hard, learning more, and being a better product. It will not come easy though my man. You have to get addicted to grinding first. But it will be worth every second of it.

For me, the job did not come either. For years…..years, years. So much so I will not even say on this chat out of fear of mockery. In fact, I still do not have the job I wish. It is not the job that will make the man, it's the man who makes the job/business/anything.

Clearly, you know there are rich kids with connections and interview gods who are incapable of performing the requirements of the job. You are not one of those people. So you can continue to hope your interview mentor or whatever sends you that magic connection. Or you can go out and become a threat. It may take years but people who you wish to have respect from will have respect for you when you finally do go rogue as a nose to the grindstone dog.

That is what matters. Spend your days learning. The more you learn the better your clarity will be. Clarity never comes first, unfortunately. Wasting time on fortnite hoping for a call to move to a city paid for by them won’t happen. Does a man get married and she offers to pay for the engagement ring? C’mon kid. Save, move, do whatever, show you are committed to greatness. As they say, “real recognize real”. Great MF’er’s will notice a man who is determined to succeed, they want great people on their team and will want you riding with them. After all, they too have it on the line. Always remember the order of operations though. Grind first. It will suck sometimes..oftentimes but if you want to be great then you have to do it yourself…then people notice.

You have not been descriptive on what you enjoy or want to do so as for specific information on those topics, I will not offer much. Commit to yourself instead of wallowing in self-pity. You have a story, its different, it can be great, but you have to become great before anyone will want to hear it. See you on the other side.

The recruiting process was brutal for me too. I submitted so many applications and never heard back over my entire final year of college. I came from a non-target and didn't have any impressive internships, but talking to a recruiter really turned the process around for me. After just a few days reaching out to various third-party recruiters, I had a number of interviews for jobs that I was interested in. Recruiters might not be the best choice for everyone, I've heard at times you might end up with a lower salary when placed by a recruiter but they really can get more looks at your resume and help you get in touch with the people looking to hire. I can't say enough good things about having a full-time advocate during the job search.

Something that worked for me when I was struggling to find a job right out of college was branching out of LinkedIn/Indeed and pivoting to general google searches. Find buzz words (a specific industry, service, or product related to what you're looking for), a city you'd like to work in, combine the two and google it. Examples: "middle market chicago", "financial advisory atlanta", "healthcare nashville", etc. Look for smaller companies within those searches, typically a page or two back in the results, that may not be posting their positions on any of these job boards, search through their career section on their web page, and if all else fails look for contact info and reach out. The same way that you are struggling to get an interview, these smaller firms are struggling to get legit candidates. The majority of people looking for jobs are doing exactly what you're doing now, using the same websites, applying for the same jobs.

LinkedIn/Indeed/Glassdoor work really well for people with an impressive and developed resume. HR people search for certain buzzwords or company names in the huge pool of applications they receive, find a set of applicants that fit their filters, and go from there. People who don't get tagged on those searches, because they haven't been given the opportunity to develop their career/resume, are left in the weeds. Look for the smaller companies, fight against a smaller pool of applicants, and work on just getting your foot in somewhere.

For what its worth, this worked pretty well for me out of college. It got me a decent job at a tiny, completely unknown firm after months of searching, but I was able to parlay that experience to a very well-known consulting firm. Good luck man and try to keep your head up. That feeling of constant rejection sucks but it only takes one application to hit for it all to be behind you.