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How To Survive Being An Unemployed Graduate

Let’s paint a familiar picture: you’re a few months away from graduating, have applied for graduate positions and even started calculating and budgeting your monthly salary. When the time comes to graduate, no offers have surfaced yet, but you’re still hopeful about the situation. You’re laid back over summer, as you’ve decided it’s your last free one before you dive into work, but then August hits: no job. September comes and still no offers. That’s when it starts to sink in that your life isn’t going to pan out exactly how you expected it to.

New graduates face harsh realities because we often leave university optimistic about the future, and rightly so. However, life has a way of humbling us, and not everyone can readily adjust to that reality. Beyond the discrimination that we face as black people seeking employment, there are reasons within ourselves that are also contributing factors. For example, limiting ourselves in the variety of roles we apply for due to lack of self-belief, experience, or just not having the hope that we can do and deserve better, while others may be mapping out their lives in parallel to someone else’s, instead of steering their own course.