diana pressey

“Do you know what you’re doing this summer?”
“Got any work plans after graduation?”
“Do you have a job lined up yet?”

These are the questions that fill many second-semester seniors with inescapable dread. While several do have jobs lined up, in my experience, these people are not in the majority.

According to a survey from online platform Door of Clubs, 67% of college graduates surveyed in late April of 2017 didn’t have jobs yet. I’ve been getting job questions like these from well-meaning people since January.

Overall, most of the seniors I’ve talked to in the last few months don’t yet know what they’re doing this summer (unless, of course, they’re in the business school, in which case they’ve probably had a job since last July). If they do, you can usually tell from their self-congratulatory LinkedIn posts.

The survey and my anecdotes aren’t clear evidence that the majority of seniors don’t have jobs yet. My anecdotal evidence is especially skewed; most communications positions get posted in March or later, and I’m surrounded by people who are pursuing communication careers, just like me. It makes sense that a lot of the people I talk to at UNC’s School of Media and Journalism aren’t sure what they’re doing yet.

However, I’m sure people on other career paths can still relate to my question-related grievances. I don’t know how many seniors have jobs already, but I do know that those of us who don’t are largely freaking out about it, even if we don’t necessarily need to be.

One of my professors with extensive expertise in personal branding and the job search, Gary Kayye, said something in class that was extremely reassuring to me. He mentioned that many of his students have come to him right before graduation, panicking about their lack of employment. He said that by the end of the summer, almost all of them had jobs.

In a perfect world, employers would tailor the timing of their job postings to fit college students’ schedules. But the world we live in is the opposite of perfect; it’s mostly a chaotic mess. And even though the job search might seem like a race that those of us without jobs feel like we’re losing, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s never too late to get a job, and doing so is really just a matter of timing, effort, and, above all, connections.

But I digress—back to all the questions I keep getting asked. Here’s the thing: Most of us, the unemployed and uneasy, are already in the process of searching and applying. When people ask us if we have jobs yet, they usually do so with a positive intent. Yet all it does is remind us that we feel like we’re behind and aren’t fulfilling societal expectations.

I’m going to go ahead and argue that there’s nothing wrong with that.

There is no one set path to success. Mine has always been atypical. I’m from California, but I went to a tiny, random school in Utah that offered me a full ride for two years before transferring to UNC. Then, last spring, I worked 20 hours a week at an agency located an hour around my house without giving up my second job. I was so overworked, I didn’t even have the energy to apply to summer internships until summer rolled around. When it did, I freelanced and didn’t get an internship until July. It was a small, part-time position at a startup with many other interns, and once they all left for the semester, I took over a lot of the responsibilities they’d left behind, interning through the fall and part of spring this year.

All this is to say that my success has always looked a little different from others’, and I think there’s solace in that. No matter how much stress or pressure this semester holds, I know I can land on my feet and adapt. And so can everyone else. Some just might not know it yet.

I propose that those who tend to ask college seniors those abominable yes-or-no questions I’ve mentioned simply reword. All it takes to avoid triggering panic in a stressed-out senior like me is a question that’s softer, more open, and potentially invites some cathartic complaining. Instead of asking, “Do you have a job yet?”, try “How’s the job hunt coming along?” or even just “How is your semester going? Are you doing okay?” That last one is especially necessary; most seniors I know are invariably operating on some level of anxiety at all times.

The next time someone asks me whether I have a job yet, I’ll obviously tell them the truth. But I’d definitely rather they didn’t ask. After all, I’m very easy to find on LinkedIn, where you can see for yourself. If you have to ask, the answer is probably no—or, more accurately, “I’m working on it.”