I’ve been meaning to write this article for some time. Months, in fact. But I wanted to hold off for a while. I thought, ‘something’s got to change soon’.
‘Something’s got to shift.’
But I was wrong. It hasn’t. And so here it is: the veritable scream of anger and frustration that I’ve been holding in for so long.
Let me give you a little context, first of all.
I am a twenty-one year old woman who achieved exemplary A-Levels. As in… two A* grades and one A. I chose not to go to university for many reasons: the debt, the stress, and the crucial fact that I didn’t know what subject I wanted to study. All of these still apply. After all, what would be the point in gaining a degree in a subject I ended up disliking? Or in which there are very few lucrative jobs? That’s what seems to have happened to so many of my peers who do have degrees.
So I chose the University of Life, as it were. Six weeks after finishing Sixth Form, I found a job in retail – initially part time – and I flourished. At the same time, I started writing and publishing novels, which meant I was essentially working two part-time jobs (except one had far less pay than the other!). And I grew to love the creative side of both jobs. I made the retail job my own, by running small marketing campaigns and events that promoted the business for which I worked.
But after two years, retail was starting to lose its shine for me. I wanted more hours than they could offer, and more challenges. And yes, more pay. So, in September 2023, I began trawling the Internet for new employment. Remote, or hybrid-remote, because of my chronic health conditions. I suppose I was foolish enough to think that it would be easy, post-COVID. That there would be lots of employers now offering remote or hybrid. That I’d apply for a handful, have a few interviews, then pick the one that suited best.
Oh, was I wrong.
Fast forward fifteen months. I am still in retail, because although I did find a new job in April, it destroyed my mental health to the point that when I was casually offered my old job back in conversation, I actually accepted. That was back in August, and since then, I haven’t had it in me to resume the job hunt. Most of the people around me seem to think I’m insane.
“You’re too intelligent for a retail job!”
“You’ve been working here a while now. Do you like it that much?”
“Why settle for retail?”
Or the one that really upset me, said plainly and simply by a customer a couple of weeks ago:
“When are you going to get a proper job, then?”
To all of these remarks, the first comment that comes to mind is… not printable. After all, retail is a proper job. And the second is too long to express verbally. Hence why I’m writing this.
Let’s go back to that initial job hunt, between September 2023 and April 2024.
I wasn’t being overly picky. Anything that was remote or hybrid local to my area, anything that didn’t require a degree or twenty years of experience, and I was up for it. At first, these jobs weren’t all that few and far between, so I sent out applications like they were going out of fashion. Each one boasted a cover letter that took me over an hour to craft in a way that was specific to each role, showing them how I met their criteria. (I can see how job-hunting could fairly easily become a full-time job.) And yet… nothing. Not even an interview.
But that’s not to say that my emails suddenly began being littered with rejections. No, not in the slightest. In fact, I’d say that for eight applications out of ten, the employers just simply… ignored me. So when I say nothing, I genuinely mean nothing.
I was not deterred. I kept ploughing on. I’d come home from a shift and hop on the Internet. Not just the standard job-searching website that doesn’t need to be named, but the wider Internet too. And yet, still nothing. By Christmas, I was still searching, although I pressed the pause button for a couple of weeks due to a family bereavement. But in the New Year, I picked it back up again, along with what felt like half of the UK’s population. (New year, new job, of course.) By this point, I was no longer looking solely for a remote job. Or even hybrid remote. I was so desperate that I was even seeking jobs that were full-time office-based. I knew that by accepting such a job, I would be putting my own health at risk, but what can I say? My self-esteem was shot to bits, and the rest of my mental state wasn’t much better – I even ended up in therapy in the fray. “Why does nobody want me?” I sobbed to my family and my therapist, on several occasions.
(Also, on the topic of health conditions and disabilities: the Disability Confident scheme. If you’re unfamiliar, it is a scheme in which employers pledge to offer interviews to every candidate with a disability who meets their minimum criteria. I can only conclude it’s fictional. I am disabled, and I’ve lost count of the number of Disability Confident boxes I’ve ticked… to no avail.)
It’s not even a degree that most places are after, any more. It’s experience.
Proven experience is the phrase they often use. Proven experience in X programme, or Y industry, and if you have intimate knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the Swahili language, so much the better! I'm being facetious about the latter, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns that way soon. Very often they specify length of service, as well. Five years is around the average. Which leaves young people like myself… well, pretty stuck. Do they want us to be employed at the tender age of fifteen?
And I actually have an advantage over my peers! Those who have been at university are less likely to have any level of experience, because their degrees are full-time in itself. The University of Life has left me with three years of experience: two and a half in retail, and several months in a call centre. If I’m struggling to get a job based on my lack of experience, how on Earth are they faring? This, I believe, is why the supermarkets are staffed by so many young people. Plus, I run what is essentially a very small business, when I do my writing. I self-publish, so I run a blog, a website, professional social media accounts… yet the marketing industry still won’t let me in because it’s not official, paid employment.
There’s only one way to get around not having experience, of course. That is to gain experience. Except… how?
How, when nobody is prepared to give you any?
I’ve done online courses. I’ve applied for apprenticeships. I’ve applied for internships. Even, in a particularly dark moment of despair, unpaid ones, although God knows how that would have worked out financially. More recently, I’ve started sending out my CV to prospective employers, with a covering letter attached saying, ‘I may not have a degree, but I am very intelligent, and I am seeking experience – please keep me in mind!’
Each and every attempt has been met by either rejection or ignoration. (That’s ignoration, not ignorance. They’re not stupid. I completely understand why the businesses seek people with experience: to save the hassle of training someone from ground level. More efficient, particularly in these economic times with secondary National Insurance rising. Plus, the appropriate job-seekers are there – it’s completely logical that they’d go for Person A with five years of experience, over Person B with none. The trouble is: where does that leave Person B?)
The whole reason I’m writing this article is because of recent headlines about the UK ‘not working’. One in eight young people are out of ‘education, employment or training’ according to Simple Politics. Between July and September this year, according to the Labour Force Survey by the Office for National Statistics, 14.8% of 16-24 year-olds were unemployed.
“Young people don’t want to work,” people say. “They’re just lazy benefit scroungers. Time to crack down!” Or I’ve heard them quoting Norman Tebbit: ‘[My father] didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.’ Never mind the fact that this famous quotation is from 1981.
What do you think we’re trying to do?
And why do you think we’re failing?
Here is my message: Go easy on young people, employed or unemployed. Because I am not even one of the 14.8% -- I’m employed, even if it is as a ‘lowly cashier’ (according to someone’s Instagram comment I saw the other day). If I’m struggling this much WITH a job, it’s even harder for those without one. That’s what the government needs to realise, rather than trying to pull out the rug from beneath us in the hope that we’ll jump.
And one final thing. Given everything I’ve said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tack on this final addenda.
If you do happen to be an employer… hello! I’m a UK-based individual, in the market for a creative, remote, full-time role. My particular skills include copywriting, proofreading, typing, interpersonal relations, and general technological literacy. If you find yourself seeking a dynamic go-getter for your business… you know where I am!