it's been a crazy year. after i graduated (which was actually august 2010), i had applied for a job where i did my internship. got an interview, and then stuff changed in the background, and the job fizzled and no one was hired for it.
then i returned to my old job i had in college (not gamestop). a part-time thing that wasn't too stressful, but also not a means to support myself. plus it was christmas, and i wanted to afford things for my family.
late last year i got a call to work with a pretty high profile company. made it really far in the interview process and somehow i was dropped and never contacted again. sent my resume out to everywhere, including my old part-time place since i would have liked working there if i could put my degree to use as a full-time employee.
january i got a call to interview with another big company. they were going to offer a full-time position if i stuck around for an unpaid internship for three months. i normally wouldn't take this sort of thing, but this company was worth it, and so i agreed. they told me they'd get back to me.
in february, my 87 year old grandma fell and hit her head and scraped the back of her hand really bad. she was put in a hospital and rehab home for a couple of weeks, and i visited almost every day, since other family either lived far away, were at school, or at work. so no job hunting.
march was the craziest month of the year. i had three interviews in one week. one was for a small game company. one was for the place i worked in college. one was for a small ad company. all three of them accepted me for the job, each one of them needing me on separate days. the game company one was located in la. it was a long, shitty drive. also, when i got there, it turned out the position was not the one i had interviewed for, but an unpaid internship. i walked on that. the third was okay, but i would have been the entire department, and the people in charge were nice, but seemed a little shady. i wasn't entirely comfortable there and left as well. so i contacted the place i worked in college, since i was to start that next tuesday (but unsure of what time to come in), and they told me they turned me down because they didn't want to tie me down with the type of job they were offering, since i had expressed interest in another department (as a thing maybe five years down the line). there was also another job, earlier in the month. the interviewer was late, didn't apologize for it, and then insulted my skills.
that was kind of a shitty week. however, at the end of it, i got a call back from the place in january. they wanted to offer me something better. so i started working for them freelance. it was really nice because they were super close by, and if i needed to come in in person, it wouldn't be a problem. eventually, i would become a full-time employee. the department closed in june.
i started working at the place i worked in college again. the department i wanted to go into was going to hire in the fall, but i figured this would be a good way to make money, keep a presence, and get updates on the position (as well as put in good work of course). in the meantime, i interviewed one last time at the place i did my internship, but was turned down in favor of an internal hire.
in september, i stopped my part-time job completely, retiring from that particular job for good. that next month, on my birthday, i landed a freelance job with a small company that was amazing. unfortunately, i wasn't working there very often. i also applied to a place i'd wanted to work since i was a teenager, and got an interview there. it was part-time though, and i didn't think the interview went well.
then, last month i went back to the same place i was at in college, except this was for a very short-term position that would only last about ten days. it was good for christmas money. even though i was part-time, i was still invited to meetings and little company outings. finally, i expressed interest in working in the department to the department head, and surprised them with some extra work during this part-time deal. last week, i was offered a full-time position with the company, which i accepted.
so it took well over a year, two websites, two resume revisions, and probably close to 150 resumes sent out, but i finally got something full-time that i could put my degree to use. it's been an adjustment getting used to the drive (since the day starts earlier), but i'm having a blast.
good luck to everyone else out there. if i could do it, anyone else can.