I’ve only been a graduate for a few months but honestly, this issue didn’t begin after I graduated. I’ve heard this kind of useless conversation ever since I set foot into the Mass Communication field. No matter what I showed interest in or did my best to excel at, I’d always get the same pat on the back and the usual “you won’t find a job in media, unless you know someone.” As long as I was still a student, I didn’t care. I just did my best in every subject and moved on. Then, the inevitable happened. I graduated.
To be honest, I didn’t start looking for a job directly after I finished college. We worked so hard on the graduation project and I already wasted two summers on courses. They were beneficial, of course, but I was just tired. I watched all my friends get jobs, leave jobs and get new ones. For a while, it was reassuring thinking that whenever I would look for a job, I would definitely find one. Naive, I know. I already knew that the process to find a job will be long but I was so sure that it had nothing to do with whether I knew someone in the field or not. When I felt like I spent enough time at home watching YouTube videos, I decided to start looking for a job.
I didn’t expect to find a job right away. I kept looking and applying. I went to a good amount of interviews and got the same amount of rejection mails. It was all okay. I didn’t want to rush it. I was just trying to find a good job that would allow me to do the things I love and work in the field I want.
When the process became longer, people started talking. Family members, friends, acquaintances. To be honest, I don’t know why people kept asking when I will get a job. I don’t have a family to support or a sick husband to tend to. I don’t have kids that need to be fed. For some reason, they think I will like staying at home so much that I wouldn’t want to work. But, I love my field of study. I loved Mass Communication so much even though I didn’t exactly know what it was when I first got in. I wanted to work.
So, people kept asking me when will I get a job. And, with that, came the same unwanted irrelevant info: “You won’t find a job in media, unless you know someone”. At this point, it started to get to me. I started to ask my friends who already got jobs and I didn’t get satisfying answers. They were all recommended, befriended a director, their friend started a business and needed help, or they just simply knew someone.
Now it was a fact. Yes, I won’t get a job in media until I know someone, which I didn’t. And I didn’t want to ask for favors. I wanted to get hired for, me. I wanted to get hired because I can do so and so. So, everytime someone told me that annoying “fact”, I would swallow my words and smile. I kept looking the traditional way, I sent some mails, got a few interviews, got rejected and started over.
It was too depressing to try and listen to them. They didn’t have words of wisdom. They were just stating cliches about this field of work. Cliches I already heard a thousand times. I didn’t want to accept it. Even when deep inside I heard a voice saying that this statement was true, I ignored it. I looked for the other voice saying maybe I’ll be good enough for a job. Maybe I don’t need to know someone. Maybe I need people to know me.
And now, I can stand in front of them and say you were wrong.
