Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder - The Unemployed College Graduates Survival Guide

The Unemployed College Graduates Survival Guide manages to be both optimistic and realistic. Dr. Snyder doesnt sugarcoat the predicament faced by todays young graduates, but she also doesnt let them sulk. The result is a sympathetic, upbeat, and practical guide full of ideas that will help young grads navigate the situation.

David Vranicar, author of The Lost Graduation: Stepping off Campus and Into a Crisis

Bonnie Snyder gives encouragement and strategic advice to college graduates who are navigating todays challenging job market, beginning with the importance of maintaining a patient, positive attitude. She is right on target when she says that career success may look bleak in the short term, but as older workers retire the long-term prospects for this generation are unlimited. By tapping into the inner and outer resources she discusses in her easy-to-read book, todays graduate will get the most from an often painful journey to enjoyable, full-time work.

Nancy Anderson, career counselor and author of Work with Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living

In an arena of so much misinformation and uncertainty, Bonnie Snyder offers practical and valuable advice to American college graduates, from looking for a job to dealing with their student loans.

Serge Bakalian and Aurora Meneghello, filmmakers of Default: The Student Loan Documentary

The
Unemployed
College
Graduates
SURVIVAL GUIDE

Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder, DEd, CCPS, Author of The New College Reality

How to Get Your Life Together, Deal with Debt, and Find a Job After College

The hardest work in the world is being out of work.

Whitney Young

This book is dedicated to everyone who has ever faced unemployment or underemployment.

I am grateful to my agent Miriam Altshuler, my editor Peter Archer, and everyone at F+W Media for believing in this book and bringing it to readers. Thanks also to family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers for reaching out and sharing your personal stories of perseverance and your helpful strategies for finding and landing first jobs.

You did everything you thought you were supposed to do. You followed the rules, studied hard, and invested in a college education. You struggled and sacrificed until you finally had your chance to walk across the stage and collect your diploma. You expected all this hard work to pay off in numerous job offers, but so farin terms of a jobwhat do you have to show for it?

I probably dont need to tell you that since 2008 the world economy has changed dramatically. Todays college graduates are facing the toughest employment market in decades. Instead of being greeted by eager employers welcoming you with open arms, you are facing stubbornly high unemployment levels, rising unrest among the young worldwide, and dire economic news. There is a famous Chinese saying that goes: May you live in interesting times. If this is something to be desired, then congratulationsyou are living through some very interesting times, indeed!

Its easy to get discouraged when facing such daunting employment odds. But although you might want to blow off steam (understandably!) and this may even make you feel better temporarily, your primary challenge remains: You still need to find a way to support yourself.

Other books written for newly graduated college students give you solid advice on how to write a compelling resume, give a good interview, and conduct a thorough job hunt. This isnt one of those books (although well touch on some of these issues). Those books are for ordinary times, when there are reasonable numbers of job openings and an economy prepared to absorb new entrants. This is a book for extraordinary times, when the economy is down and job hunting is tough. This is a book about surviving when nothing seems fair.

Read this book and youll be more ready to face todays world. Youll learn:

• The basic facts about todays economy and the outlook for tomorrow
• How to deal with your student loans, with health insurance, and with finding a place to live
• How to build a new relationship with your parents, which may include living with them for a while
• What to do to generate income streams
• The value of networkingwhether its with family and friends, college acquaintances, or others

Finally, youll come to appreciate the importance of looking at things realistically and evaluating when and where you can find permanent employment.

Despite the bad economic news, there are plenty of reasons to feel hopeful about your future. Yes, the short-term employment forecast is rather gray and stormy, but the long-term economic forecast is actually quite bright for your generation. Believe it or not, the demographic tides will soon be turning in your favor, creating a likely labor shortage, and then the employment market should burst wide open. Meanwhile, you need a good short-term plan for how to survive the current economic downturn, as well as a long-range plan preparing yourself to take full advantage of future opportunities.

Your generations path to economic security is going to look different than the one followed by earlier generations, but that doesnt mean that your journey will be any less enriching or exciting. There are opportunities to achieve success for every generation, in good times and in bad.

This book deals with both the mindset you need to beat the bleak employment odds and the practical and proactive strategies for finding immediate employment options and for locating resources to inform and guide you along the way. No one enjoys being unemployed, but it is also not the end of the world. With determination, persistence, a willingness to start at the bottom, and some hard-core budgeting skills, you will overcome this temporary setback and go far in spite of it. Its going to take some work on your part, however, so lets get started.

We all need to survive. At a bare minimum, you need to have a roof over your head, clothes on your back, food to eat, and access to medical care when you are sick. These are the basics. Unfortunately, supplying these fundamental needs costs money, and money seems to be in short supply these days.

It would be nice if colleges taught courses on how to make a living, but most do not. After graduation, you are congratulated on your academic accomplishments and sent off to seek your fortune in the workforce without a roadmap or a compass. It seems that alumni are supposed to somehow magically intuit the path to success all on their own. Oddly, its always been this way. Back in the 1950s, the American satirist Tom Lehrer composed a humorous ditty about the difficult transition from school to work called Bright College Days, which includes the unforgettable lines: