School of thought

Hunting for employment

By Natalie Serafini, Opinions Editor

Whether you have a job and hate it or you’re hunting for vocation, a common theme in student complaints is the unending struggle with employment. As young adults, lacking in the credentials and work experience that would bring all the employers to the yard, students often have to settle for taking on drudgery.

The job hunt is never fun, but it does bring forward everyone’s best and worst stories, as well as accounts of what they struggle with most. What do Douglas students have to say about the hunt for employment?

For Kiran Deep Sandhu, the issue with job hunting is often in the fact that he is an International Student, because he “can’t work as much as people here can.” Nonetheless, Sandhu had some suggestions for finding work in your chosen field: “You should get work experience before completing your studies. You should do some part-time job so that you have work experience. And then you can go to any other big company and then tell them that ‘I worked here,’ and they will take you.”

Jasveen Kaur discussed the problems she’s faced looking for work as a student: “Because of my school, I don’t have enough days to work for them, and they want a full-time person.” Kaur has had other problems in balancing work and school, as well: when asked if she’s struggled with having a lack of experience, she said, “Because I have taken a year off work, I guess that’s why. Because I wanted to study, right? So I have to either concentrate on my studies or work.”

Asked what the most stressful aspect of job hunting is, Dylan Landon said, “Probably the interview is the most stressful for me… having to make yourself presentable to so many different people over and over and over.”

With regards to advice he would give students on the job hunt, Landon suggested that they “look online, too, for jobs, and just apply to everything you can.”

For Jessica Caharel, the process of getting the job can be quite stressful: “I’d say trying to find a student job—actually job hunting—and then of course leading up to the interview, all of the anticipation for the interview. And then waiting for the acceptance or rejection.”

Much like Kaur, Caharel had found that applying for jobs as a student can be a struggle. She said, “Lack of experience is a huge thing. Trying to apply for jobs, you have to get all the experience.”

This time last year I was scrolling through pages and pages of Craigslist for jobs, and racking my brain thinking of work that would accept the little experience I had. I eventually found employment at a movie theatre, which I quickly left for a much rosier post at our very own The Other Press. I was fortunate in this regard, but I think it speaks to what most people will go through; fingers crossed that those of us studying at Douglas College won’t be working at McDonald’s, SilverCity, or Tim Horton’s 10 years from now. There are no guarantees, and whispers on the streets of astounding unemployment rates put a cold pit of fear in our stomachs. Nonetheless, I think we can expect that with credentials, degrees, and ever growing work experience, we can expect the job hunt to (eventually) get easier.