I've been trying to find a job to no avail despite having decent work experience and my bachelor's. I don't know what to do anymore. I've dug myself into roughly $10,000 worth of debt which isn't horrible, but without a job it is murder some. I've been doing some freelance work but, it isn't ideal seeing as I do not have a steady income from it.
Here is my current resume...
Any advice, information, insight, help, and so forth is greatly appreciated... :-)
I would add one sentence at the top summing up who you are / what you do career-wise. You can have a couple, depending on whether you are applying to a job or sending it out to random people to share. For example, mine when I'm sending it to a web dev shop or agency is like "Front end developer with impecable HTML/CSS development skills and a keen eye for design and detail." When I send it to one of my moms friends it's like, "I make websites".
Secondly, list your accomplishments under each job beginning with the accomplishment. Remember, people reading this want to know your impact first, then (if ever) the "how".
So "Implemented day to day social media campaigns that directly correlated to 75% increase in traffic thus improving..." would be "Generated 75% increase in traffic acquisition & 25% improvement in sales by implementing kickass day-to-day social media campaigns." If an item doesn't have a tangible accomplishment, then don't include it.
Next, you can totally make a career out of freelancing but right now it seems like you're dancing between both the job hunting and the freelancing. Dedicate 2 hours a day to job hunting and then 4 hours a day to freelancing. Or 1 hour to job hunting, 1 hour to freelance job finding, and 4 hours to freelancing. Dedicate yourself completely to each of these tasks. For freelancing, find communities of marketing folks and agencies or whatever. I'm not an expert in your area but you want to find something on the edge of what you do, because your services will be more valuable there than in a community of people who do the same thing you do. Keep your head down for a bit, join in in conversations, and scope out what people are doing what. Then offer help / services. Don't be one of those folks who hop on a new channel and is like HERE'S MY RESUME, HIRE ME.
You can also join communities of people who do the same things you do but it's more likely to lead to long-term payoffs and networking than anything else. I've gotten a few jobs from the #freelancing and #feds slack channels. One of those jobs led to another relationship that has turned out to be ongoing and kickass.
Check out:
http://www.chitchats.co/site/contents/content/42980/23-12-2014/digital-marketing-slack
I always recommend to people who need a last-resort type of job that they should be a dishwasher. I recommend it because it's really the easiest damn job, yet you get paid as much as a cook (which, I think, is a much more stressful job). It's also incredibly relaxing -- partly because it's so easy, and partly because, once you focus on the task, you enter a state of serene mindfulness.
I don't know if you're so desperate that you'd need a job like that, but it's worth noting, I suppose.
hmmm maybe? I feel like I'm getting there in terms of desperation. It might also be worth noting I have a feeding tube, so some harder heavy lifting jobs are just impossible for me. I would ideally love a receptionist type office job, despite my extensive experience with web marketing...
Look at that, there's even a Daily Mail article about it.
Song from my teenage years about dishwashing.
In my experience it pays at least a dollar and a half less then a cooking job, it is much less stressful thiugh. If you get to choose your music it's almost serene outside of making little more than minimum most of the time and leaving work wet consistently. After dishwashing for almost 3 years straight at different places in different states I'm glad I've built a resume where I'm only touching bar glasses.
Interesting. In all the bars/restaurants I've worked in, dishwashers were paid the same amount as cooks.
Maybe just a local thing. I've never experienced that. Can't complain either, cooking is a more skilled job and way more stressful.
Edit: to complain about everyone back of house getting paid to little. Regardless of position getting paid 9-10 an hour on a Saturday and catching shit from people making at least 5 more an hour on average for being in a good enough mood to tolerate the occasional asshole customer is frustrating as hell. I've been serving and bartending for the past 2 years too. A fake smile does deserve that much of a wage difference. Bartending I'll accept only because it's part baby sitting and requires knowledge of recipes.