I graduated from a well-ranked liberal-arts college and thought finding work would be… a cinch!

I had majored in business—often touted as one of the most employable degrees—had a high GPA and sported a long list of scholarships and merit awards.

There was no shortage of professors and former supervisors eager to give me glowing recommendations or references wherever needed. Best of all, I’d worked 9 internships, which was a ton of experience for a college graduate. People said that the hardest thing about finding work was lack of experience; obviously, that wasn’t going to be a problem.

My search went reasonably well at first. For 6 months, I worked part-time for an organization I was a fan of and loved every moment of it. It was the perfect dream job: coworkers I got along with smashingly, lots of different projects to work on to develop new skills, lots of chances to help people and make a meaningful impact that improved the lives of the people we served, etc.

But after my contract ended, nothing else came through. I applied for role after role but didn’t land anything. It was rare even to get an interview. Months passed, then the better part of a year, with only a handful of fruitless interviews to show for it.

I felt like I’d disappointed everyone who believed in me. I did some extraordinary things in college, ranging from winning national scholarships to organizing big events. All my professors, internship supervisors, and peers said I’d go on to do great things. Teachers would chat about me when I was nearby, saying “She’s so smart” and “The company that gets her is going to be so lucky.” Even my freshman-year math professor told me that I was “The best student in the world.”

So it stung all the more to know that I not only failed to become the next Steve Jobs or high-level CEO, I couldn’t get any job at all. Even simple things that seemed like a perfect fit only resulted in apathetic rejections.

For example, despite my academic achievements and experience tutoring for 2 years in college, I was turned down for a tutoring job. Similarly, despite having worked as a proofreader for three years, I was rejected by several proofreading and copyediting positions. What more could they have wanted? Even the ubiquitous “soft skills” desired in every job description—being a team player, being organized, having initiative or being a “self-starter,” etc.—were things that I was great at. What was missing?

I started to feel that something was just wrong with me as a person. I’d gone to dozens of resume review events on campus where recruiters told me that my resume was great. I’d even had classes with resume-creating assignments where my professors gave them high marks, only recommending minor changes like formatting or removing extra spaces. At all the practice interviews I’d done, with either Career Services staff members or mock sessions with real recruiters, the interviewers praised my performance, only giving a few pointers for changes. So what else could the problem be, I wondered, besides just something inherently wrong with me? Something defective?

Eventually I became so discouraged that I gave up entirely and stopped applying, believing that it was pointless anyway. I withdrew from my friends and family, too ashamed to tell them things were going so wrong in my life after everything had seemed perfectly poised for success.

But it seemed like I’d be even more of a disappointment to everyone by not trying at all, so I got back in the saddle after a few days. Unfortunately, the first job applications I encountered required 2-3 references, so hiding from everyone wasn’t an option anymore. Nervously, I wrote to several professors, deans, and old supervisors whom I hadn’t contacted in months, explaining the job I was applying for and asking if they would be willing to serve as a reference. I thought they’d be disappointed, or at least grill me as to why I wasn’t already a director or high-level manager somewhere.

To my surprise, everyone I’d written to responded on the same day, enthusiastically offering to serve as a reference or even write a letter of recommendation if it would help. I remember actually feeling tears prick at my eyes as I saw the emails arrive in quick succession. It was inspiring to know that they still believed in me; that they weren’t disappointed, didn’t see me as a failure. And even though I’d given up on myself, they hadn’t. Wouldn’t.

Now in a much better state of mind, I began reaching out to old college friends again. I found some of them—who were also still looking for work—felt a similar way. One was even worried that her friends might cut ties with her because they thought she was a “loser” who wasn’t going anywhere in life because she couldn’t get a job. It was good not to feel alone anymore, to know that others understood the struggle, and to see that the people in my life still believed in me despite my “failure.”

I finally felt “worthy” of talking to my employed friends again too. After a few conversations, it became clear that everything wasn’t perfect in the working world either.

Many of them were forced to work overtime almost every day. Although their employers claimed that overtime wasn’t necessary, workers who did not stay late had an oddly coincidental tendency to be fired. One friend shared frustration at never having time to do anything social during the week. Even when the weekend came, she was so tired that she didn’t want to go out.

Although it’s not the greatest feeling to be out of work, there are a few silver linings. I have time to explore my interests, volunteering at nonprofits and local organizations advocating for issues I’m passionate about. Between tailoring resumes or writing cover letters, I have time to go to events in the middle of the day if I want to. And I have time to write, which is something a lot of people would kill for.

In the end, the main thing I learned was not to be so hard on myself.  The ideal of immediately getting hired to a corner office or six-figure salary is unrealistic; only a handful of people get that kind of opportunity, even though they’re the ones schools (and the media) brag about the most. I’m sure I’ll find something eventually as long as I keep trying. In the interim, I have the gift of time to get involved in things I care about, and I can take comfort in the knowledge that there are a lot of people rooting for me to succeed.

About the Author:  Shortly after writing this article, Maxine Smith received a part-time job offer.  She’s also been selling short articles, teaching writing workshops, and sometimes writing blog posts for companies. Maxine commented that having steady income again feels ‘so good.’