Getting a Job after College shouldn’t be so Demanding — Here’s My Story | by Aaron Smock | Nov, 2025

My graduation ceremony is in less than a month, and it’s been bringing in a bunch of mixed feelings for me. I’ve been studying at St. Ambrose University for a few years now, after I transferred from a community college. Throughout the semesters that I’ve had here, things were honestly looking pretty good! I think before, I was kind of… lost.

I think lots of students just go through their “identity crisis” sometime around high school, but for me, it wasn’t until I was in community college. It was…not fun, to say the least, haha! I never really had a clear idea on what I wanted to do. I had some ideas on something I could probably do. There was graphic design — this was the thing that I was leaning onto the most, because I had the desire to create things, and being able to create art on a computer sounded very fun to me. There was also computer programming, which also served as a form of creation, but nah. This sort of confusion made it so I didn’t put as much effort into my studies — even the essential art classes that would be great for my major. After I graduated with my associate’s degree, I decided to take a gap year to not only save money for my next two years at an actual university, but so that I can also do some soul-searching. I’m not gonna dive into the specifics at this point, but taking the gap year helped a lot.

Once I started attending St. Ambrose University as a transfer student, I started feeling a bigger sense of a direction that I wanted to go, and thus, my grades skyrocketed. I was consistent at getting A’s, and I was able to better hone in on my future.

Now that I’m almost close to graduating, I am working so hard on getting a job after college. I decided to keep my graphic design degree and throw away computer programming (I could still keep it as a hobby), so now I’m currently job searching like a madman. I made a resume, I made a portfolio website, and I’m taking online courses so I can get certifications. I was especially proud of my new website — it was attractive to the eye, showed what I was about, and featured some of my personality! Employers can’t go wrong with this, right?

Excited, I started applying for jobs through job search boards. I also started emailing businesses in my hometown by sending them my website. However, days pass, and I still don’t get a reply from any of the businesses. I was confused. The projects displayed on the website were some of my best ones, a handful of them being actual projects done for a client. I also put straight up front what my beliefs are and what I aim to achieve. Contact info is there too, along with my resume.

I eventually decided to get my portfolio reviewed by graphic designers who currently work, and they suggested changes that I didn’t quite agree with. I realize that they weren’t being mean, but rather, they were suggesting changes to help me get that job after college. Since I was desperate to move forward with my career, I made the changes that they suggested. Remove the cat. Remove the “life coach”, “lifelong learner”, and “cat enjoyer” from your description. They’re irrelevant to employers. Make it so the stats on the front are either removed or moved to the bottom. And…

Well, it lost lots of it’s charm. I was super bummed about making these changes, as I felt like lots of those small things really helped show what I was made of. I’m not even done there. I was told to have a specialization in something as well. This makes sense — the only problem is that with me being new to graphic design, I don’t have enough actual client projects in a specific area that will make things appealing. It especially doesn’t help that I was spending the first two years in a community college not knowing what I was doing with myself.

Again, I am not putting down the people who gave me the feedback, but I’m finding that the level of strictness when it comes to finding a job can be incredibly frustrating. I feel as if I’m going through some sort of extremely picky selection process and I have to be within the top 5% of graphic designers to land a job.

I wonder why it’s so difficult to get a job such as this, despite the education..? Was it always like this? Not to mention, if I do need to find a labor job after college, won’t employers think I’m overqualified for the job? What do I do then?

Regardless of whatever is going on in the job market right now, something that I am certain about is that I want to continue making those small steps towards what I want. I keep getting asked by peers something along the lines of “what are you gonna do after college?” I wish I had an answer. I don’t know. I don’t think that where I’m at is wrong; it’s just human. It took me longer than some other people to place a large focus on something, but I don’t want to compare myself to where others are at right now.

Feel free to share your stories regarding job searching as well! If you were able to jump the hurdle, what did you do to make things work? If you’re an employer, feel free to share your thoughts as well!