Back to the Drawing Board Accelerated Learning Resources

Back to the Drawing Board

After weeks of anticipation, I finally heard back from the most recent company I had interviewed with. The position was for a corporate trainee program, with five spots to be filled from a candidate pool “in the hundreds.” My hopes were not that high, until bad news from other companies began to fill my inbox, and I thought that surely some good news had to be coming my way. When I read that the company would like to thank me for my interest in their program, but that they’d be continuing their search with a small number of other candidates, I was certainly not too thrilled with their decision, but I’ve become accustomed to such emails. All of the roles I’ve applied for have been highly sought-after, with competitive candidates, and I’m lucky to have gotten as far as I did in many instances.

I’ve had a fair amount of interviews, considerably more than many of my peers but not as many as I had in mind. With limited opportunities in sales & trading and banking up the pipeline, I began to broaden my horizons drastically and I’ve applied to roles that aren’t exactly what I had initially looked for but ones that may put me in the right direction toward my ultimate career goal. After a lot of work in the past few months and some great leads, for now, I’ve come up flat, and I’m headed back to the drawing board.

A lot of options are crossing my mind: Should I consider taking any kind of position and pursue my M.B.A. simultaneously? Should I volunteer abroad? Should I travel? Should I pursue some of my own ideas, and possibly start my own business? Or should I just continue doing what I’ve been doing, networking and filling out online application after online application, and cross my fingers? I’m not sure, and it’s a lot to take in, especially when I will be graduating in a month and a half from now.

More opportunities are to be had through my university’s career services office, but my only gripe with that is the companies that recruit from Stetson are typically in or around Florida, and I’d very much like to be back in the New York City area. I’m not giving up on my job search just yet, but my expectations are changing by the day, so who knows, maybe I will end up staying in Florida.

What comforts me in my situation is that I can only name one other student in my finance program who has a for-sure set of plans after graduation. Everyone else has been interviewing with about as much luck as Ive had, and I really am lucky to have gotten some of the interviews I had to begin with.

I’m now caught in the dilemma of whether I should sell myself short to pay the bills, or take a big chance and pursue an alternative dream. I will consider all options, and leave nothing off the table. These are big decisions to make.

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