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Bradleigh
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Joined: 25 May 2008
Age: 33
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 6,669
Location: Brisbane, Australia

23 Jul 2019, 10:43 pm

I am not sure if I am expecting any replies, but I just feel like I need to rant.
For basic information you can see my side information, a 28 year old in Australia. I mostly only really talk on this site for video games or movies, but my frustration has just been building from problems finding work. Here in Australia I don't have to worry about having absolutely no money, with my Asperger's diagnosis and being able to prove I am looking for work, having a disability agency helping me find work, I get a pension. But despite that it has really been taking a toll that I feel like some leech on the system, because it feels like I am never going to get a proper job.

To clarify, I am not a never done anything kind of guy. I have a Bachelor of Business with a major in Accounting, on top of certificate IV in Financial Services, and Advanced Diploma in Accounting. I would have thought getting these things would have guaranteed that I would find a job, any job that did not fit into something like retail that would do a number on my anxiety. I am good at numbers, and not the manual labour kind I think that I would be perfectly happy in an office, I don't even have a problem with how people say that being stuck in front of a computer would hurt your morale. But I have been right out of luck, nothing came after I did my Advanced diploma and put resumes in, and the silence has felt deafening after I went back to Uni to finish my Bachelor. It was kind of decided while studying that I would just focus on that, helping from some anxiety, but disappointment afterwards has not been easy.

I did manage to do some things, doing a data entry as a voluntary position in an organization that specialized in working with disabilities like Cerebral Palsy, during which I also found a part time job as an assistant bookkeeper, so I did them both at the same time. But my bookkeeper boss ran out of work she would need me to do over focusing on herself, understandable because she had kids, and the excess could go to a friend she had that also had kids, this happening at the end of last year. And only a couple months into the company I volunteered at said they no longer needed me, so I have been doing nothing but looking for work for pretty much this whole year. My agency guys seemed to find some work for me, a part time job as a business's sole bookkeeper, or pretty much its only office or admin role other than the boss. It could have been good, but their system was also a huge mess that would probably be way too stressful for me as I am to set up and run. And really it has been months since doing an interview and hearing pretty much nothing back.

I have put in hundreds of resumes, and it was pretty much feeling useless. I did kind of come across a comment to some frustration I put that I should focus less on volume, and focus more on quality. So I changed heading to focusing entirely on junior and also lower admin roles rather than finance positions, and going for quality cover letter writing where I throw away my template and write it directly to the job posting. But it is just so exhausting, having to get so emotionally invested to consider every application carefully, and write details of my experiences of my past work, how they are relevant, and even researching into those companies. Behold I actually got an interview just last week, got myself ready for it, the role was something that only required a certificate IV, so I should be overqualified, and I think that I kind of killed it in the interview by relating duties and showing my research. But then yesterday I got the call that I was not going onto the next line of interviews, apparently because I had less experience in credit. The position was called a Junior Finance Assistant, if there was anything that sounded like a maybe entry level position for me to make use of my finance certification, you would think it could be that. I have put up a brave face, and honestly I told myself that I should expect disappointment, but I just feel kind of broken right now.

So many positions I look into mention a need of experience, this includes bookkeeper roles, which I got under an assistant role earlier to an at home business. How am I meant to get experience? How am I meant to get an entry level position? Of course I have my social anxiety, so I really think that I should not enter into retail or the service industry. I am no good working with my hands for something like manual labour, and I am good with numbers so I should be able to work in an office, but there is like no pathway. I look at the agency I work with for finding me a job, and I know that they can find work for all the disability clients they have, but it feels like most disabled people must be looking for something they do with their hands, for a lack of better terms be simply jobs, and not something in an office. Feeling like the people they found are not really sure what they are doing either, looking for a simple and or cheap person.

I have thousands of dollars in government held debt that I can avoid paying until I earn something like $50,000, I need to be working towards an office job like in finance, bookkeeping and the such. It is not hurting me with my pension, but it is doing a number on psyche in feeling like a parasite that might never pay back what I owe the government. I can do the finance work, I can work in an office, I can be good at it, and I think that I could even do admin stuff. But there is no pathway. A question I got in the interview was if I have been doing anything since I left my last positions, but there is nothing I can do, no one is giving me an opportunity, it is all asking for people who are already experienced in the role, people who just left school, people who have become accredited accountants, people with "fantastic" communication skills, people with a full drivers licence and vehicle, and probably people who are not overqualified or so little work from over a decade of leaving high school.

I don't want to really try and go down for a volunteer job that goes nowhere, although I would take any internship. I don't want to rack up even more debt to become an accredited accountant without even finding a steady job, because you would think a Bachelor degree should be impressive enough. Focusing on getting drivers licence past my learners would probably be stressful enough that I would have to put this job searching method down a little, and complicated reasoning. How could I even justify buying a car from my savings if I have no job? And I have put off things for a normal adult like dating until I could proudly say that I have employment, so it feels like I am going to be stuck in this limbo forever as a guy just sitting in front of his computer.

What am I meant to do?


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kraftiekortie
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Joined: 4 Feb 2014
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Location: Queens, NYC

24 Jul 2019, 6:24 am

I would say becoming an “accredited accountant” (equivalent to a CPA accountant in the US) might prove useful.