Hehehe, unemployed again

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This post was last edited by Little Worker on 2016-10-27 20:04. Hehehe, I’m unemployed again. I graduated with a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Tianjin University 13 years ago. I started working through a campus recruitment process at the design institute of a state-owned enterprise. A year later, due to poor financial performance of the company, we mutually agreed to terminate my contract. As I wasn’t a recent graduate and had no work experience, I faced many difficulties in finding a job. Later, I joined a branch of another large company, but as soon as I started working there, the company had almost no projects available. Now I’m unemployed again. Over the past three years, I’ve actually had very little experience; most of what I know is something I’ve learned on my own*. It’s frustrating to end up in such a situation. Lately I’ve been considering becoming a civil servant, someone I used to despise the most; I never understood what real value there was in stability until I went through all those challenges after graduation. Who says state-owned enterprises are stable? If central state-owned enterprises are cutting jobs, what about state-owned enterprises? Most of those master’s graduates from prestigious universities who joined the company together during the campus recruitment ended up changing careers or working for smaller companies, alas. PS: I received five interview calls today. There’s a small company in Nanjing, a factory in Changzhou looking for designers, a design firm in Hangzhou that offers low salaries, and a joint-venture environmental protection company in Shanghai. I told them right away that I’m not qualified for desulfurization or denitrification tasks, but they said it was okay. I checked that company and found it to be quite capable. There’s also a small design firm in Wuxi; it’s likely one of those fake firms. I don’t have a particular favorite. I like the one in Shanghai, but I really don’t like the city of Shanghai itself. And my partner is in Nanjing. When it comes to mentorship and company projects, I had a similar tragic experience as well. In my first company, which was legitimate and had a system of mentors guiding apprentices, my mentor had only graduated a few years earlier and was mentoring for the first time; he hardly taught me anything, and there were no projects available, so I couldn’t learn anything even if I wanted to. The other mentors there all had decades of experience. For the second company, I specifically asked if there were any projects available; indeed, there were many at that time, and I had to work overtime every day. But in less than three months, there were suddenly no projects left, and for almost a year, I had nothing to do. PS: I went back to Shanghai for interviews today. The first company was a petrochemical design institute. Judging from its qualifications and capabilities, it seems not as strong as my first company, but it’s still quite good. With my background, I can’t be too picky. There weren’t any major issues during the technical interview, except for the lack of experience. But I really hate in-person interviews. I mentioned that I have little experience, but the recruiter implied that my experience is similar to that of a fresh graduate. Of course, I objected to that, and she said that if a fresh graduate has projects to work on, they can quickly reach my current level. In short, she kept emphasizing that my three years of experience are essentially equivalent to those of a fresh graduate. I just laughed; although I don’t have any projects to work on, I keep learning, right? Success comes from consistent effort over time – it’s not something you can achieve just by having projects to work on. Many newcomers work on many projects yet still don’t understand many basic things. I emphasized again that my work experience is equivalent to two years of actual project work. I’m not sure if she’s trying to classify me as a fresh graduate in order to lower my salary. In the afternoon, it was a joint venture in the environmental protection sector; they performed well. There shouldn’t be any issues with their technology or workforce. I just didn’t ask for a lower salary