The Struggles and Benefits of Finding Work In The DMV As A Gen-Z’er

So a lot of you may not know this about me. I’m a twenty-three-year-old grad student working on and off odd jobs and other small gigs to pay my rent, pay down my student loans, pay for student film projects and get my own place.

Before I get into my job-seeking tragedies and triumphs, let me tell you a little bit of background about myself. I’m Richard Schertzer and I was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Maryland for most of my life. There was a time in my life where I wanted to be an archaeologist, rock star, and famous actor rolled up into one, but after the childhood games ended, I went to college at Manhattanville in Purchase, New York for four years and soon after I graduated, I was faced with the dilemma of trying to find work outside of my college life. To delay paying student loans, I decided to get my MFA at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

For the record, going to college or grad school, especially if it’s Howard University, can have some great benefits. For example, if you’re at school and they have an event that can benefit your career in the long run, take it and make sure you take full advantage of it. Being out in the “real world” by yourself makes it harder to find such opportunities, especially if you find it hard to make connections with other people in your field of interest. That’s why college and grad school are times in a person’s life that should not be taken lightly.

However, there are things that college and grad school don’t help with. For starters, colleges can only help their students find connections when they have those connections. If they don’t, that student has to find it for themselves. With that being said, I have spent many nights and a lot of time applying to jobs on Indeed and StaffMeUp with only minimal success, but the key is to keep working and keep trying because what you are doing is that you play the chance of life and eventually you find work in something and you use that as a stepping stone for what you want to do with your life, add it to your resume and get more reputable with the more jobs that you have under your belt.

Finding work in your field seems pretty hard and it is, but you can make it easier on yourself when you surround yourself with like-minded people that are in the same industry as you. You have to make friends with those that you admire and want to be like, thus giving you more connections for finding work.

I remember I was writing and casting a short film for Howard University, which was eventually canceled because of COVID-19, and I hired this girl to be the lead actress for my short. During the lockdown of 2020, I caught up with this young lady and I found out that she worked for a few media outlets and had a friend that was in the video journalism business. She hooked me up with his number and that’s how I got my internship with ‘The Daily Caller’.

However, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s all been easy for me. There was a long period of time after college that I was without work and needed to find some kind of outlet for my skills. I was applying for jobs and I felt like I was getting nowhere but I knew that there was something better for me and I know that it sounds cheesy and cliche but that’s the attitude that you need to have when looking for work in the DMV area or any area for that matter. It’s all about building rapport with employers and seeing yourself as a high-value commodity that is indispensable.

So after reading this, how confident are you in finding work now? You tell me.