I started applying for jobs in the first week of my senior year at Stanford University, assuming I would have something lined up by graduation, if not sooner. I was surrounded by friends entering finance and consulting, where recruiting begins early and offers are secured months, sometimes years, in advance.
While I wasn’t part of a traditional corporate pipeline, I had spent my college years building inroads in Silicon Valley, managing marketing for hot startups.
For nine months, I tracked every application in a spreadsheet. Over time, I simplified it, deleting the “Second Round Interview” column. I wasn’t even making it to the first round. Most of the time, there was no update at all.
By graduation in 2025, I still didn’t have a full-time job offer.
I had experience, but it didn’t seem to count
When I did hear back, it wasn’t for full-time roles; it was for internships. One came through an alumni referral. Another was in a field unrelated to my experience.
What made the situation more frustrating was how well-qualified —perhaps even overqualified — I felt.
I started doing marketing work at 15, helping local small businesses. In college, that work expanded into roles at tech companies, often taking up 30 to 40 hours a week alongside my classes. By graduation, I had seven years of experience.
As a sophomore, I switched from engineering to English and linguistics. Mastery of language and narrative made me a better marketer. But as a senior, I began to worry I might end up as the stereotypical unemployed English major.
I was a financial aid student who didn’t want to burden my parents after graduation. I found myself considering roles that would only prolong the search I was trying to finish.
The job market felt different from what I expected
At highly competitive universities like Stanford, most students spend every summer interning, expecting it to lead to full-time offers. I followed that path.
But when I started applying, the road seemed to lead to a cliff rather than the golden gates of adulthood.
In 2025, I wasn’t just competing with other graduates. I was up against candidates who had recently been laid off. Many of my target industries were slowing hiring or cutting roles entirely.
I started taking on whatever work I could find
With graduation approaching, I started saving whatever I could.
A professor of mine asked me to help run her book campaign. I told her I had never worked in publishing or in public relations, but I said yes anyway.
Around the same time, I began assisting a journalist through my school’s alumni network, editing her writing, pitching stories, and managing her newsletter.
Even in the midst of my own misery, I could see the difference my work made. It was exciting, even if it paid less than I was used to.
I turned that work into my own business
Three weeks before graduation, after being rejected from a minimum-wage internship I had gone through three rounds of interviews for, I created my own role: publicist and founder of Punctuation PR.
While finishing my thesis, I filed paperwork to start an LLC. I built a website. I told my parents that instead of staying unemployed in an uncertain economy, I was starting a marketing and publicity agency for writers. The return on my effort would be more within my control.
They were unexpectedly supportive. My mom told me she was proud — not just because I was creating a job for myself, but because I was building something that could one day create jobs for others.
The day after graduation, I drove from the Bay Area to Los Angeles and started working full-time from a barely unpacked apartment.
I turned my side projects into clients and cold emailed academics and authors. I wrote contracts, set up billing, and raised my rates.
Referrals came in. One project led to another.
It became my full-time income
For the first few months, I lived paycheck to paycheck. When I couldn’t pay off my credit card, I sold my clothes and furniture. I often worked more than 12 hours a day.
Within six months, I was earning more than the entry-level roles I had been applying for.
In early 2026, Punctuation PR became a six-figure business. I had worked with over a dozen clients, built relationships with publishers and media outlets, and helped my books reach hundreds of thousands of new readers.
What began as a stopgap became my full-time income.
It changed how I think about work
I used to believe that graduating — and similar milestones — followed a sort of ideal inertia: once success was in motion, it would naturally continue, uninterrupted.
In reality, life is a series of unbalanced forces. You change speed and direction. In 2026, the institutions that once felt stable now feel far less certain for many.
Starting a business is still one of the riskiest things a person can do. I hope to scale my company from six to seven figures in the coming years. There’s no guarantee that I will, but there’s also no guarantee that I won’t.
It’s up to me to decide.
Read the full article here
