If I only knew...(it wouldn't make a difference)

Here are some things that no-one told me when I left university (but probably should have done).
 

"You will be applying for jobs for at least the next six months. 95% of these will never get back to you. You will be checking your emails every half an hour for at least a month after the deadline to see if they do before you finally accept this.

4.5% of these will straight up reject you. You will think this feels better than not knowing, but it won't.

0.45 of these will offer you a glimpse of hope - maybe by asking for more information or getting you to complete a test. This will be a ray of sunshine and you will think that finally, FINALLY, something is happening. Then you will never hear from them again.

0.05% of these will invite you to an interview. You will prepare for this every moment of every day until it starts. You will practice answers. You will think about how you are going to sit and where you are going to look. People are going to give you advice that you are unsure of. You will consider every possible thing they could ask you, and any follow up questions they could get from your answers. And when you get there they will ask you something completely different, something that you hadn't planned for and have no idea how to answer and you will try to give the best possible response you can and they will think you haven't prepared. And after a couple of days of solidly reviewing that 20 minute session in your head they will reject you. And you will be back to square one.

You will have to write a CV. You will not know how to write a CV. You will have to change this CV every time you apply for a different type of job. You will have to write cover letters. You will never know what the best thing to put in these is.

Most of the next few months will be spent in uncertainty. You will never know exactly which jobs to apply for. You will never know if you actually are qualified or experienced enough to do them. You will never know if they're not hiring you because you're not able to do the job or if you're just not showing the right things in your applications. You will never know exactly what each one is looking for.

You will try desparately to do something new, something different, just to put on your CV. You will never know if this helps.

You will have considered the fact that unemployment is going through the roof. That there are fewer and fewer jobs available and that you are looking at things in a highly competitive area. It will still surprise you how difficult it is to find anything.

You will not know if you are applying for the right things. Somewhere along the line you will realise that you have no idea exactly what it is you want to do. You will apply for some strange jobs that you hope you never hear back from. Sometimes you will just want anything even vaguely related to what you like doing. Sometimes you will be picky and only look at jobs you are sure will be good, even though you will be massively inexperienced/underqualified to do them.

You will be tired. All the time. You will be tired of living at home. You will be tired of never doing anything. You will be tired of applications. You will be tired of jobsites. You will be tired of CVs. You will be tired of answering stupid questions without knowing what the answer is.

It will be monstrously depressing and unbearably boring, without stop, for months.
And you will not know if you are ever going to get anywhere.

You will, however, know one thing.

You won't want to go back to university."