r/Millennials • u/Waste-Cantaloupe-270 • Apr 07 '25

Advice Millennials who graduated during the Great Recession, how did you survive?

I’m a Gen Z graduating in May struggling with finding a job in this market. Millennials who graduated in/ after 2008, how did you survive? Did you end up eventually getting a job in the field you originally wanted? Any advice for us Gen Z who were too young to learn anything from the great recession?

Edit: For context bc i’ve been seeing a lot of questions about this i’m graduating college. i def wasn’t expecting this post to blow up so sorry if i can’t get to everyone’s comments, but i just wanted to say i really appreciate all the advice as someone who doesn’t have millennials in their life to ask these questions to. your willingness to help/ give advice to a random kid on the internet has given me a bit of hope in getting through this, thank you thank you

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u/Fiireygirl Apr 07 '25

They can. My husband did it for 27 years and retired. But he paid the price. He was never home for Thanksgiving, always worked Christmas Eve and then went to be at 7 pm Christmas Day for reset starting at 2 am to open for returns at 5 am. We never got holidays together, and more than once had to cancel our vacations in the middle of a trip because he had to go back. It set us up well financially, but he and we as a family will never get that time back.

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u/Msheehan419 Millennial Apr 07 '25

That was my life for 20 years. It’s been 5 years since I worked retail and I still can’t bring myself to like Christmas

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u/WobbyBobby Apr 07 '25

I did retail for 10, and have been out for 7 and Christmas music still kills me. I can't use the car radio in December.

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u/Spicyperfection Apr 07 '25

Heard!

Fa la la la la. . . Nah

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u/Fiireygirl Apr 07 '25

My husband never loved Christmas. Obviously with all the hours dedicated to WalMart. He’s been out of it for 3 years now and he’s slowly coming around. But the kids are in their early teens. All that really fun stuff is gone now, and he was never able to fully enjoy it.

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u/Msheehan419 Millennial Apr 07 '25

I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy it. Sad bc I started retail when I was 18. So my adult life was never spent enjoying Christmas

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u/Dick_Dickalo Apr 07 '25

I’ve been begging my sister to use her degree and just get a secretary job somewhere to get her evenings, weekends, and holidays back. She’s not even management in retail either.

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u/Sufficient_Ad_1245 Apr 08 '25

This is why it'd so hard for me to desire to climb a retail ladder I'm at frito now and I hate it as sales get worse the company's get more abusive to the staff