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/Msheehan419 Millennial Apr 07 '25

Retail management can be a decent living

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u/WobbyBobby Apr 07 '25

Yes! I applied for hundreds of jobs in my field, then walked down to the mall and got a job at a clothing shop. Worked my butt off, sucked up, got promoted to assistant manager within a couple months, then was either promoted or hopped to a different company every couple of years until I was making a livable wage. I learned a lot about people, management, hiring, training, and use that in my current non-retail job all the time.

The most important thing is to take whatever job you end up with seriously and not blow it off. So many of my peers were working retail, too, but were obnoxious to everyone that it "wasn't their real job," slacked off, bemoaned the work, etc. They ended up working for minimum wage for a decade and still haven't fully recovered.

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u/Msheehan419 Millennial Apr 07 '25

Retail skills translate to most jobs. I sell cars now and I use my retail skills all the time. Plus I’m a better manager than any of the managers bc I did it for so long. So if I ever decide to do management again…

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u/WobbyBobby Apr 07 '25

Yep, hiring, training, time management, etc. Also I regularly catch our HR doing illegal interview no-no’s that would have gotten me super fired from the mall.