the brand - you.

Nowadays it feels like I've gotta trade in 'Charlene Bello' harder than I had to trade in Pokemon cards! (and that was a difficult hustle at such a tender age).

I've spent every waking moment reading graduate programme descriptions, and job descriptions and post-grad course descriptions! anymore descriptions people want to throw at me put them in the comments I'm sure to read them! I mean all of that isn't really a problem, the act of reading has become second nature to me - I take a humanities course, there's no practical, just reading, and some more. The problem is that after all that reading takes place... just as I feel "yeh, that really spoke to me, this is want I want to do in life" I've gotta apply for it. Now I'm not saying I'm expecting them to find me, although, y'kno it wouldn't kill them to do a bit of the chasing now and again, I'm just saying the application process is so long and it doesn't begin or end with each individual application. You have to check your digital dirt, sweep it all up and febreze the place with as many martyr heroes and Churchill quotes you can think of. Suddenly you've begun trying to tone down the wild child image you've spent 21-odd years trying to create  because you think it offsets the I-like-to-read nerd in you beautifully. Or you've gone from being the laid-back-but-still-smart student whose idea of a good time is a chinwag with mates on a couch watching some dying reality TV show whilst sipping on Earl Grey to Captain America climbing mountains, playing more sports that the IOC recognise and speaking more languages than UNESCO are aware of. You're idea of fun is a theory based discussion on the morals and evils of the fundamental philosophies behind the OCCUPY movement, rather than to sum it up as you normally would.. "a Duke Of Edinburgh expedition that got a bit lost."

And there's a one degree lee-way. That's it.swing too far social or too far studious and you're bound to find yourself in the barren lands of youth unemployment [now at a record high, thank you to all those who voted Tory or Lib Dem]

You're CV has always looked good, star pupil from nursery to uni.
No one can fault you.
But then suddenly you spend an hour running through all the fonts Microsoft Office have to offer because Times New Roman just won't do.
It's not enough to set you apart from everyone else.
You now need something that says I'm as reliable and as serious as Times New Roman, but fun and creative enough to not BE Times New Roman, because Times New Roman is the Average Joe, and this Joe is far from average.

And then you have companies who ask you to describe yourself, but they ask it in the dumbest of ways. Remember at school, your teacher would say "pick 3 words to describe you and give your reason" simple enough, we'd all choose the same so that we'd all like each other and sneer at the person who dared to be different. They wouldn't say they were chatty, they would claim they prefered playing with the insects in their garden or something. But now, NOW they ask you "if you were a brand how would you describe that brand?" we've gone from elevator pitching new products to elevator pitching ourselves as if we were products. It's tiring work.