Location and jobs

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What do you do with a BA in English? I live in Southwest Oklahoma and am currently unemployed. I did a job search through our local employment agency, which gives all posted job listings in my area. There were 724 of them. I felt the need to categorize them and made a list of the top 20 from most advertised for to least:

1. Nursing 2. Mental health professionals and specialists 3. Truck drivers 4. Retail management 5. Equipment maintenance and repair 6. IT Technician 7. Dental 8. Customer service and sales associates 9. Military 10. Restaurant or fast food staff 11. Delivery drivers 12. Babysitters 13. Life guards and pool staff 14. Business and accounting 15. Customer service call center 16. Construction and roofing 17. Custodial 18. Manufacturing 19. Bus drivers 20. Math teacher/tutor

Those bottom 10 only had 2 to 7 job openings each listed, so most of what was available would fall under the upper half, and then there were several other positions, which I would classify separately, with only 1 or 2 listings each. So you get an idea of what is or isn't available where I am now.

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English-Creative Writing, so I can't even teach at the moment, but I'm slowly going through the process of becoming a teacher but wouldn't be able to start teaching until next summer anyway, so I need some other form of work in the mean time. My minor was psychology, and I had a little bit of study in religion, theatre, and journalism. I feel now like I should have pursued nursing or even psych instead, but I didn't want to. I wanted to write.

I'm a writer, poet, and singer and songwriter. I also own and operate my own small publishing company, through which I have now published three books. I've worked previously for two regional literary journals, a blog, and a local magazine, and I still do some freelance journalism. I just now started my own literary magazine, so I'm working on that now also. And I've made absolutely no money from any of that. It was all internship or volunteer work or self-employment, and I've actually lost money on my own investments.

I also know German and ancient Greek and am trying to learn Hebrew to help further my personal Biblical studies. I've worked as a substitute teacher, but I've now been "laid off" from doing even that, and I'm not rehirable for that position here because they're cutting back on substitutes in order to make budget cuts without having to cut other school programs. I also have a liquor license and a food handler's license, but I've honestly never used either, and don't really want to work in a kitchen or a bar.

So the education, experience, knowledge, and skills that I do have don't match the education, experience, skills, and training that I would need to have for most of the jobs that are available where I live, with the exceptions of some minimum wage, entry-level work, which is what I was doing before since graduating college. Now I'm reapplying to those same types of jobs but still haven't gotten another offer yet.

My last two, and only two "real" jobs, I was only able to hold down for 3 days and 6 months, respectively, the first being as a "busser" in a restaurant and the second as a cashier and then later stocker in a store. Neither were full time nor paid more than minimum wage, so I've been trying to find something better, but it doesn't seem like there is anything.

I'm starting to think one of my best options would be relocating, and I'm wondering if anybody knows if there is somewhere in the United States with a better job market where someone like me would be more likely to find work.

Unless you are lucky enough to get a teaching job, there aren't really a whole lot of jobs that use a degree in English. There are a lot of similar degrees out there where there are far more degrees awarded than there are jobs that utilize those degrees.

One old friend of mine has a BA in English, but is now a singer-songwriter -- Robert Earl Keen Jr.

Flip burgers.

I posted a similiar question some time ago in somebody else's thread when I was encountering these same type of problems, and someone made that same joke, except it was, "Do you want fries with that?" Unfortunately, I'm finding that to be true, and yes, I've already applied at McDonald's, but after my previous work experiences, I'm now more weary of working in food or retail, so I'm applying less for those and more for anything else. However, I'm finding I simply don't meet the criteria, or there are likely more applicants who are better qualified (or at least, that's something I've been told), so I keep getting turned down. Both previous job hunts took about 3 months before I found either job, and now it is slowly approaching a month and a half since I had my last job, so I'm hoping to find something very soon.

My best prospects right now, other than trying to become a teacher, are with teacher assistanceships, tutoring, and an adjuct professor position, all at the collegiate level, but I barely meet the minimum requirements for those, and that type of thing is generally awarded to those pursuing a Master's or who already have one, and I can't afford returning to higher education right now. I already had some graduate studies, but it didn't work out, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to land any of those jobs, but I'm applying for them anyway. The other problems with that are that mostly, I wouldn't be able to start teaching or tutoring and so on until the spring semester, and also, most of them were in other towns or cities in the region, so I would still need to either commute or relocate. Also, the income would be equal to or less than what I would be making doing part-time, minimum wage, so I would still need to have two or more jobs.

Just to clarify something, I don't have Asperger's as it turns out, but I probably would have been diagnosed as PDD-NOS when I was young, if I had ever been properly diagnosed, but it's hard to say now because all my signs and symptoms have decreased, I'm very high functioning, and I'm fairly well-adapted. So those things aren't really issues for me, with the exception that I still have significant enough sensory-motor issues and physical limitations that would prevent me from safely and adequately operating large motor vehicles such as trucks or a bus, or using heavy machinery, or performing hard, manual labor or heavy lifting. That excludes many of the jobs that are available in my physical area. I also used to have social skill and social anxiety problems, but I've gotten much better about that. For over a year now, I've been going to "open mic" nights, poetry readings, community events, and now I've got a fundraiser coming up, and reading stories or doing storytelling, reciting poetry, or most recently, peforming songs. I've never been paid for any of that either, but it has greatly helped me develop greater confidence and self-esteem and better handle my awful "stage fright," so I can entertain a crowd as another option, but put me in a crowd of people, having to talk to and interact with multiple people, and I'm still overwhelmed. The combination of crowding, loud noise, and a fast pace are why I can't work in a bar or busy kitchen.

But other than those things, I'm fine with almost anything. I've even considered going into modeling and acting, though I'm not sure I have what it takes for either, since people tell me I'm very attractive but I don't see it, and I used to be bullied most of my life and still have some emotional scars from that.

I would be very grateful if anyone could come up with some ideas or suggestions.

Have you tried online tutoring? There are several companies that hire college graduates: tutor.com, smartthinking.com, etc. You will be even more hireable if you can tutor some level of math or science.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out.

But okay, here's probably a better question. How does one search for jobs outside of ones immediate area? As in, say I want to find work actually relevant to the education, skills, and experience I possess: editing, reading, writing, reviewing, critiquing, proofreading, interviewing, reporting, tutoring, and teaching, but I want to search all over the United States? I've decided I am ready and willing to move for a job, or even just to get away from where I am now, but I need to find temp work in the meantime to save up toward being able to do that, and I want to have something waiting for me when I do move, and a place lined up to stay at until I can get out there on my own, so I'm not risking being poor, jobless, homeless, and stuck in a strange city.

You have to pick a city you want to move to and then look for jobs there. You can use websites like Monster to browse the whole county, but it's going to be tough to process so many jobs.

Okay, thanks. This is what I have been doing now.

Sorry to bump this thread, but I'm still searching for work and am a little frustrated, so I felt like giving an update/rant.

Tonight will be my last chance to register and pay for teacher certification, since I still haven't done it, and I've finally run out of money, so I will need to beg my family and friends for assistance, one way or another, until I can get back on my feet and try to pay them back over time. I'm getting nervous, debating whether I should even try to teach or not, since there's no guarantee that I'll pass the tests involved or the background check and review board, nor that I will be able to find a job teaching. I've been looking online and calling around, and so far, it seems there is a high demand for science and math teachers and tutors, but not for English. So if I do go down this route, it still looks like I will need to move to somewhere else. In the meantime, I'll still need work doing something else until then.

There have so far been only a few job opportunities I've come across, other than retail or fast food, but I didn't meet the preferred or required qualifications for any of them. Two actually required an English degree or similar and my experience and skills, but one also required Top Secret clearance from the government (which I can't obtain for personal reasons), and the other required knowing Arabic. The other two jobs I was looking at were a nanny position for two girls, which I guess probably seemed inappropriate because I'm a young man, and a seasonal job that would last from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, where I would be required to work each of the holidays, but I would make nearly twice what I did at my old job, but my application got turned down today.

So now I've temporarily run out of most options, and I'm tempted to give up and start re-applying to places like Wal-Mart and McDonald's.