I’ve been having a personal crisis with this for some time now. I’m 28 and I’ve been working as an account executive across a few advertising agencies since 2014 after I graduated college with a degree in journalism and specialization in advertising. I felt a career in writing was something I could excel at, and advertising was a structured way to make money doing it, something drilled into me as “the most important outcome” of college over and over. I’ve since gained class consciousness and become a Marxist and I want to spend my working life enriching the lives of others, protecting the environment, actually using skills to create something interesting, and not contribute to the everyday alienation and exploitation of modern life. I hate myself for doing what I do every day, but almost every other job that isn’t a hard science job or some skill-specific job would still just be a parasitic capitalist job it feels like.

For the last like year and a half (even before Covid happened), I’ve been applying to jobs in the public sector, environmental groups, non-profits, and others with absolutely no luck. Not even an interview. While there’s a ton of critical thinking, problem solving, managing under a ton of stress, etc, writing, strategy, creativity that goes into my job every day, as well as having designed Wix websites and done some UX work, even learned some Python programming and the violin, I have a lot of work experience that seems like it only translates to other advertising agencies. I don’t have hard skills to a degree that anyone would hire me for, and having just gotten married and with a lot of expenses, I can’t support myself and my partner on a minimum wage in my area. I don’t think any company would even take me as an intern. I want to do good but idk how to support us financially doing that, especially when I can’t even get an interview after a year and a half of trying. Idk, if anyone has any advice I’d love to hear it. It’s fucking depressing. I’m so tired of trying to develop side skills and side hustles just to try and transition into god knows what other kind of industry when all those jobs already have tons of candidates with the exact skills those companies are looking for. It also feels like shit bitching about a job where I’m making okay money right now, I know I’m really fortunate for that. Idk what to do