Brother can you spare a job?

This is a bit of a derail, but there is one skill that would open a million new opportunities for you (job and otherwise), can be done probably done over the space of a few months, and probably cost less than three credit hours at a local university. Learn to drive. Seriously. It won't get any easier as you get older. Even if you stay in Manhattan, driving is one of those skills that most grown-ups should have. I have worked with half a dozen professionals in NYC who couldn't drive, and found them selves in sticky predicaments because of it when traveling outside of NYC or the 4-5 other US cities with decent public transportation. I have a friend living in Jersey City who was able to get an AMAZING job about an hours drive outside the city in NJ. But there is no public transportation there, and three months into this she is in a major crisis as her carpool arrangement fell through, and she's trying to learn to drive under pressure. She's thinking about quitting. Seriously, learn to drive.

Find 10 business with 20 people or less that you would like to work at. On a Monday, contact the CEO by email, and promise in the email you will phone to follow-up in a couple of days. On Wednesday morning, phone the direct line between 7:30AM and 8:30AM. Don't leave a message. Try again at the end of the day, at 4PM; leave a message at this time if no one picks up, saying who you are, what you want etc. It needs to be 10 seconds max. Finally, promise to phone again at the end of the week. Start with a new list of 10 each week. Research the list on Thursdays and Fridays. Send the intial emails out on Mondays. Spend Monday afternoon researching people you want to just chat with to learn more about the industry. Email these people (people you want to network with) on Tuesdays, using the same technique as the CEOs you actually think you want to work for. Promise in your emails to followup on Thursdays. Ask potential networking contacts for the intros to 2 people. I know it sounds a little weird, but there is a definite process to getting in touch with people, and securing interviews. You need to start early in the week with the process, in hopes of nailing down something (plans for a meeting) by Friday. But forget Craigslist and other job boards. What a fucking waste of time - you'll just end up dealing with HR managers and other gatekeepers.

"I am really interested in fashion pr or fashion marketing" I suspected as much before I got to this line. A lot of these positions do not pay and much of the industry is predicated on not-paying jobs for interns, etc. In creative and/or glamour industries, there are SO many people willing to do the work that they can "hire" plenty of people who will work for free. Also, everyone I know who is PAID to work in fashion marketing or PR works in California. (I went to college in the Midwest, and the people I know in fashion are either from the East Coast or Midwest.) Most of them came into the industry sideways from other industries (often web-related, often as part of a wave of web hiring in the mid-90s). I don't mean to be discouraging but fashion is a kind-of rotten field, and it really helps to have connections first, and you say you have no network. Are you only looking at high-end couture or are you also looking at departments stores and mass market? I mean, Target does as much fashion marketing as any company in the country. (They're after a https://target.taleo.net/careersection/tgt_hq/jobdetail.ftl and I'm sure Target actually is serious about people having experience because they are so huge ... but my point is that the job is in Minneapolis, not NYC.) My friends who went into fashion via fashion (rather than coming in through web design or something) mostly went through regional department stores or smaller mall-type brands and proved they could do the work before moving into something trendier. It's a good route in for people without existing connections. I am sure there are plenty of regional places in and around NYC with marketing and PR departments. Another direction to go is to seek marketing and PR experience in non-fashion-related industries. I'm not sure it's all that possible to move into fashion from, oh, large machinery, but if what you love is the marketing and PR, you may be surprised how much you enjoy marketing telehandlers to construction companies. (And a reasonable career trajectory would be large machinery --> national department store --> fashion boutiquey thing.) If you apartment-hunt carefully, you can actually live in any city whose downtown was built before WWII without a car, while you learn to drive. Where is your college's career services in all of this? (On preview, Kruger5 has good advice.)

I didn't read what you said because i'm busy, but here is my two cents. Make your resume gorgeous if it's not already. Get as much help as possible. Then take that resume and tactfully use it to populate your linkedin. Make your linkedin gorgeous. Instead of trolling just craigslist and sending your resume into the black-hole of HR, start sending a fuck-ton of messages. Send it to HR, people at firms, to everyone. You need to be somewhat careful you don't overly annoy too many people at a firm. But use linkedin as your own personal whore, and you are the pimp. You want to make as much money as possible. Whore it out as much as possible, join groups, message people. Use linkedin lists to find listings of 30+ firms. Email every. single. firm. Tell them even if they don't have a job available now you would love to speak or meet with them to form a relationship. They didn't respond? Email them again in a week as a reminder. Do this for 2-4 hours a day. Take breaks when you are exhausted. Don't expect more than 1/15 emails or messages to get a response. When you get the opportunity to talk on the phone or meet with someone you must ROCK it. Then ask them for 5 more people to get in contact with. It doesn't matter if any of these places have posted careers. Call them, email them, and ask to speak with them anyway. Create as many relationships as possible. You must destroy all anxiety and stop giving a fuck what some random firm thinks of you. This is what I have been working on for 5+ months now since I graduated. I keep getting better. I still only have an internship and no full offers. But I have so many people I know now that are all cheering me on, have made so many networks and relationships, and have found a handful of successful people who help me every week. Don't give up. I get so depressed sometimes too. Sometimes I stop for two weeks because I can't handle the pain of feeling like I'm going no where. But then I start at it again. Don't give up.

Your "field of dreams" job is the left-most lane in a 4-lane highway. Your objective should get successively closer to the 4th lane - not jump over. Each job is a potential lane change closer. Tactically: - reduce your competiton: apply for jobs that you think are not worthy of your degree but shoulder your major. Land a job. Secondly - send your resume to smaller companies (who cares if they're not advertising an open position, email whomever you research is your would-be-boss). You're reducing competiton, and they usually don't have such strict HR managers (if any at all). If would suggest shoot with your Marketing background, every company (to some degree) needs marketing-related efforts. They usually can't afford the more experienced folks. Finally, shoot for companies that might be disadvantaged in some way (recent immigrant-owned companies (American English challenges), startups, not-so-glamorous facilities.

You should also try the opposite - apply for non-marketing and non-PR jobs at exactly those types of firms - think receptionist, administrative assistant, etc. While you may feel those jobs are beneath you, the reality is that they are the new "entry level" for college grads these days. Seconding this - these are the jobs you need to be targeting. I started working many years ago and started exactly at that level (which used to be the expectation for me and my peers - I guess internships have replaced being an assistant?) Temp agencies are exactly where you want to go. Call them once a week. Maybe call them everyday - I've heard that might work. Start at any company that has a marketing or PR department (that's pretty much any company). Eventually you can move into fashion PR if you still want to do it, but I think everyone else is correct that that particular field is going to be very competitive - way better to be pushing for those jobs from a position of full time employment and some experience. I don't know anyone who works in marketing or pr AND has any say in hiring decisions (they just got hired), so I don't see how I could network. I do not have a network. That's your network (along with your annoying family member). Your network doesn't have to be in a postion to hire you, your network is just a place to start to find the person who can hire you. Ask your friends how they got their jobs. Ask for advice, tips, office gossip... you're after information. If they are super nice they might refer you to someone you don't know now who has additional advice. And you keep going and talking to everyone until someone random hears about a job in the office and remembers you are looking. It's like a six-degrees of separation thing, not a "direct connection to the CEO" thing. (and, as an aside, just ignore your family member's editorial advice and continue to let her send your resume out. Let ANYONE send your resume out - a personal referral is like gold right now) YMMV because it's a different time now... I read "what color is your parachute" right after college graduation - which led me to successfully land my first job in a sexy industry through an alumni connection from my undergrad. I also cold called a pretty big designer and took him out for coffee and an info interview my first month in NYC. People I knew were a little shocked that worked - but you'll be amazed what persistence can do. Just be charming and interesting enough to make it worth their while.

If you haven't called a temp agency, you haven't tried everything. Call them. All of them. I'm 35 and every single job I've ever gotten has started through an employment agency. Even if you're offered temporary work outside your field, it can turn into something permanent that you may end up enjoying, and at the very least put some money in your pocket and get you some experience. I've gotten jobs through established national agencies and small local ones. I read your concerns with regard to agencies and they sound like excuses. Who cares if particular companies and offices have "mixed reviews"? Each office has more than one recruiter and some of them are good and some are bad. Just get your resume out there, to as many of them as possible. The worst that will come out of it is that you won't get a response, and since that's the status quo - well, you don't have anything to lose.

1) There are many many extremely qualified and experienced folks out there that have been unemployed for some time. If they haven't had luck w/temp agencies then what chance do I possibly have? Don't reject yourself. There are plenty of people out there who don't have a job for you, but if you keep doing their work for them you won't ever meet the ones who do have a job for you. jjmoney has given good advice. I just gave my "informational interviewing" speech in http://ask.metafilter.com/207151/How-do-I-find-a-job#2985716. Good luck. You can do it.

I will add that you should be thinking of "networking" not as a once-off chore to get this job, but rather as a permanent project of enmeshing yourself as deeply as possible in a web of professional contacts and culture. It might feel weird to start from zero, but your goal should be for it to get to the point of being as natural as breathing. I mean, I have colleagues in both private and public sector jobs who I can call when I have a "how does this work?" question, and they do the same with me. We trade favors all the time, as well as hang out and drink beer at conferences. And if one of them called me and said "hey, I just met with lovelygirl and I'm sending over her resume, you should consider her for that open position you have," you can bet I would listen, and vice versa. But what I've seen people in your position often do is to not treat it as a two-way street, not follow up, and drop out of contact after maybe one "informational interview." Well, do you really think I'm going to pass around your resume or recommend you to someone I know if you don't seem to have the courtesy or seriousness to stay in contact or even say thanks? I see a lot of people looking for a job, but not a lot of people who seem serious about embedding themselves within a professional culture. Lastly, before you start working these really extended and cold-call style contacts, make sure you are doing the easy stuff, like working the ass off your school's alumni population. Those people may not be in PR, but they might be hiring or know someone who is, and as a fellow alum you have a foot in the door in a way that a stranger never will.