I completed my Masters degree in 2010 and gained non-graduate employment working in a jewellery shop. I felt demoralised and degraded at the time because I had two degrees in a job where none of them were required.

My dream was to gain well paid employment in marketing and for the first couple of months of working in jewellery I applied for loads of marketing roles. Like many graduates I was constantly faced with rejection emails, rejection letters and the most common of them all silent rejections. I constantly moped around the jewellery shop and ended up crying on a customer on the shop floor. I blamed illness and went home.

So I thought if I could not get paid work in marketing I should volunteer instead. Again I was constantly ignored and was told I would have to commit two weekdays per week. This was clearly impossible for me as I had paid employment on Tuesday to Saturday. This dented my confidence and made me feel worthless as I was rejected from unpaid volunteer work.

After months of feeling sorry for myself I marched into my boss’s office at the jewellery shop and asked if I could take on additional responsibilities by building a customer email database, creating and promoting the company through social media sites and making brochures, leaflets and flyers. To my surprise my boss said yes and I undertook all the extra responsibilities in my own time.

Implementing extra responsibilities into my role helped me gain valuable marketing experience. My boss began praising me and told me that there had been a slight increase in sales and that we were getting customers coming in who had heard about us through Twitter. I came to like my new role working in the jewellery shop and I stopped applying for graduate jobs so that I could focus on building up my marketing experiences in the shop for the next couple of years.

However, in May 2011 I was informed that all the staff were going to be made redundant, as another company had offered my jewellery employer a lucrative deal, which he could not refuse. Yet again I cried because I felt all my hard work had gone down the drain and I had struggled to find employment in the past.

Sooner after receiving news of my redundancy, I once again began applying rigorously for graduate jobs and again I got more and more rejections, and could not understand why I could not get a well paid graduate job! After searching through every job site around my area I resorted to the university career services website, which had never been of any use to me in the past. On there I discovered a job in marketing, it was not that far from where I lived and they offered training. The only downfall was that it was poorly paid so I dismissed it. However, two days before the deadline I decided to put an application in but had no faith in obtaining the role because of how little it paid.

A week later I got a phone call and was offered a job interview for the following day. I went to the interview and believed I had no chance whatsoever getting the role because of the low pay packet. The owner of the company was lovely. She explained to me about all the training and was very interested in what I had done at the jewellery shop. I showed her my social media sites and copies of the posters and brochures that I had created. After the interview I was also annoyed at myself because I did stutter a lot and I felt I could have answered the questions better.

That afternoon I got a phone call and was offered the job! I was so happy. She told me that she was really impressed how I had taken initiative at my last job and that I was the kind of person she needed. I was over the moon. But I felt guilty over how snobby I was towards the job only a couple of days ago because of the low pay bracket. Although I do wish the pay was more, I am grateful that the company is going to train me in house, which many companies do not do nowadays. I am thankful and indebted to the company, and I am counting my blessings, because I have been given an excellent opportunity by a fantastic company and have just taken my first step into a career in marketing.

So my message to anyone out there struggling is, firstly, do not be too selective in what graduate jobs you apply for. I understand we all want a high paid job but we all have to start somewhere. Secondly, and most importantly, add extra responsibilities into your current job. Both your current employer, and potential future employers, will be impressed that you are using your initiative to help the business.