I didn’t always enjoy university; I found that module content was in some places years behind the times, I needed to sometimes study modules that didn’t interest me and my dissertation damn near killed me. I’d never had to write 20,000 words before. But, I’m proud of the grade I achieved — and of actually graduating at all, I know some people sadly didn’t.

When university was drawing to a close I started to think about jobs, as you do. I knew what I wanted to be — a front-end web developer. A “niche” role in some respects. I began emailing agencies in Newcastle and Sunderland (in May) asking if they had any Junior or Graduate roles. This was at times promising and at others disheartening.

I ended up emailing 21 agencies. 9 of these took the time to email me back. 7 with semi-positive responses that my details were on file should anything arise. 1 agency took the time to meet me in person to make sure I’d be a suitable fit for the company, before putting my details on file. I was incredibly impressed by that. But, none of those emails were offers of job interviews — I started to panic, as many ‘fresh’ graduates do.

When looking for work in the web industry recruitment agencies (Reed, Adecco, Pertemps etc) are on the most part a big no-no (mostly, there are some dedicated digital recruitment specialists of course). Digital agencies generally advertise their roles on their website / Twitter, or people find work via word-of-mouth. It’s an incredibly (and awesome) tight-knit community in that respect. I wasn’t finding any suitable vacancies, and again panic set in a little more.

Then, I saw a vacancy for a start-up in Middlesbrough. The vacancy seemed perfect, and so I applied. I was brought in for an interview and 6 days later I was offered the job. I’m over the moon to have been offered the position of front-end web developer, to be working for the company I am and for landing on my feet.

I know how lucky I am to A) Have a job at all and B) To have the exact position I wanted. Not only this but how lucky I am to be working for an incredibly exciting new start-up, not everyone has that opportunity and for that I’m thankful. I start work tomorrow and I’m both excited and terrified. Excited for the obvious reasons and terrified in case I make a bad impression or I’m just not good enough.

This was the first proper vacancy I had applied for and I couldn’t have asked for a better result.

So, I have a degree and a job now. This should mean I’m all “grown up”. Whilst I am thinking of scary grown-up things like pensions, I am far from grown-up.

And that’s just the way I like it.

Entries will be coming thick and fast over the next couple of days / weeks as I have a lot to write about, but for now this entry will have to suffice.