A TikToker’s dilemma with finding a job—despite having multiple degrees and speaking three languages—is shedding light on the difficulty of finding a job in the current economic landscape.
TikTok creator Lohanny Santos shared her experience in a video Monday and has since amassed more than 20 million views and more than 2 million likes. She shared in follow-up video that she’s the first person to graduate college in her entire family.
“This is the most humbled I’ve felt in my life,” Santos said in her original video while standing on the sidewalk. “I’m literally holding resumes, a stack of them, so I can go in person to places and say, ‘Are you guys hiring?’”
Santos went on to say how she felt embarrassed by the whole ordeal, and she didn’t expect to be in this situation after pursuing higher education.
“I graduated college with two degrees, in communication and acting,” Santos said. “I speak three languages. This sucks. I just want to be a TikToker if I’m being so real with you, but I can’t be delusional anymore. I literally need to make money. So, I’m just going to keep trying.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Santos via email for further comment.
@lohannysant I got tear stains on my resume 😔😔😔 #nyc #unemployed ♬ original sound – Lohanny
In November of 2023, the Washington Post reported that the unemployment rate for recent graduates had exceeded the unemployment rate for the general population—a reversal from a norm that’s largely been in place since the 1990s. Recent graduates may not be as attracted to industries with the biggest worker shortages and higher-paying industries have been announcing layoffs en masse.
Commenters largely rallied around Santos, encouraging her while also affirming her concerns.
“Never feel embarrassed. You should feel proud that you’re pushing your pride to the side and being realistic,” user Sarah Mathews (@mathewssl) said.
“This is the realest TikTok i’ve seen in so long, I FEEL YOU DO NOT FEEL EMBARRASSED!!!” user Dan (@donocopoco) said.
In follow-up videos, Santos shared how she went to multiple coffee shops and was close to getting a job. However, the person interviewing her said she would have to work 18 hours without pay as a tryout for the job.
Santos seemed to remain largely hopeful throughout her series of videos, professing how she hopes a year from now she’s in a better place.
“I’m over here crying and then I heard the birds chirping and then I thought, at least I’m crying in Brooklyn,” she said. “God I hope I’m doing better a year from now.”
She later shared how touched she was by the outpouring of support she’d received from people online who watched her videos.
“I’m literally so incredibly moved,” Santos said. “I honestly have been sitting in my room speechless, just processing everything.”
“Yesterday, I was feeling down, and that’s why I stopped in the street and made the video I made about how I’m looking for a job. … There has to be something out there for me in the universe, and that I why I [shared] that because I have so many dreams. The fact that I could help at least one person on this app literally means the entire world to me.”
In a separate video she reiterated that she was not trying to talk down on minimum wage jobs and has been doing them since she was 16 years old.
“I’m not above any job. I’m not above any opportunity,” she said. “I’m just simply human who just thought that going to college, getting a degree would get me further in life.”
