It may seem like a silly question, I don't know, but is it actually possible to get a job in something we're very good at and highly trained in? When I got my Masters, there were no opportunities for me to use any of the skills I had developed and it depressed me. I didn't want to move elsewhere right away because if I did decide to go back for my doctorate (and I am going back this fall), I wanted to go back to the same school that I got my Masters. After I get my doctorate, I'm fully capable of moving anywhere in the world. I have no kids, no house, no significant other, no family outside of parents, and not really any friends so I'm free to move anywhere and not lose anything. The problem is that I wonder if there will be any opportunities even if I get my doctorate. I realize that at some point I will need my own steady income, but after spending years (a decade after I finish my final degree) training in one area (even though I will have studied many different areas within said area), it feels horrible to think that I won't be able to use any of these skills at all. It will make my life feel more like a waste than it already does.

So, do people who are highly skilled and trained in multiple areas in a field usually get jobs within that field or am I doomed to do something that means nothing to me and that I could have done without going to college at all?

I also feel that despite all the training and peoples' reassurances to the contrary that no matter what I do I'm never quite qualified enough to get a job. Who would hire me if there are any other candidates? Especially when I've never had a full time job before—except for one year, I was in school and there never really seems to be the right job opportunities around. Career counselors I talked to at my university couldn't help me. My professor/advisor pretty much told me to go into temp work (in a completely unrelated area) and good luck getting anything much else and he also seemed to have considered me talented enough to say that he was going to put that he taught me on his resume. Not like it would do him much good if all I'll ever amount to in life is random temp jobs.

I just want to know…have I been lied to? Am I actually not any good at anything I do or is nothing I'm good at worth anything? I am completely disenchanted by the whole concept of jobs and careers.