Looking for full-time employment feels like Kafka's Trial

But my desperate trawl for work has certainly been enlightening, if not downright frustrating.

I'm a 2008 university graduate attempting to enter the world of full-time professional employment. Having achieved a 2:1 in English literature, I did casual work in the summer before travelling around Italy for three weeks. On return I spent September with a cricket magazine on work experience. Then along came the crunch.

Putting my CV on a jobs website led to a recruitment consultant fixing up a week's trial at a spread-betting firm: not perfect but not a bad gig either. The commute from Kingston to St Albans took up five hours each day battling the relentless crowds at Waterloo and St.Pancras, at a cost of £125 a week.

Made a good impression but they decided not to fill the post.

I knew little about the consultant trying to arrange the next few years of my life. Only his name (Tom), email etiquette (blunt) and phone tone (bored). It felt like an excerpt from Franz Kafka's The Trial, except it is difficult to imagine even Kafka comprehending the mutated, modern horrors of online bureaucracy.

I then uploaded my CV and details on to the recruitment agency website Reed, looking for temping work.

A quick search reveals the following. West End office assistant on £20,000 per annum: 587 applications in 48 hours. Canary Wharf database administrator on £8-£10 per hour: 523 applications in 24 hours. Marketing assistant in north London on £17,000 per annum: 157 applications. The list goes on.

Apart from call centres, the only viable temp jobs are secretarial/assistant posts. Every time I've applied for one I've cursed the fact I am more Adam than Eve. A female university colleague with a lower English degree has been a receptionist in London on a £24,000-a-year job since August. Women graduates used to complain about glass ceilings. Soon male graduates will be complaining about locked front doors.

I have plenty of pub/bar experience so I've managed to secure shifts waiting at Jamie Oliver's new restaurant (the Italian trip paid off).

Is it the curse of arts degrees? A good friend got first-class honours in drama from Bristol University in 2007, and despite a great CV has failed to secure full-time work. Other friends with arts degrees from Birmingham, Leeds and Warwick in 2007 have only managed various, mundane temping work since.

What of business, law and science? One friend, who received a high 2:1 in commerce from Birmingham, has since enrolled in a property MA costing £15,000. He plans to move to the US afterwards due to the housing crisis.

A colleague with a 2:1 in law and his Legal Practice Course is earning peanuts as a trainee. At least he is in a profession, like those who took on teaching, something I am considering.

Of course I do know people who secured good jobs in the City and media. What separates the two groups? Rather than intelligence or talent, more probably specific aims, good contacts and pots full of luck.