Panic is the word. I’m also in the same situation. More or less. I just came back from China, where I worked and did research for my master thesis.
I worked all the time during the graduation in design offices too (about 3,5 years) and still… it seems that the experience I had before the masters was for nothing. Should I have studied two years less have tried to get full-time job sooner?!?
I consider my portfolio pretty decent too. But I can’t stop reworking it, researching, looking for jobs, sending it… the frustration builds up and it’s tough. I was the designer nerd at the university. And now… It’s difficult not to doubt your skills when you get the negatives from the companies.
what frustrates me the most is that I saw some colleagues getting jobs. Most of them didn’t get it by normal applications, but by indication. Normally from professors. Sometimes people with weaker portfolios - at this point you cannot help it but compare yourself to the others. At one hand I feel like “ok, it’s not about me or my skills, it’s just how the game goes”… At the other, it’s like “I’m lost then, if I have to wait for the good will of an ex-professor or something”.
I don’t know. It sucks big time!