A 31-year-old US-based woman who quit her full-time job on instinct and later took up an unpaid has shared how the unconventional decision helped her secure her dream role.
Jackie Garcia-Morales, who was working as a publishing associate in the , recalled how a sudden feeling of unease prompted her to resign in April 2025, despite being content in her role. “One minute, I was joyfully dealing with Netflix celebrities. Next, my instincts were screaming that something was wrong. I couldn’t explain it, but the feeling haunted me until I did something reckless,” Jackie Business Insider.
“I quit my job. I put in my resignation, and in the morning, that feeling of doubt was gone,” she added.
The 31-year-old said that her instinct was later validated when her company shut down soon after. However, the decision also left her unemployed during what she described as a difficult . “I was unemployed in a highly competitive industry. And so, I joined the ranks of job seekers in search of work,” she said.
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Struggling in a frozen job market
Jackie said that she was hopeful of getting a new job until she learned that people were applying to hundreds of roles without hearing back. “The job market was frozen, and ghost jobs were on the rise,” she told Business Insider.
With traditional routes yielding little hope, Jackie said that she decided to explore an unconventional option – an unpaid internship at a literary agency.
“I reluctantly toggled to the ‘internships’ button on a job board,” she said. Then, after clearing assignments and interviews, she joined a literary agency as an intern.
“So, at 31 years old, I became an intern,” she said, adding, “I had to rely on freelance gigs and seasonal jobs to make ends meet.”
Life as an intern
Jackie said that the experience was initially humbling. “There were moments when the age gap hit me hard, sitting at the table with people 11 years my junior,” she said.
However, she soon found herself inspired by her younger peers. She said that they approached work with openness, curiosity and a willingness to ask questions without fear of judgement.
“Listening to them at the agency, I discovered how guarded I had become as an adult navigating corporate environments. Witnessing their mindset changed me. I wanted that energy,” the 31-year-old said.
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Internship to dream job
Then, as the internship progressed, Jackie shared that she worried that having “intern” on her resume might hurt her chances of securing a role that matched her experience level. But instead of viewing the role as a step back, she said that she adopted what she called an “intern mindset” – focusing on learning, curiosity and networking.
She started using her internship as a conversation starter and reached out to professionals working in positions she hoped to hold one day.
She revealed that over two months, she contacted 145 people and completed more than 80 networking calls. “People were genuinely interested in my background, my unusual career path, and my confident networking,” she said.
The strategy eventually paid off. She said that by the final stages of her internship in 2026, she had received multiple job offers and eventually accepted a position as a literary agent. “I have a happy new beginning,” she concluded.
