A common theme that arises in our conversations with ‘soon to graduate’ students is that of employment.
Whilst graduation is undoubtedly something worth celebrating, that thought of ‘what happens next’ can evoke a range of emotions from excitement to panic! Things are beginning to look up after the global recession in 2008; however, a large proportion of graduates ‘churned’ out every year are now finding that the hardest job for a recent graduate is actually getting that first job. One of the many reasons we started our blog was to empower graduates with knowledge to navigate the often murky waters of graduate employment.
This article is for all graduates, regardless of level of education (A Levels, BTECs, Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD). In our experience, the more advanced your education, the more challenging it could be when job hunting. This is because while you are becoming more specialist in your knowledge base, you tend to be focusing in one particular area. It’s not all doom and gloom though; before you think of throwing in the towel, we hope this article will be able to provide some advice to help in your job search. These are things while seemingly obvious, we wish someone had told us at some point while studying.
Start early! – While you don’t need to start job hunting in Fresher’s week, how many of us actually thought about how our CV needed to look at graduation whilst undertaking our degree? How many opportunities to enhance our CVs do we miss because it seems like too much work at the time? Activities such as volunteering, being a student representative, starting or running a student society, joining a learned or professional society, undertaking an internship, learning a new language, being a peer mentor, writing a blog or research article etc count. Begin to stand out from the crowd!
Graduating is only the beginning! – Achieving your degree should be the beginning of your journey as an aspiring professional. As a friend got told after completing his doctoral studies, ‘Well done, now it is time to go prove yourself’. I bet many who have gone through this stage would echo the same sentiments following their experiences. So, if you are coming to the end of your bachelor’s degree, master’s, or even PhD, remember this is only just the beginning. So you’ve got a degree? Welcome to a club that includes millions of others…start thinking about what your unique selling points (USP) are!
How hard can it be? – Well, don’t get me wrong, some new graduates succeed in their first attempt at applying for a graduate job. This is not the norm though as most people apply for an incredible number of jobs before they get a reply or are considered for interview. A point to mention here is that application for and seeking graduate job opportunities is very time consuming
. This is something that takes many by surprise. To get a good job, you’ll have to invest a great amount of time and pay a great deal of attention to the job specification and requirements. Future posts will cover techniques to approach job applications such as filling in forms, preparing personal statements and conquering the interview.
But I don’t have a 2:1! – To many graduates, the degree classification is the end point. Well, sorry to burst your bubble. Some graduates limit their chances of a job because they lack the ‘first class’ degrees, or ‘distinctions’ at postgraduate level. Whilst educational qualifications are very important; depending on your discipline they may not be the most important thing. As a graduate, it is important you identify your unique selling point (USP) as this will determine how you approach prospective employers and job opportunities. Employers are looking for skills, not just what you know but what you can do. This is why getting experience in your field whilst studying is one of the best things that can boost your chances of getting a job when you finish.
Your inability to articulate your ability can make you a liability.
The scatter-gun approach to job application – For anyone reading this article, you might recognise this as your style of job hunting. If you are confused by what we mean by the scatter-gun approach then I’ll explain. Many graduates get frustrated applying for jobs and make the mistake of sending the same CV and covering letter to every job under the sun.
It’s like chatting up every guy or girl at a bar using the same chat-up line. You wouldn’t do that would you? If that is your approach, well, its 2015 so it’s a new year and we won’t judge you this time! On a serious note, it is lazy practice to use the scatter-gun approach hence the key advice here is to be innovative and adapt your CV, covering letter and profile to suit the specific job(s) you are applying for.
Yes, yes, it’s tough out there and we won’t attempt to suggest otherwise. However, not knowing what one is able to do is more limiting than the paucity of the job market. For example, a lot of biological or medical science graduates generally assume the only jobs available to them are laboratory or hospital based roles, teaching or lecturing or if fortunate within the scientific or pharmaceutical industry. As we addressed in
our last article, the skills you have developed are key to your success in the job market and “your job market is only as big as the skills you possess” thus, as a science graduate, you could work in several environments such as media, financial institutions, politics, communications and so on (we will address these specific core areas in subsequent articles). When you identify your transferable skills, you realise that the world can really be your oyster.
It is important that whatever your field of employment, you start making good contacts as early as possible and networking. We’ve found that many opportunities come through recommendations, so start connecting with others using various media such as LinkedIn and Twitter to develop your professional network.
The time to plan your career is NOW. It is important that you always think about what you can offer rather than what can be offered to you.
Emmanuel Adukwu (@EmmanuelAdukwu) and
Amara Anyogu (@amaratweets) work as academics with experience in Further and Higher Education. They are both passionate about personal development through education and mentoring. They blog at
www.aspiringprofessionalshub.com.
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This article was first published on 16th February 2015
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