WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED SINCE YOU LEFT UNI?
For many graduates, the period straight after leaving university can be pretty tough – but by now you’ve probably learned a lot more than you realise (yes, really!). Do you agree that you’re wiser than you were when you graduated? What do you know now that you wish you’d twigged before you finished uni?
Perhaps you got sucked in by unpaid internships that led nowhere – or decided to ditch job hunting techniques that weren’t working for you for ones that do. Did you put all your faith in recruitment agencies who never called? Or has your interview technique been polished beyond recognition? What has shocked you – and what has turned out to be a nice surprise? With hundreds of thousands more students set to graduate this summer, what are the gems that they really need to know?
Given my time again I wouldn’t even go to university in the first place. My degree was a great achievement but when every man and his dog has a degree it is a devalued currency. I’d advise people to try and get a job straight from A-levels. I know that is difficult without experience but it is better than wasting thousands of pounds. If you are about to graduate I’m afraid my advice is not much use…
I wish I had not done an English Literature degree. It was my ‘favourite subject’ at school and I was never advised against it but it has left me with very few options. Unless a degree is specifically targeted towards your career its only use is one sentence in your CV.
I wish I had done a joint or double honours programme to diversify my knowledge and skills. Law and economics would be my ideal thing to go back and do. Alternately, I’d have done a STEM subject – most likely maths – as I was very good at those subjects while at college (but I had my heart set, at the time, on a socially inclusive career that I simply wasn’t rich enough to break into).
I’d have also not skipped doing work experience while at Uni.
No doubt a more realistic view on what the job market would be like on leaving University.
After all, I chose my A-levels, narrowing down to 3 subject way back in 2005, made my university decision etc back in 06/07 which is way before the shit hit the fan supposedly.
However, a reading of youth unemployment figures etc says differently. Whilst its true that youth unemployment skyrocketed in 08, the employment figures weren’t all that great beforehand either even during the supposed boom years. The higher education myth had been swallowed by schools hook line and sinker whilst I was at school and the seeds of the current employment crisis were sewn far earlier than 08.
Having said that, heinsight is a wonderful thing. I spend 3 years having an incredible time and am now, after a very stuttering start supporting myself properly and beginning to work out exactly what it is that I want to do so whilst I wish I’d come to some of these epiphanies a little earlier, I don’t think I’d have done anything too differently.
I completely agree with Jacob. A more realistic view of the job market, as well as more in depth insight on how my industry works. I have spoken to fellow course mates after graduating and we all felt our tutors ‘hid’ the truth a bit from us.
We all expected to graduate to become design assistants for a fashion brand (high street or luxury), but they never told us about how a fashion business actually works. That there are suppliers (which names you most likely never heard of) that mainly employ fashion designers which then design for most of the major high street brands. I spent hours on LinkedIn and google figuring this out myself, but it really would have helped if we knew more about how suppliers work.
We learnt about the design process, and designing for specific brand, being creative, the technical skills, manage our time due to projects rather than exams etc. I learnt so much about myself and developed in a way I never could imagined doing without university. But I wished also they emphasized the importance of CAD more, and learnt us some specific software that they use in knit production.
But graduating was hard. No support anymore, no direction.. The assumption that you have to do unpaid internships. We (my course mates and I) later realised that junior positions now many times required experience, and that the unpaid internship you done was not enough. I do not want to say that it is impossible to break into fashion, but if we got prepared better it would have been easier to know where to focus.
My friend who is graduating for the same uni as me this year got part in some mentors program for final year students, my course and year did not get anything like that.. I wished I had that opportunity back then. I think it is a initiative.
I would tell anyone graduating now without a lot of money behind them and without a grad job lined up, to start applying like mad for anything they remotely think they could do and survive off, especially if they’re hoping to stay in the city they’re studying in like I did.* If you have to move back to your parents, expand that to part-time work too since keeping hold of Housing Benefit won’t be a worry.
And if my girlfriend (who’s a few years older) is to be believed, be aware that lots of people in many types of jobs – no matter how nice they may at first seem – are out to get you, so look over your shoulder and try to gage what’s going on, especially if you’re an agency worker since your assignment can be ended immediately at any time for any reason. Which in practice means virtually no employment rights (e.g. maternity leave) are enforceable. Don’t assume people have grown up since school – in my and her experience many of them were nicer and more grown up at uni.
I would also warn anyone not living with their parents that the benefits system can be Kafkaesque, infuriating and riddled with perverse incentives, as I’ve discovered after my Housing Benefit was suspended for weeks after I took two days of agency work (which I thought would last longer). They’ve even told me it would be suspended even longer if I got another job tomorrow – the threat of eviction (theoretical in my case at least, given nice landlords and family, but dead real for many) isn’t really much of an incentive for those taking jobs they’re offered, I’d say.
[*
Before my recent bad luck (4 months out of work after 15 months’ continuous work after leaving uni) I was very lucky to get two part-time shop jobs near-simultaneously straight after uni that kept me going til I got temp full-time work.]
Sorry, just realised I was meant to say what I learned since graduating 😉 I was pleasantly surprised to get work straight out of uni for 15 months, but in general my fears about the employment market and usefulness of my careers have been confirmed beyond my imagination. And my view of human nature (which was fairly cynical anyway) has gone way down.
Also, beware that agencies – at least at the low-paid admin level – know their power, and some will treat you appallingly (e.g. ending your assignment whilst you’re on holiday and not telling you for 4 days, deducting illegal insurance charges you’ve opted out of from your pay).
*usefulness of my degree, not careers
I graduated in 2011 with a 2:1. I was 23 before I decided to go to Uni (older than the average but still a young lad) and was advised to do an Access to Higher Education course to get me into University. Since graduating from Uni I have applied for many Graduate Schemes/Jobs but a lot of them require a minimum of a certain amount of UCAS points to progress with the application.
Sadly, I had no idea, that a) UCAS points would still be relevent for Graduate Jobs, and b) that Access courses don’t give out UCAS points. It’s been 18 months since I graduated and I am back working in a Supermarket, aged 28 now and back at home. I feel useless and pathetic. I worked so hard to get my degree, I even worked full time in retail alongside doing my degree. I am utterly miserable at the minute, and all I want is to get my foot into the door at some place, move out of home and into the city and get on with my life.
I wish I had never done the stupid access course and had gone and doneA-Levels instead.
So basically, the one thing I wish I had known before going to Uni is that Access course’s are a waste of time. Will anyone ever give me a chance?
Luke,
You have probably done this but – prior to applying for a graduate job, have you contacted the recruiter yourself and explained your situation?
Sometimes they are a bit more sympathetic and they allow you to skip the points requirement if you do this ….
Hope this helps.
@Luke
My advice is to stop applying for graduate schemes and start looking at smaller firms. Graduate schemes account for a tiny fraction of the graduate job market, yet every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a degree is applying. You have to be either Exceptional or Exceptionally lucky to get onto a graduate scheme – they really aren’t worth the gamble or the frustration.
Smaller businesses aren’t interested in your A-levels. They’re interested in you and whether YOU can do the job.
@CostaDel
Thank you for saying this! Completely agree with you. Start looking for the ‘hidden jobmarket’ instead. Some of the most successful people I know succeeded even without a degree, and and then you can succeed too guys!
Me graduating has been one of the biggest personal development challenges ever. I was struggling and suffering from low self esteem a lot, and without the ‘structure’ I had in uni I felt lost. I felt lost, exhausted, stressed for way to long. I also made a little journey from what I initially wanted to do to what I want to do today, which was confusing too.
I have just got rid of the negative thoughts now, and I want you all to get rid of them now too. I know it is frustrating and sometimes you just want to cry and give up. But keep on trying!
This is more about going to uni in general, but I wish I’d known that in order to come out with a decent chance in the job market (and any chance at all in those ridiculously competitive grad schemes), I should be getting experience starting in my first year. Based on a lot of the advice from our careers centre on how only third years need to worry about jobs and we should be aiming for a master’s anyway, I spent my first year drifting around thinking I had plenty of time to get experience. Then my second year was a mad dash of society activities, internship applications and studying on top, which was super stressful and exhausting. I wish I’d known to spread all of this out over the whole three years.
I wish I’d not been so naive to think that tutors/teachers knew anything about the job market outside education. I did a degree in a subject I enjoyed, I finish my final year next week and I am regretting it already. No relevance to what I want to do and the ‘its full of transferable skills that employers recognise’ justification is rubbish.
My advice for anyone going to university with no clear career plan is to do a business degree, it’s the safest option, with the most opportunities and something I wish I’d done. It also offers the same amount, if not more of the transferable skills that are used as justification for doing a ‘degree you enjoy’.
I think most graduates are likely to be pretty aware of how difficult the current job market is. I graduated with a 1st class on honours in Chemistry and a masters degree in management, but my UCAS points were pretty low so I didn’t meet the minimum requirements for most of the graduate schemes. I was informed by a representative of PWC at a graduate fair that you “could have a 2.1 in economics or basket weaving, as long as you have 320 UCAS points” then the guy turned round and told my friend who had 300 UCAS points and was on course for a 1st in economics & finance that he probably wouldn’t be considered. It sounds pretty unbelievable but that’s exactly what happened. I think the market is pretty saturated with graduates and the top firms can afford to be ultra picky. I applied for a number for a number of graduate schemes before graduation but was unsuccessful.
So what would my advice be? If I were giving advice to someone in a similar position.
I would tell them to target graduate jobs rather than grad schemes. That doesn’t mean applying to lots of graduate level jobs whilst you are studying. Pick an industry you would be interested in working in; take a look at job requirements for entry level roles, roles with a years work experience, and a few roles requiring five years experience etc. Try and get a feel for the kind of jobs which are on offer in the industry. Ask yourself where you could be in 2 years time, is there potential for progression, are there certain niche jobs which pay more? This will give you a more realistic mid-term plan.
You need to get some feel for how the industry operates, there’s always information online or in books. If you want a job in the city, there’s a book called how the city works.
When I graduated I was told by a rather helpful recruitment consultant that my CV was too general, it didn’t shout what industry I wanted to get into. Make you CV shout the industry, don’t think of your CV as a history of you. Think of it as a way to show an employer what you can do for them (and not in a used car salesman way either), make sure it shows direction and commitment, if you have the cash to spend on that 1st professional qualification then go for it. But if you don’t write down the name and say you are reading toward it!! it shows that you have done your research and that you have some direction and passion.
Really you want to try and get some work experience in your chosen field, I ended up spending three months working for free before I got my current job. But don’t limit yourself to three month internships, and paid/unpaid work experience. Try and get talking to someone in the industry, send out emails, then follow up with a phone call. You are not looking for a job!! tell them that you are really interested in working in the industry and that you would like to ask them some questions over a coffee/ lunch if they have time. If it seems appropriate to ask, then see if their is any chance of getting some work experience. My brother got his first graduate job cold calling smaller firms & consultancies, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone as it demonstrates good communication skills (if you have them), talking to someone is more tangible than email. If you have friends or family in the industry then you really meed to make the most of those connections, it’s not fair on those who don’t have them, but life’s not fair (sorry guys).
I think that if you do stuff like this think out of the box a little, and use a little strategy, you can still find your way into great jobs. But it’s important to remember also that you can be doing everything right and things still won’t work out for you. Life is chaotic, it’s like chemistry sometimes you need just the right orbital overlap to start a reaction, and for that you need a little luck lol. So don’t beat yourself up. Oh and if you want to work in finance etc. or something numerate for god sakes learn how to use excel, it’s such a selling point.
Anyway not sure if anyone will bother reading this but never mind, hope it helps someone.
Btw I got my graduate job. “back in the game….” “I am the f****n’ game pal!”DRama
My advice for current students:
1. Get some kind of work experience while you’re at uni – ANYTHING. Even if it’s just a few hours a week. Volunteer, help out on campus, write for the uni paper. Anything you can put on your CV will be golden once you’re out in the real world. SO many students don’t do this.
2. Sign up for anything that’s free. When I think back to my days at uni, I could kick myself for how much stuff I let pass me by. Once you graduate, no one’s going to be offering you the chance to see free lectures, workshop groups, films etc. If it’s free, GO.
3. Enjoy your lie-ins. Seriously. Don’t waste all of them with hangovers because there really won’t be another chance for you to enjoy so many of them all in one go.
4. Go to your one-to-one tutor meetings. Most people I know (myself included) skipped these because they weren’t usually all that helpful for our courses. What we didn’t realise was that our lecturers were our ticket to paid opportunities in the real world. The more contacts you have, the better and most universities give you the chance to rub elbows with some really influential people.
5. Start getting in touch with people who work in the sector you want to work in in your third year. They can help give you an idea of what to do after you graduate.
I wish I used my university resources better, like the UoL Careers Group website, I only discovered it whilst looking for temp work but there were so many (paid) internships opportunities I missed out on, that were advertised to students. And now I feel that without an internship it is so much harder getting a graduate job.
I’d reiterate what other people have written. I came to university starry eyed, with what I now realize were unrealistic expectations. I know I should have looked into this more, but I was 18, and university sounded awesome!
I know I should have looked at the cold facts before going. But everyone I knew was going, Sixth form encouraged me, and I’m reasonably intelligent, so I thought why not? I think those in college, and sixth form should be much much better informed. I am considerably more mature now, and I can make much more informed decisions. I wish I was captain hindsight! Everyone now has a degree, and all graduate jobs are vastly oversubscribed. (I’m not just talking about grad schemes, I know there’s only enough of them for about 5-10% of graduates)
If I knew what I know now I wouldn’t have even gone to college! I’ve found that gcses and a levels still count, and that employers want Ucas points that are beyond the limits of most graduates. If I knew that I was going to be stuck in a part time job stacking shelves with an 18 year old school leaver as a manager I would have left school at 16. I’ve witnessed other graduates where I work pushed out at all levels. My advice is really for those on first year and are unsure about their futures and it is to leave. Go out work, have disposable income, go on holiday, learn a language, live a life because at 22 you become too old to do those things especially when those who didn’t go uni are going to be better off forever more. The earnings gap doesn’t open til after the debt is written off. Most of the “life skills” you learn can and will be learnt while you work alongside a work ethic which uni will never give you. I’ve met managers who refuse to hire graduates based on the fact that some of them have poor work ethic.