Graduate jobs!

[j.o.s.h.1408]

AledJ, its aug. No one cba to do work.

Also take what Blitzen is saying with a pinch of salt, i think he's been dealing with a very bad batch of people to interview.

Fact is a degree merely means that a door can be opened, it doesn't mean they will be wanting too see you, if you want an above average job, you've still got to be an above average candidate. That said its true that even people with a 3rd, earn considerably more, on average, than those without.

Just spend as much time googling for jobs that match your skills and you would want to do as possible.

the reason for that is because uni is a waste imo and doesn't show an employer how good a person is. i've seen people with 1st in there degree fail miserably in the real world and i can see why people want experience more then a degree.

i wasted 3 years of my life in uni learning stuff i could of learned on my own and more using google. i got lucky landing a job that is part of my degree and since then moved to another which was PISS easy to do. the first job is always the hardest to get but after that, its easy because u have teh confidence AND experience to land your next job easy.

when i left my last job in jan, i was without a job for a month BUT most of that time was waiting on a feedback from interviews And the job i actually got, the starting date got put forward.

if u do get a interview, pretend your full of confidence, dont be nervous and go there with the attitude of "this will be piss easy" and you will be fine...

if i could turn back time, i would of ditched college and uni as well and learned my career on my own and gain experience that way

[TheAnimus]

josh1408, enless i've got you confused with someone else, you consistently posted on this forum, asking for cheating grade help with very basic programming assignments.

You will only get out of university what you put into it. My degree didn't land me my job, but i wouldn't of been able to get my job without it. I also found large chunks of my studies fascinating as well as boring At uni i did far more than just my degree, learn't a lot about myself and other people, made some very good friends (one of which i bought my flat with) and took part in many worthwhile activities (from charities, to competitions one of which helped land my very chusty job).

It would be very foolish to say that a degree dosen't help you get a job, it won't grantee you a job, but it will certainly help, even a 3rd from a polly.

What is a real shame, is something i'm guilty of (2-1 from Reading (medicore readbrick)) which is dismissing any CV thats not a first class from a good institute, thing is even once you've then narrowed down the CV pile, the vast majority of people interviewed are a 'no'.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

josh1408, enless i've got you confused with someone else, you consistently posted on this forum, asking for cheating grade help with very basic programming assignments.

you definetly have got me confused i never cheated in uni or ask people here to help me with my assignment LOL. thats low, too low LOL

[Twigman]

once you leave the forces, for some reason employers trip over themselves to employ you.

I've heard the exact opposite. That people out the forces often can't get jobs back in the civilian world.

[TooNice]

I found it rediculasly hard to get onto a grad program, i had too few GCSEs (only 5) and medocare A-Levels..... i got rejected out of hand by the vast vast majority of the grad schemes.

Funny thing is I got lucky. Now i've skipped that whole grad course thing [...]

Theres no doubting that they are fun, DBK, Merrils, JPM all send their graddies to some city for 3 months, which is mostly spent as a pissup, but its not that greater way to get ahead. Many companies give you exposure to many aspects of the business, in 3 or 6 month doses. This is utterly pointless and not what you will want. The reason they do this is so they don't have to give you a decent payrise, you've no experiance in any one area, and no other company would poach you, even after 3 years.

Would you mind sharing a little on what you do and what you did to get there? Are you are doing IT in the finance sector? [I am not sure if this is something I've asked before forgot about the reply, or something I thought of asking but didn't - sorry if it's either]

I picked a pretty bad time to apply for jobs in the finance and/or property industry, but there is not much I can do here. Frankly speaking, I never thought that a graduate position would enable me to 'get ahead', merely get a foot in the door, and that's all I am looking for right now. If there is somewhere else I should be looking at though, I'd like to hear it.

And what do you think would be a productive use of time while looking for jobs? I can't see irrelevant jobs (some of which I've done during Uni) being all that helpful (though I could be wrong). At the moment, I am just taking more professional designation exams which I think I will have to do sooner or later anyway and keep the brain working.

[Blitzen]

I've heard the exact opposite. That people out the forces often can't get jobs back in the civilian world.

Im ex-forces fella (Petty Officer) and believe me, its the truth. What you have heard is fibs
If you work hard in the forces, whether commissioned or not, civillain working life is VERY easy (unless you are dim).

I actually mentioned the fact regarding officer training though, not the forces in general.

My brother in law gained his phd last year and the Royal Navy and Air Force were almost begging him to join up. The salary was extremely good aswell.

Even with a few A Levels, you can eneter officer training or be a tiff and make alot of cash fast. They will then also pay for your further education.
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Training, education and experience will only take you so far though.

LUCK and JUDGEMENT play a massive part in whether you are successful or not.
If you work hard and just be in the right place at the right time things come good.

If you think the world owes you a living then you will never make it

[greenalien]

If you think the world owes you a living then you will never make it

Best advice ever! People largely employ you on the basis of what you have done, not on how many pieces of paper you have.

[TheAnimus]

Im ex-forces fella (Petty Officer) and believe me, its the truth. What you have heard is fibs
If you work hard in the forces, whether commissioned or not, civillain working life is VERY easy (unless you are dim).

I actually mentioned the fact regarding officer training though, not the forces in general.

My dad found it very hard leaving as a major aged 50, with no degree. The vast majority of employers didn't want him, and those who did didn't want to pay anything like his previous salary. I think it depends a lot on the person, in the same way plenty of people who come out of uni, find employers tripping over them (lucky ****) some people who come out of the armed forces are perfect for what people are looking for. Some just aren't!

Would you mind sharing a little on what you do and what you did to get there? Are you are doing IT in the finance sector? [I am not sure if this is something I've asked before forgot about the reply, or something I thought of asking but didn't - sorry if it's either]

I picked a pretty bad time to apply for jobs in the finance and/or property industry, but there is not much I can do here. Frankly speaking, I never thought that a graduate position would enable me to 'get ahead', merely get a foot in the door, and that's all I am looking for right now. If there is somewhere else I should be looking at though, I'd like to hear it.

And what do you think would be a productive use of time while looking for jobs? I can't see irrelevant jobs (some of which I've done during Uni) being all that helpful (though I could be wrong). At the moment, I am just taking more professional designation exams which I think I will have to do sooner or later anyway and keep the brain working.

Luck, damn luck. There was a position on a front office tactical developement team going, i started work 2 weeks before i graduated. It was a bit of a piss take, v long hours, and comparatively crap pay (been sat next to a £500 a day contractor who you're having to teach how to program, earning about 10k less than friends on grad schemes). But then after getting stiffed with a low bonus (about 30&#37 I started looking for another job, 3 months later i found a rather good one . The fun thing is when you get a certain level of respect in a finance company thats flexible, there are no rules about limits on bonuses been less than x% of notional etc.

So a mixture of damn luck, and taking my time. Plus i'd done all sorts of things at uni alongside my degree, its obvious from my CV i'm very geeky, but with applied examples of my develeopement. The only reason I got a lookin for my current roll was because the head hunters told the firm they'd never interviewed anyone as young as me, who'd offered to re-write their technical tests (i mean honestly, for .Net dev rolls having no real questions on 2.0 was stupid!).

The trick, if your skipping a scheme (worked out very well for me) is to learn about the recruitment agencies. Basically their worse than estate agents, but if you're able to convince them your a quick sell, they will put you onto their favourate client, this might not be the best prospective employer for you.

[Blitzen]

My dad found it very hard leaving as a major aged 50, with no degree. The vast majority of employers didn't want him, and those who did didn't want to pay anything like his previous salary. I think it depends a lot on the person, in the same way plenty of people who come out of uni, find employers tripping over them (lucky c**ts) some people who come out of the armed forces are perfect for what people are looking for. Some just aren't!

That may have been the age thing...or what trades did you father learn/acquire?

The difference with me i suppose was that i left when i was 28 (did 10 years service).
I was a Communications Engineer. Not repairing but modifying and 'tweaking' shall we say for things i would rather not discuss

At 28 years old, i went to work for one of the largest passenger liner companies in the world, as a senior engineer and advisor in their maritime communications systems such InMarSat.

Once i had gained all the knowledge i could there, i took the electronics experience and took a senior management role within a VERY large Japanese electronics company.
Then moved into consultancy.

I only recently ( in the last year) changed roles to go work for a large American corporation. I thought it was time to start thinking about retiring and the pension on offer was just too good to turn down.
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Not everyone gets as lucky.....as that is a HUGE chunk of it.
But...i am a firm believer that even if you sweep floor for a living, if you DO IT WELL, then you wont be sweeping floors long and bigger and better things will present themselves.

Do your best and people notice.
Do enough to get by and thats the most you have to look forward to.....

Also, and the most important thing, dont blow yourself up to be something you aren't but meanwhile, have a firm belief in your own ability (if it has foundation).

[Colossus]

I had the same problem when I left Uni in 2004, Couldnt get experience without experience and all the vicious Circle stuff.
I got talking over a couple of sessions with a friend of my parents, who suggested to me that I formulate a list of all the companies I would like to work for and ring them directly, ask to speak to someone in either recruitment or direct to a manager (if you can get a name beforehand this helps even more), I did this, landed a job in a design company and have got 18months experience but I'm now trying to get out of this company for certain reasons and the market isnt brilliant at the moment, but i'm applying this same process again as it does work.
Keep a record of who you call as you may want to refer to it for future job calls when you get experience and want to move on again.

Networking, word of mouth, talking to people who know people in the industry is always good too!

Hope this helps?

Colossus

[Saracen]

I have to say that, mostly, I agree with Blitzen.

Aled, you can never be too sure quite what people are looking for, even when they're employing an office temp, because there are a range of reasons why they may be doing so.

One reason is that they've a member of staff away for a while and they're looking for a temp replacement. But just because they want a temp, don't assume they want someone with no experience of office work. It may be that they want someone who can get up to speed quickly. And there are a lot of temps who are highly experienced, but are temps because it suits them, not because they have no choice. It may be due to fitting in with the kids school timetable, or because they're doing something else with part of their time, or because they're semi-retired and want a day or two a week, or a couple of weeks full-time every other month. If you don't have the experience that they're looking for to get mucking in quickly, you won't get a look0in because other people going for that job will have that.

Another reason is that they're looking for permanent staff, but want to do so with little of no commitment up-front. So they look for someone on a temp basis, but it doesn't mean it'll stay temp. And if that;s their objective, then you're hugely over-qualified and they know that you'll be there just as long as it takes to get you on your career path. So you won't get that either.

It may not be how you meant it, but they way your opening post read was that because you've got a law degree and are writing your masters, you're qualified for for any office temp job. If so, all that really shows is that you don't know much about a lot of office jobs, temp or not.

And I also agree with Blitzen about the attitude that comes from many (though not all) recent graduates. I've worked with computing graduates, for instance, who are sure they know all the answers, because they've just finished learning all about it, so they must know more than the old fart they're working with. It doesn't seem to cross their minds that the old fart has a degree too .... and a quarter of a century doing the job.

One place where a lot of graduates fall down is in people skills ..... reading people, understanding the situation, reading between the lines and knowing how to get what needs to be done, done. Often, the shortest way between where you are and where you need to be is anything but a straight line, and it's not just what you do but how you do it. Do it right and you'll get people onside, perhaps because you let them think it was their idea in the first place. But try to lecture them and all you'll succeed in doing a lot of the time is raising hackles.

For instance, many years ago, I had a graduate try to convince me that we needed to get the client to change a project brief and write a project in, IIRC, C rather than COBOL. He was passionate in his proselytizing about C, having just finished learning it. It was better than COBOL, faster than COBOL, more modern, more versatile, and so on. It was, after all, a far better option .... he told me. He made a good case too, and was all for putting all this to the client.

However :-

1) The client had about 40 COBOL programmers on staff maintaining an existing suite, and no C programmers
2) They had an existing suite, which it had to interface with, and wanted consistency
3) COBOL was what the client wanted. No, actually, insisted on
4) The contract was already signed
5) The option of other languages had bee discussed months earlier and rejected by the client.

Now, regardless of whether COBOL was a good technical solution or not, it's what the damn customer wanted (and for good reason), regardless of the passion for C of the wet-behind-the-ears graduate. A good part of learning how to work in the real world, as opposed to the rather open atmosphere of academia, is knowing when to propose bright ideas and knowing when to keep your gob shut ..... and knowing when to stop preaching your ideas. It's part of that "people skills" I mentioned.

Obviously, that's just one very specific example, but far too many graduates have an overly-inflated opinion of their own worth to the employer. Typically, the real world will disabuse them of that fairly quickly.

One more thing, Aled.

Another thing that does not help is employees taking ages to get back to you when they say 'we'll let you know end of the week'. Oh and when you have a good chance of getting a second interview the recruiter person goes on holiday lol

One lesson to learn is that while your application is of considerable importance to you, it's quite possibly a fair way down the potential employer's priority list, and certainly down the "recruiter person"'s list when they're going on their hols. Also, with a fair few employers, you never will hear from them unless they want to see you. Many don't even bother telling people when they've filled a vacancy. But, for others, it's just a case of getting round to it, organising when all the people that need to be involved are free, perhaps of short-listing candidates for interview and circulating CVs to all the relevant line managers and getting feedback ..... or in waiting to see if their first choices respond to interview letters before sending out rejections to those that just missed the first cut. Or, as you point out, someone is either on or is just going on holiday.

I'm afraid it'll just take as long as it takes, probably involve disappointments and quite possibly not getting interviews where you thought you should, and you can't read too much into that because you don't know what calibre of competition you faced, or even what quantity of it. There may have been several hundred applicants for a given job, and if so, it takes time getting all that lot in, sorting though it and selecting a few to interview.

I'm afraid it's all just part of the game, par for the course, including the frustration of waiting.

[Blitzen]

And I also agree with Blitzen about the attitude that comes from many (though not all) recent graduates. I've worked with computing graduates, for instance, who are sure they know all the answers, because they've just finished learning all about it, so they must know more than the old fart they're working with. It doesn't seem to cross their minds that the old fart has a degree too .... and a quarter of a century doing the job.

Yep.....i have seen it a thousand times and it still makes me chuckle now.
If im going to pay someone decent money, 'talking the talk' is not enough.........'walk the walk' is what im after.

There is also a VERY fine line between confidence and arrogance and people fresh out of uni, unfortunately, very often step over that line.

One place where a lot of graduates fall down is in people skills ..... reading people, understanding the situation, reading between the lines and knowing how to get what needs to be done, done. Often, the shortest way between where you are and where you need to be is anything but a straight line, and it's not just what you do but how you do it. Do it right and you'll get people onside, perhaps because you let them think it was their idea in the first place. But try to lecture them and all you'll succeed in doing a lot of the time is raising hackles.

Bang on!
If again someone is qualified enough to deem themselves to paid a fairly good wage, i don't want to have to 'wet-nurse' them through their working day.
Also, if i did do this, once correctly trained to what i expect, they may go off and find another employer.
Why would i waste my time.

Sorry to all from Uni but experience wins every time. If you cant get experience then you are either aiming too high to beign with or the total attitude is all wrong.

[TheAnimus]

Sorry to all from Uni but experience wins every time. If you cant get experience then you are either aiming too high to beign with or the total attitude is all wrong.

Except that for many many jobs its not that way round.

You need 'proof' you can teach yourself, and learn things, a degree is good proof, it should only be a foundation mind, not training. This is where bad uni's are blurring the line.

Once you've proved that basic staple, which is about just getting a tick box, it counts for nothing more, then you can start to get the experiance.

doing it the other way round is much harder.

[schmunk]

Except that for many many jobs its not that way round.

You need 'proof' you can teach yourself, and learn things, a degree is good proof, it should only be a foundation mind, not training. This is where bad uni's are blurring the line.

Once you've proved that basic staple, which is about just getting a tick box, it counts for nothing more, then you can start to get the experiance.

doing it the other way round is much harder.

Agreed - for almost any finance job a degree is just a proof of (cap)ability - you are not expected to have any experience, as in many cases the firm wants to mould you to their knowledge base and ways of working.

Hence, I'm doing tax work with an Engineering degree, whilst colleagues studied History, English, Physics, Economics, Music etc.

[TheAnimus]

I'm surrounded by physics degrees.

But when you think about it, it does make sense, doing physics (or applied maths as i tend to think of it) does really show mathematical ability!

To say experiance means more than a degree is bullsh!t, it can be easily proved by people who are 30 and have been in full time employment, vrs people who are 30 with degrees in full time employment. One group earns substantually more.

Thou it really is worth noting a Degree dosen't suddenly make you great or fantastic or something, its more a case of most decent jobs simply assume you'd have one.

[Blitzen]

Except that for many many jobs its not that way round.

You need 'proof' you can teach yourself, and learn things, a degree is good proof, it should only be a foundation mind, not training. This is where bad uni's are blurring the line.

Once you've proved that basic staple, which is about just getting a tick box, it counts for nothing more, then you can start to get the experiance.

doing it the other way round is much harder.

Sorry...that used to be the case but it isn't now (in most cases anyway.

To say experiance means more than a degree is bullsh!t, it can be easily proved by people who are 30 and have been in full time employment, vrs people who are 30 with degrees in full time employment. One group earns substantually more.

Maybe in your world but not in real life.
I have read many of your posts, and i am not trying to be offensive, but you are constantly telling everyone what you earn and how good you are.
Can you not see you are the exception? YOu may have done reasonably well for yourself, i congratulate you, but it certainly hasnt been all off the back of a degree. You have obviously had to WORK HARD and gain your knowledge.

I didnt get my degree until i was 31 but i was still earning 3 times as much as a friend of mine that is a graduate and been a social worker for the last 12 years . And that was before i got the degree.