Come again!? Can you please explain out your point.... I absolutely disagree. I have a 2:1 in Mech Eng and 5 years in the industry and I am on more money then most people twice my age without the degree! Degrees in Dog Grooming of the majority ending in '-ology or -studies' then maybe, but for a sensible degree you can't go far wrong at all. The first step on the ladder takes a bit of time, but after that your sailing...Originally Posted by OilSheikh
Ulti (12-02-2015)
Ability is not a function of education, however they are related.
People with the drive and no education always out perform those who are educated but lack that drive.
Ulti (12-02-2015)
I do agree with that, and whilst I have never been the sharpest knife in the raw I think I am more ambitious and driven then most of my peers. If you have a degree & that same attitude then you leap frog everyone....degree, no degree, driven, or not. Ergo that degree is a huge benefit if you are sensible about it all.
Ulti (12-02-2015)
This just isn't true. Nobody gets to turn up to a hospital and start operating on people based on their 'drive'. Accredited university qualifications are great.
Ulti (12-02-2015)
No, but they could do most of what a senior doctor does - Case in point: Frank Abagnale.
Heck, I currently do most of what a Civil Engineer should be employed to do. I have the experience, a reasonable amount of knowledge and some pre-written calculators that do the formulaic numbery stuff. I would be on the same salary too, but I'm only an embedded consultant.
Ulti (12-02-2015)
As has been said: do whatever it takes to start getting relevant work experience ASAP.
Internship, part-time work, agency work -- whatever you can get. Working in retail isn't going to get you where you want to go, so the idea that it supposedly looks better on your CV than signing on is irrelevant; don't settle.
If you can't find work that's directly related to what you want to do, look for something that will at least develop "transferable skills" and give you something more relevant to talk about in the interview -- which you're more likely to get on the merits of said work experience. Start up a project of your own in the meantime if you can, at the very least that'll show initiative & versatility.
Your degree hasn't gotten you the "in" you wanted, so you're going to have to make that happen some other way, but that doesn't mean it's worthless.
Ulti (12-02-2015)
You're putting far too much emphasis on your qualifications and not enough on you the person. Remember that for each job you apply for there will be hundreds of similar people applying, so ask yourself "If you received your CV & Letter, would it stand out of a crowd? Would it be one you asked to call back, or one you immediately ignored?" Remember that those who didn't go to university going straight into apprentices now will have 3 years’ experience than you and are currently more employable. Holding down the current job is fine as it shows commitment, but could also demonstrate that your grades slipped when doing both this and working. Arranging to meet with the HR department prior to the closing date could also help. Good luck on your job hunt.
Ulti (12-02-2015)
I understand the point "big_hairy_rob" made about qualifications. In fact I think a huge amount of the factual material people learn at university doesn't even get used much in their career, but also don't underplay what you've got. LSE is well respected university, typically in the top 5-10 in the UK and perhaps top 50 world-wide (depends who's counting). A "desmond" is not a 2:1 but at least it's not a 3rd, and you have good GCSE/A-Levels. You can obviously cope with maths (actuary) and construct a grammatically correct English paragraph (your post). I'd estimate that this puts you in the top 5-10% of graduates already.
I'd avoid the grad recruitment companies if you can, due to so many bad stories. Keep it as a reserve option if you must, but there's a few other options I can think of :-
1) Network - find some like-minded groups on meetup.com and go talk to people! You might get a lucky break, but you have to make the opportunities. It's often free and sometimes offers beer and pizza, which I consider a double win
2) Stand out - been said already, but you need to look enthusiastic and involved in your chosen field. Participating in meetup groups might help here too.
3) Broaden your options - who else wants good maths and analytical skills, beyond insurance/banks/hedge-funds/investment funds? Have you considered consulting groups like Cap Gemini, KPMG, Accenture? Not my favourite people but they're an option. How about online gaming companies? They basically do the same as banks and traders! Needs lots of maths and stats analysis.
Keep looking. I really think you'll find something. Just imagine everyone here cheering for you(even the cynical ones).
Ulti (12-02-2015)
A good way of thinking about it is 'developing your personal brand'. Are you wall mart cola, or are you Coca Cola? You might be 95% the same as everyone else but you need to really make a big deal of why you're the right hire.
Ulti (12-02-2015)
Don't be put off by people asking for a first in job ads, just apply anyway. The job ad specs are a wish list, if you can do it you can do it you just have to convince the company of that. That is the hard part, getting a CV that gets you noticed and remembered. Have a short opening section describing who you are, what you are capable of. If you can grab attention in that first paragraph, you might get an interview and at that point you should be in with a fair shot.
I got my first graduate job through a local paper ad (of all places, it was a small engineering outfit and a long time ago). These days it seems to be all online sites like Jobserve. I find you have to scan the online ads daily, apply to any that you think look promising, take note of them. They never, ever bother getting back to you from those ads, so phone up the following day and ask about the job application. At that point you are talking to a person who deals with that *sort* of job, they have your details, they might be able to help with another placement even if the one you applied for isn't a flier.
Check the website of big companies that interest you, they should have a jobs section somewhere. Employment agencies get paid a fortune, companies love hiring from direct contact and it gets you the chance to write some sort of cover letter to say why you want that job.
Looking for a job is a full time job in itself. It can be disheartening, it seems to drag on forever, but just keep going and good luck.
Ulti (12-02-2015)
Alright, there have been a lot of replies since I've last looked here! Thank you everyone for contributing.
Thanks, will do!
I would argue against your point of my degree being useless. The content that I learnt from my degree may possibly be useless, but having the degree on my CV most certainly isn't useless. I did take a gap year and I tried to work as an intern, but to be completely honest, I wasted the whole gap year as all I managed to really do that year was some voluntary teaching. I had applied for internships back in second year but failed so I decided to take a breather to build up some work experience but during the gap year it seems I wasted a lot of time as I once again failed to get an internship during that time.
It is really tough with no work experience but I'm not such a pessimist to give up. The problem is if I want to apply directly with companies, especially top firms, their automated filter catches me out straight away when they ask if I have a minimum of a 2:1 whereas I believe graduate recruitment agencies have a link with the companies where they will obviously judge me and if they feel I am right by their criteria, they'll put in a good word for me, charge the company a bit of money and then the selection process can continue. That's how I believe it works anyway.
I guess it depends on the graduate recruitment company you're with. I've been looking around and a headhunting firm (not sure if these are technically the same as graduate recruitment companies) has been helping me the last couple of weeks and I've asked him how contracts work and he's explained that I will be contracted directly with the company that recruits me and that the company pays them directly as opposed to a traditional graduate recruitment company where the contract will be with them for the first couple of years or so.
What do you mean when you say "Mixture of being useful at the psychometric tests & no experience made it a nightmare."? I remember back when I was trying for internships, I would fly through the psychometric tests and I was always told that I was in the upper end of the results (beating 90+% of other candidates) but I failed the interviews each and every time apart from once. The first step is indeed the hardest for me as now they reject me before even sending me the psychometric tests to do!
Problem is, I'm not really interested enough in the other jobs. I know it's vital that I get work experience at least if I can't get a job but being one that's bad at interviews, if I don't have interest in a certain job, I'm pretty sure that when they ask the question "why do you want to join us in the role of x?", I will just end up mumbling with no real drive or motivation and they will catch me out on this.
I will definitely give that a think though. I mean if I could use my mathematical skills at a tech company like Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm etc I would be pretty happy in those companies. I have tried to apply to them though for some finance related roles like business analyst but with no luck.
Several people have suggested a masters degree but I just have an itch to work and put my current knowledge to use and learn through work as opposed to doing a masters degree in a specialised field. I've never really thought about a masters except that it wasn't something I wanted to do at this point in time. I guess after gaining a 2:2 it's quite discouraging for any further study. (I'm aware that I have quite a few actuarial exams to pass though in order to be fully qualified!)
Again, I think having a masters looks very nice on a CV.
I might do a masters at a later stage in life but it's not something I want to do now. I'm the type of person that won't/can't do something well if it's not something I want to do.
In hindsight, I would have done so with 100% probability if I had the opportunity! Unfortunately LSE does not have an actuarial science course with a placement year. A few of us were joking on the graduation ceremony day saying that we work so hard in LSE and do harder exams, get lower marks, get less exemptions, and don't end up with a job whereas someone who goes to CASS will learn the same things, do easier exams, get higher marks, get more exemptions, and therefore end up with a good job. Of course this is just a joke though, no offence to anyone that went/goes to CASS and who knows, the material could actually be the same at both or it could be the other way round.Ulti if you could, would you have done your course with a year in industry/ placement year ? I dont think LSE actually have a course with a placement year, but for arguments sake lets say they did
Yep, that's what I'm trying now.
Again, I personally think that having a degree, especially if you get a decent grade, is good on paper at the very least, even if what you learn isn't very useful. Reason why is because some companies will simply see that you didn't go to uni and not even offer you the chance for an interview. I don't have any figures to back this up but I would like to guess that there's a high probability those with a degree will earn more than those without a degree in the same job on average, which is what you're saying too.
I totally agree with abaxas. I think my downfall when it comes to interviews is that I never quite show as much drive as my peers which is something I struggle with as I am more of a tech nerd, and that is my biggest passion, but I would like to keep that as a hobby, and use the skill that I'm good at to earn money with. Some people will argue that this isn't the way to success/life but that's what I want to do. I'm not saying I don't have a passion in finance/insurance though, as I do find things like pricing, valuation, modelling very fun, but I would much rather read and play with tech than read and play with financial models.No, but they could do most of what a senior doctor does - Case in point: Frank Abagnale.
Heck, I currently do most of what a Civil Engineer should be employed to do. I have the experience, a reasonable amount of knowledge and some pre-written calculators that do the formulaic numbery stuff. I would be on the same salary too, but I'm only an embedded consultant.
At the end of the day, it really depends on the degree. One needs passion and motivation along with the knowledge and experience to do a job well IMO. A degree can provide you with the knowledge and experience to do the job, but you still need passion and motivation. On the other hand, with passion and motivation, one can be interested enough to go and learn the knowledge required for a job without a degree which is why I say a degree is helpful but not necessary and also not all of what you learn in a degree will be useful but I'm certain at least some elements will be used.
Time and time again do I hear people complaining about how they have to learn algebra, trigonometry etc in GCSE maths and that they'll never use it in real life but I can say with certainty that there are definitely problems that one would have come across where they could have used maths to solve the problem. The problem here is adapting the theory to a real world problem. Heck, I use maths a lot in the MMORPGs and other social games I play in order to earn money as opposed to "farming" the same map/place over and over again for the elusive rare drop.
Sound advice. One thing that I've been wondering a lot though is whether I should just leave my retail job behind and dedicate all my time to job hunting. As I also have to help out at the family takeaway, I'm pretty much working Thursday-Monday every week with only Tuesday and Wednesday to relax properly. As both jobs involve standing, I get physically tired after both jobs and never really job hunt on those days which leaves only Tuesday/Wednesday to both relax and job hunt, which is not a lot of time.
Another thing that I wonder is whether or not I could use that commitment as an excuse for my grades slipping. Even when I was studying I was working in both the takeaway and at PCW, although it was only the weekends at both places but I rarely got to rest. A lot of my friends were asking why I would spend the whole week studying and not spend what little weekend I had left to relax. In hindsight I do think it was a mistake to have worked in PCW whilst studying in my final year. I remember my manager also made me come in on the day before one of my exams as it was a bank holiday so it was busy. I argued my point but he had already given me a month off before my exams and so I couldn't really negotiate further. Funnily enough, even though I work in sales, my negotiation skills aren't the best.
I'm not really interested in other finance related jobs, which will come back to hurt me in the interview stages where I'm pretty sure the interviewer would easily be able to tell that I have no real interest in the job. I haven't thought about online gaming companies though. Might be worth a look!
It's been repeated before several times now but yep. I definitely need to emphasize what I can do and skills that I have that others may not have.
I guess it can't hurt to send in a CV. A lot of places advise on making specific tailored applications but some of my friends just send a CV at every opportunity and then worry and prep for the interview later and to be honest, it seems to have worked well for them.
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Thanks again for all the advice and comments! It means a lot to me and gives me motivation and plenty of options to think about.
Just to give a bit of an update, I've been in contact with a guy from a headhunting firm that specialises in recruiting actuaries for companies. He's told me that he doesn't usually get requests for graduates but over the last 2 weeks he has gotten 2 requests and I've been in contact with him via phone/email and he's given me some advice and delved into a bit of detail into my results and asked me if I had an excuse and where I thought I went wrong etc. I've actually calculated that I was just under 1% off a 2:1 which adds to the injury but on the other hand, it gives me hope as the way I see it is that I've just slipped up and I was close in the first place so if I believe in that and can lead the interviewer to have the same mentality, then I think I've got a good shot.
I've also realised that the actuarial magazine that I occasionally read, The Actuary, also seems to have a job section which also advertises graduate/entry level jobs. I can't believe I never remembered that place, I've been searching in the wrong place all this time! I'm going to be busy the next few weeks on that site then I guess.
Worst case scenario my next plan of action would be to go down the directory of actuarial firms and just start doing cold emails explaining my honest intentions for a graduate role or work experience and that I've been struggling to find something due to missing the minimum entry requirements by 1%.
Not sure if I should mention doing two jobs as an excuse or if that just makes me look like I'm pointing fingers.
Some of you might think I'm stupid for doing two jobs whilst studying but I was confident that I could keep things up and I never actually struggled with any of the materials in uni, so I thought why not as holding a part time retail sales job during third year with a decent result should have boosted my CV, but in the end it hurt my CV. The family takeaway thing isn't something I put on my CV as I only do it as I feel the need to help out my parents (asian culture) as I'm living at home, having all the meals cooked and all the chores done.
I would mention the working, in terms of "worked to pay my way through university" which is different and harder than "partied my way through university" which is the ethic that employers won't like so much
How about doing as masters? That way the 2-2 is forgotten about ....
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