Paying to find young person a first job

Okay I didn't read the comments about the mental health. She probably needs to go on sick and recuperate especially if she is suicidal. Don't know why you are bothered about her career right now.

Well then she needs to not be snobby. They can earn decent wages.

My partner recruits graduates regularly and he works in the industry you’ve mentioned. I agree with changing your name and posting with more location details and see if any of us could help you.

@mothersdaywoe I know you probably will decide to be rude instead of taking this on board, but it would be easier for you if you realised that a university degree is not a training for a specific career in most cases, it is an education. There are thousands of people with law degrees who can't get training contracts, and thousands of people with medical degrees appalled because their job for life isn't forthcoming. In large part this is to do with expansion of student numbers.

You seem very impressed by your daughter's academic achievements, but in reality they will not in themselves mark her out as exceptional. Do you know that 90% of Russell Group graduates now graduate with a first or 2.1? (Source, Times Higher Education) The careers will be going to the ones with firsts, or those who undertake further degrees, or those who make a determined effort post graduation to do internships, volunteering or practically anything rather than sitting at home fretting that the world doesn't value them highly enough.

I am truly sorry that your daughter has poor mental health. Do you think it might in part be because you are over ambitious for her? Get her well, let her find a non stressful job and then think what she might do in the longer term until the career chatting about science comes along. Has she considered teaching?

This had crossed my mind too…

OP there is a reality here that your daughter sounds unwell. Getting her mental state better has to be priority number 1. It won’t do her any good to get a grad role and then burn out or be fired. There has to be a bit of a reality check re where she is and what she can actually cope with. I’ve seen grads meltdown with the weight of expectation re assessments, the need to be high flying etc. I really actually wouldn’t recommend anyone vulnerable

Re the careers coach - GFI membership, sector specific experience and level 6/7 careers development qualification AND a recognised coaching qualification would be minimum expectations. That’s what you would expect from a university careers advisor in a well-rated service so if someone is charging £500 then I would expect quite a lot (equivalent to 8 hours of quality input for example)

on recruitment generally everywhere I’ve worked we’ve used recruitment agencies for temp to perm for entry level (20-30k band) after a quick round in internal only adverts, executive search for c-suite, and manager led recruitment in between so recruitment agencies with some specialism in her field of interest are a good bet. Recruiting people is expensive, time consuming and risky so temp to perm mitigates those factors

on science jobs, a UG degree won’t be enough to get a science job. There are too many people with full masters, PhDs and post-doc experience so she needs to upgrade, change direction, or find a niche combination of skills needed in the industry. It might be helpful to have a second language too

but mostly that £500 might be well
spent later AFTER she’s recovered her mental wellbeing. Probably a waste right now

OP defends the service so vehemently that I get the impression that this is a reverse - she is the one providing the service and wants to understand why insufficient people are interested in it.

Knowing this important information, I agree that a job is not a priority. Mental health support should be a priority not a job coach.

Pushing your daughter into a career when she’s on the verge of suicidal is stupid. Pay the 500 for therapy for your daughter. OP your deluded if you think someone who struggles to brush their teeth can secure a great career by paying 500 to someone to write a cv.

You don’t think Tesco employ managers who aren’t managing shops?

DD has a Science degree and posters in that field have confirmed that lab work is the usual first step. If DD doesn’t want to do that, she probably needs to do a Masters or other progression qualification in her area of interest. I agree with PP she seems extremely unwell and pretty much unemployable in any capacity at present. I would focus on that.

You have been really hostile and rude to various posters who are genuinely trying to help you.

If your DD has similar personality traits it’s possible that is what’s holding her back.

In an effort to preempt your sarcastic ire I will say I’m a senior professional with grad recruitment responsibilities, although not in the sciences- I did a science degree and decided it was absolutely not for me! I have had several bouts of professional coaching and done so basic coaching qualifications myself.

To be frank given what state you have said your daughter is at then this offering is unlikely to be very helpful or good value for money. Your daughter is not at the stage to take it on board, make the most of it or make a good impression. Throwing good money after bad in those circumstances and her failing again will only make things worse.

Personal care first then work.

So I've just caught up with all past posts from OP. It sounds like DC is in a bad place right now. I know you are working on mental health and career stuff together, but as someone who burnt out in last year of uni - mental health comes first. I worked agency admin temp jobs during my first year out whilst getting talking therapy and finding the right anti-depressant. I don't know what the temp industry is like right now, but you need the mental health to be good before you make the career. Take the pressure off and concentrate on that, and then career stuff can come later.

I have to agree with this. Even if your daughter’s current mental state is caused entirely by the frustration of not being able to find a career position (I feel this is unlikely, but will come back to that), at this point, when she is so clearly very unwell, finding that job is not going to be the cure for her poor mental health. In fact it could place unbearable pressure on her which would make things even worse. You’re unwittingly setting her up to fail if you force her into this enterprise just now, possibly even causing her to turn away from what she really wants to do in life.

The first thing you focus on is therapy and medication to uncover why she has become so ill (it’s not inevitable in her situation, thousands of others are in exactly the same position but poor mental health isn’t the outcome for everyone, so there must be another vulnerability you’re not engaging with yet), get the treatment she needs to get well, build her resilience, and only then, when she is able to engage with her own job search without you doing it for her or paying someone to ‘shove her into the room’ is she ready and robust enough for a tough job search and the pressure and challenges her first career role will inevitably bring. The last thing she needs is to be forced into a role now and then crash and burn quickly.

Graduates face the fact that it might take time to get their big break, more now than ever. I went to university in the early 90s, left with a good degree from a RG uni in a subject for which I had a career plan, in a era when only 10% of us went to uni at all - still I had to wait out almost a year working in a bookshop before I got my first, entry level job. I was one of the first from my cohort to do so, even then. You need to be realistic here, and most of all about what your child needs right now.

Her mother should he focussing on her daughters mental health not her career development.
No careers adviser worth their salt would work with a suicidal client. They’d refer them to specialist support.

Absolutely this. Obviously the career ladder is harder to climb these days, and it won't change any time soon.

I think you've got to accept that careers usually start at the bottom, and in the least likely ways at times. I had to do waitressesing and shelf stacking as a teenager, then after graduating worked in M&Co for a few years before doing a lot of volunteer* *work experience in the big magazine publishing companies in London (Country Living, Esquire, Women's Own etc). I only got these posts as I literally emailed the editorial assistant and asked about work experience.

It's hard starting out, but tenacity and a desire to get better (mentally in your DD's case too) will be contributing factors. I understand how disheartening it must be for your DD but I dont honestly think a £500 CV expert is going to make a huge difference.

OP - your "specific" question was about whether it was worth paying £500 for coaching etc to get a first job. A lot of people won't read any of your other posts.

Much later on it came out that this is not actually a first job and that your DD is depressed, and even then it was drip fed further quite how bad her mental health is.

If you'd posted up front that your daughter graduated a year ago and was still trying to land her first graduate job after 6 years work experience in retail (ideally stating the sector of the desired graduate job), but was currently suffering with severe mental health issues that meant she couldn't even brush her teeth and was suicidal; I think people would have responded differently.

Remember none of us know you or your daughter. We can only know what you tell us. You have got annoyed and been very rude to people who didn't magically understand your family circumstances.

And frankly if your daughter is suicidal (and this is the first post where you've said this is the case) then job coaching is not the right thing for her at the moment. Applying for a job is hard and requires resilience. Working in a job is also likely to require both of those things.

Wow! Fine, ignore my advice.

What do I know? I’ve only worked in the career development sector for 25 years, have trained hundreds of professionals, did my PhD on the graduate labour market and career development and lead an international centre for employability practice and research.

But I guess you know better.

My DC will be in this position soon - again he’ll be in line for a 2.1 least from an RG in a rigorous STEM subject. I will def encourage him to get ‘any’ job while he applies for grad roles, he’ll have no issue with this as he’s worked on and off since 17. He can go on UC in the meantime.
There’s also a charity near us that helps unemployed people get back to work - I used it myself years ago. Will def send him there, maybe there’s something like that near you?
it’s not easy, I know some of his peers are struggling but others have jobs (ds took a year out so some friends have already graduated). I think it must be a combo of a shit job market, type of degree, whether they’ve had prior work experience, personality, grit and resilience.

If your dd is genuinely on the verge of suicide, then I am very sorry about that, but I find it hard to believe that you would be so preoccupied with her future career prospects in that scenario. She doesn't sound like she is in a place to engage with a career coach right now, and I think it would be incredibly misguided to put her under such pressure.

I have a friend who did law over many years through OU, and volunteeted at Citizens Advice, all while working a bar job and being a young mum. Truly inspirational! She's now a partner in a law firm. She was run ragged time wise for years but it's all paid off. Your DC may need to steel herself for a decade of tiring hustle to get where she wants.

If your daughter is on the verge of suicide, a £500 career coach is not the support she needs.

It must be a distressing situation at home, but I think you are focussing on the wrong thing.

I think this poster is right.

Not in the same situation as your daughter, but when I was made redundant a number of years back my company paid for a "transition coach". We had a number of sessions (6?) where the coach talked me through what I wanted out of my career/life; explored my skills and interests; helped me improve my CV; gave application and interview support; and signposted job hunting resources.

I actually found it very useful. However. A lot of this information is now freely available online in a way it wasn't back at the time I did this. I don't know how much the sessions cost, but it would not surprise me if in today's money they were a lot more than £500 in total. And it sounds like your daughter is already set on one direction. Also, the session was guidance; it was not magic. It gave me some confidence that what I was doing was the right thing, but ultimately I still had to jump through all the hoops to get the next job.