To be panicking about DC’s employability post uni?

[NeedXanaxPlease]

DD is going into the final year of an Anthropology degree (might get a first but probably a 2:1) from a top RG uni. Has done a Fine Art foundation year. Always worked part time since finishing A-levels (Maths, English Lit, Art), first as a barista/front of house/waitressing, then as an after-school nanny during uni.
She loves working, is highly responsible, great people skills (and people judgement) and quite numerate/commercially savvy. She is a great kid and would be an asset to any team. But… she hasn’t had a single internship so no “relevant” work experience (didn’t get her act together after first year and a long recovery post an operation for a sporting injury after second year) nor does she really know what she wants to do after graduation. She is definitely not pursuing the classic investment banking, Bain/BCG/McKinsey, accountancy, law routes.
I am now feeling highly anxious and helpless as I don’t know how to support/guide her. I did the classic Tier 1 strategy consulting, MBA, corporate M&A so I am spending hours each week helping my friends’ kids who want to pursue this path (mock case studies, mock interviews, CV reviews) but am at a complete loss re how to help my own. I feel that I am spiralling. This is not helped by my being involved in graduate recruitment at my work – CVs I see are all full of Economics/Management/Sciences degrees, multiple internships/work experiences/summer schools – they are highly structured and tick all the boxes (to an extent where I can’t differentiate between them). My DD wouldn’t stand a chance on paper.
Sage mumsnetters, please reassure me that she can get a job without internships and with a “soft” degree? Does she stand a chance with graduate schemes? Should she even bother applying? What potential career routes she could explore?

Gillian Tett, the FT journalist who predicted the 2008 financial crash and is now provost of Kings College, Cambridge, is an anthropology grad. She is a passionate advocate for the subject's usefulness.

Her book 'Anthro-Vision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life' might help your daughter to articulate her degree's value to prospective employers - and might perhaps give her some ideas of the avenues she might like to pursue.

Tell her to do some volunteering work in an area she is interested in. That's a great way to gain valuable experience

Regarding academia as a career, it’s always been hard to break in to and have an actual permanent post. Currently almost all Universities have severance schemes or organisational restructuring. No mention of redundancies and they are not as it doesn’t mean the post can never be filled in the future but it’s worse than ever. So far three of my ex colleagues have taken severance at two RG universities and my DH has just put in for severance. It means a wealth of experience leaving, about 110 years between that lot. It will be dire in some places for those left behind and some have a recruitment freeze.

She just needs to apply for internships and graduate schemes, she does at least have work experience.

I did anthropology at university. I didn’t even do the civil service fast stream but joined in an operational role. Less than 10years after joining I am a director and hold a public appointment. A couple of my contemporaries have OBEs already. If she’s clever and good with people and resilient and hard working she’ll be fine.

This

Cultural insight and brand strategy. Look to grad traineeships at ad agencies or brand consultants.

The best ones of those I know gave anthropology degrees. It's fun and pays well, not finance well but pretty good, if you're good at it

www.jet-uk.org/

I think you might post in Higher Education rather than in AIBU.

My neice has just got a grad scheme with the Civil Service in London, has she considered this route?
Maybe she could do a year in a postgrad that is a bit more geared towards a job such as business and economics and then apply for grad schemes?
The other route is into HR which banks have large recruitments for and my neice's friend applied last year and has job in now in the City.

My brother graduated with a degree in geography.
He became a produce broker (he bought fruit & vegetables from farmers & sold it to markets & grocers) and made a fortune.
I could never figure out what geography had to do with sales, so I asked him:
”Nothing,” was his answer.
Just because your daughter majors in one thing does not mean she’ll spend the rest of her career in that field.
I graduated with a degree in English and thought for sure thought I’d teach — and ended up in politics. Life can be curvy.

Super grateful for all suggestions, going through all of them, will summarize takeaways later

There is nothing stopping her doing a finance grad job. They are loads of companies apart from the big ones.

How about an international, multilateral or development organisation- eg FCDO, NATO, the World Bank, the United Nations? High pay and great opportunities.

She has relevant skills - eg anthropology for community-consultative programming or audience-targeted strategic communications - and all important (and sadly increasingly scarce) soft skills in working with others, coaching, etc.

She’d need to learn French (or another language).

I find this a bizarre thread. It’s so old school, she has a degree = she’s going to be a management consultant.

in this day and age she has a degree = she works a minimum wage job along with the (hundreds) of thousands of other graduates.

it’s for her to decide her career path, you sound way too invested and have far too high expectations.

A degree these days really doesn’t set you apart. And this is coming from someone who graduated 20 years ago and my degree (although a 2.1 law degree from a RG uni to satisfy your snobbery) really doesn’t mean anything.

I think you’ve lost a bit of perspective here and are projecting massively your own fears and biases onto the situation with your daughter

in fact so much so that you can’t even see how offensive your previous comment was… I doubt you meant it intentionally but still

you have lots of suggestions, good luck with it

I think if she could think of sectors she's interested in and then see which companies are big players in that area.
If I was to do it all again I would love to be a cyber security.
DunnHumby is an interesting company. Human behaviour applied to commercial queries.
She needs to do some research.

Maybe she wants a less pressured life than you have had? You sound quite highly strung. I got a job after uni (not a career), then I got another job, then I got another job which was mostly done by graduates & they funded me to do an MSc while working, then I got a promotion, then I got some really good training and moved into a well paid role, then I got more senior... I'm a far better and relaxed employee than my contemporaries who just did graduate trainee and high pressure right from the start (but we're approximately in the same place now career wise)

One of my best friends studied Anthropology and went into the police. Loves it. Would that interest her?

Does she have to live in London? I guess that’s where you are and/or possibly her uni but she doesn’t have to live there, therefore doesn’t have to reach for a massive salary to live on (most other cities are far more affordable).

PP is right - ”millions” of other options do exist. Here’s a few: teaching, energy sector, environment sector, civil service, working with animals in some form, charities, culture/arts (museums, theatres, national trust etc), government, marketing (as I think you said she was looking into). The list goes on.

i might be wrong, but from your posts it sounds like you maybe “look down” on a lot if the above or anything outside of what you know. a) many of the career path options she has are hugely fulfilling and b) (as it seems to be an issue for you) there is the option to earn plenty in many of those jobs.

my advice - let her explore some options, help her write her cv and if she wants to try a job and gets it, let her. The first things she does don’t have to be her lifelong career - that can be her “experience” you think she needs on there. Hardly anyone I know did internships

This. Please don't listen to some posters on MN. When I read them, the only thing I can think of is - sabotage. Some people routinely tell 40+year old stay-at-home mums with no degrees and no savings 'to chuck their husbands if they had affairs and 'find a man who is the same age, a high earner, sexy and good-looking to love you the way you are because you deserve it'. There was another thread today where mothers who forced their children to do cool extra-curriculars were telling other 'tyrant and controlling mothers' to 'let their children drop music, sports, etc. as long as they are happy because unis doin't look at extra-curriculars at interviews'. Yeah, right. Don't listen to them and be actively involved in pushing your child in the right direction. Some comments are disingenuous. Without proper parental guidance, a person can waste an anthropology degree, with proper parental guidance and downright pushing, a person can excel with an anthropology degree. If she is not into law, accountancy, management, then a fast-tracker Scotland Yard into something like analytical unit would be a great career path with progression, pension, and a chance to meet a wonderful vetted man (beats any internet dating in my view). And yes, you are absolutely right, not all rich and employed people are happy, but I would rather be unhappy, rich and employed than the other option.

Charity jobs UK would be a great place for her to look. I honestly wouldn't worry. Most get to where they want to be eventually. I was coaxed into an arts degree and ended up in commercial sales post grad. Ten years later I moved to work in a local authority and did a social work degree in my 30s. I have a mortgage am fairly solvent and most importantly happy! She has plenty of time to figure it out.

She is definitely not pursuing the classic investment banking, Bain/BCG/McKinsey, accountancy, law routes.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted that investment banking, accountancy, and law are such common career paths to high earning mumsnetters with 6 figure salaries, that they can't conceive of any other jobs and regard finance as a "classic" career path.

Quick question to everyone... when you buy shampoo at the supermarket, how do you think that is made? Or what about your medicines? Food? Or if you paint your house, where does that paint come from?

I'll give you a hint... you don't have a man in a factory who pushes a big button, then all of the consumer products magically pop out.

Would she consider a career in HR/ marketing/ teaching? There are starter grad jobs available in all of those as well as masters type qualifications she could go on to do to have something on a CV

What planet are you on?

If she is not into law, accountancy, management, then a fast-tracker Scotland Yard into something like analytical unit would be a great career path with progression, pension, and a chance to meet a wonderful vetted man (beats any internet dating in my view).

@EI12 then a fast-tracker Scotland Yard into something like analytical unit would be a great career path with progression, pension, and a chance to meet a wonderful vetted man (beats any internet dating in my view).

Workplace dating may have worked in the past, but I assure you this no longer happens. Joining a workplace is a sure fire way of ensuring you never have a relationship with anyone in that workplace.