I have two kids both navigating a job market that, on paper, looks brutal.
Youth unemployment is at its highest in a decade. A million young people are classified as NEETs. The average graduate vacancy attracts 140 applications. And every other headline seems to be telling them that AI is coming for whatever jobs are left.
Parents are understandably worried - and I'm one of them.
But I've also spent thirty years on the other side of the hiring table. From an engineering graduate on the shopfloor of a glass factory to the CEO of a billion-dollar business, I've hired hundreds of people directly and been responsible for many thousands more. And what I know from that experience is this: the fundamentals of career success have not changed and many young people are losing out for the wrong reasons.
Not because they're not good enough. But because nobody ever explained how work works – and how we can make it work for us.
So here is what I tell my own kids. And what I'd tell yours.
Qualifications are a proxy, not a passport
The vast majority of jobs do not require a specific degree or qualification. Therefore, though qualifications matter (and the higher quality the better) for all jobs they are simply a proxy measure – used to provide a guide to the applicant’s future potential. Employers don’t want clever graduates, they want successful employees and the two are most definitely not the same thing.
Work experience is more important than ever
Prior work experience has become invaluable when hunting for entry-level jobs.
It is a powerful differentiator - not because of what you learn, but because it proves the candidate can (and will) work. It doesn't matter what the job was: volunteering, interning, waiting table, fetching coffees, data entry. Employers want evidence that you're a useful energetic employee and with the profusion of degrees and AI applications that evidence is becoming more valuable every year.
And make sure to get a good written reference.
Quality beats quantity
The temptation for graduates is to cut and paste hundreds of applications. Though it can become something of a numbers game, this approach is to be resisted.
It is far better to do fewer, but make them stand out.
65% of UK graduates now use AI to write job applications. Employers know this - and are becoming adept at filtering them. The more everyone uses AI, the more a human, specific, well-prepared application stands out. The graduates winning right now are the ones who understand this.
That said everybody gets rejections – often quite a few. If you do, always ask for feedback. Many people won’t, but some will and it’s worth it – if only to potentially continue the conversation. You never know where it leads.
It’s a game of two halves
Graduate employment is typically application (CV) and hiring (interview).
At the application stage, employers are not looking for reasons to hire - they're looking for reasons to reject because they need to get a list of hundreds down to a manageable shortlist. Here the objective is to stay in the game. Don't make it easy for them to cut you.
The interview is the opposite. By the time they meet you, they want you to be the answer to their problem. Most people don't realise that shift has happened and show up to the interview the same way they approached the application.
Practise and preparation for each half dramatically improve outcomes.
Nobody cares how clever you are
They care about whether you’re going to be great to work with, that you’ll be a fantastic colleague, about your passion, your enthusiasm, your potential – and most of all that you’ll get sh*t done. These aren’t what careers advisors tell us or what we learn at university. But they are what all employers want.
Be the person who gets things done
If there is one piece of advice I'd give any young person starting out, it's this: be the person who says ‘let me take care of that.’
Young people are often frustrated that their elders ‘won’t listen to their ideas’. But ideas are easy, ten-a-penny. Teams don’t need any more ideas, they already have more than enough. What they need are people with the courage and energy to make some of them happen.
Bring solutions, not problems. When something goes wrong, think through what you'd do about it before raising it. Anybody can point out what isn't working. The people who thrive are the ones who come with answers.
None of this requires exceptional intelligence or special talent. It requires the right attitude. It’s this attitude that gets people hired, ensures they succeed once they have been and it’s a choice we can all make.
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