What jobs can ds do after university?

[shteiner]

He's at Cambridge studying history so is bright, but has no idea what he wants to do with his life afterwards. He's only in his first year so at least it isn't imminent but he's getting stressed out with friends applying for summer schemes et cetera.

Any suggestions? He thinks he wants to live in London or a big city elsewhere, and he's always been pretty interested in the economy/business.

What about analyst for an investment house.
What about law?

My grandfather did history at Oxford then law

Consulting? Pays well, interesting work. Tell him to look at Deloitte or Accenture...they do summer internships.

Law conversion is popular with history students.

With respect, he is an intelligent young man, so he needs to figure this out for himself! Tell him to go and see the university careers service if he isn't sure what to do - I found them very helpful when I was a student, and the earlier he engages with them, the better!

I second the careers service. Also see if his college has a mentoring system, I know my old college has Alumni who are willing to discuss careers with present students.
As he goes through his degree he will be developing a lot of extremely useful skills: handling large quantities of information, working under time pressure, analysis, sifting information.
He should look at the Civil Service and not just the Fast Track - lots of careers there needing his kind of skills.

I'll try and get him to go to the careers service. I get that it is up to him to decide what he does! Just being nosey old mum, trying to help...

I read that other thread regarding law and it didn't sound good at all

It’s good to do Law if that’s what you really want. You cannot do it as an afterthought or because you are a lemming!

First year is too early to worry. He really should not be stressing just yet! The time to start looking for and applying for internships or summer schemes is in the autumn of y2 so start exploring which type of work he might want. Then be ready to go with applications when the schemes open.

I agree with looking at the Civil Service and to be in a better position to get anything, he should do some work or volunteering this summer. It’s never wasted as it definitely teaches soft skills and demonstrates a work ethic. Employers like it.

I think university gives you a bit of time to discover who you are. Do you like people? Do you want to beaver away doing research? Obviously business and economics lends itself to maths, economics and engineering grads so how do his skills measure up? He needs to look at a broad range of internships and apply for ones where he won’t be outgunned by grads with specific skills. However there are many to look at so don’t scattergun applications. Be realistic.

Alexa that was really unhelpful. No doubt he’s doing that. But an mn poster is trying to get some ideas from others, is that ok with you?

No idea op, am clicking on your thread as I have three dses at uni. It’s strange the direction people go in which don’t relate to their degrees at all.

With History there isn’t an obvious career except more History. This can, of course, take young people in a number of directions but sometimes finding out what you don’t like, what you do like and what sort of person you are takes a bit of time and maturity. Then the career that appeals will come to light.

Sometimes it’s very hard to keep comparing yourself to others when you are not them. You can feel on the back foot and pressurised. English grads and similar “arts” degree holders also have to find their niche if it’s not immediately obvious.

There will be careers fairs to go to. The milk round is still going at Cambridge I believe. This will give him a better perspective of what is broadly available. I would seek more detailed guidance after going to these.

I've got a young relative with a First in History from KCL who has some sort of non-technical marketing job ....there are probably quite a lot of such 'generic' roles which provide decent employment but which aren't necessarily 'that's what I want to do with my life' ambitions IYsWIM.

I got the impression from DD last year that among first years it was mainly engineers who were really focussed on finding placements (they have a mandatory requirement before they can start the 3rd year so getting it under their belts early takes the pressure off).

I would suggest going through a graduate program if he can secure one. Lost of consultancy firms offer them and they tend to be quite open minded about who they take. There are also a lot of companies that offer graduate training schemes like housing developers etc. If he is concerned about earning good money he might be better off doing some postgrad study at university e.g. GDL, economics etc. and then going through a training contract/concultancy grad scheme at a top firm etc. If not then there a lot of opportunities in HR and civil service that don’t require a business oroebtated degree.

Seconding DangerMouse17 's suggestion of Consulting. It's an enormously broad field and offers countless opportunities for bright graduates of any and all backgrounds. General entry criteria are essentially great analytical skills, strong soft and interpersonal skills and the willingness to work hard to deliver under sometimes stressful conditions and build up knowledge and experience on the job. (I should know; I'm a consulting executive and this is what I look out for when hiring - couldn't care much less if they have a degree in engineering or in medicine for most roles, though we have an IMO unfortunate tendency to favour candidates from certain universities.)

Fair warning: in my experience, one is either a consulting type or not. The irregular hours, often including travel, the deadlines and pressure but also the working with very senior people from early on is some people's dream job - it's still mine - but breaks others within a few months. A summer internship might be a good way of figuring out if it's a good fit for your son.

I can only speak for myself, but after a decade in the business I still couldn't be happier about my career choice except when my client calls on my personal phone at 6am.

Silly question, but what do consultants do?

Better questions: what don't consultants do? I've literally been expected to dish out fashion advice on one of my mandates before. I'm not stylish at all.

In general, though, consultants normally provide either industry, methodology or technology expertise (or a combination thereof) to clients for a limited period of time. They're external help that companies will bring on board to e.g. restructure their business, investigate the benefits of an idea, implement new technologies or figure out if that's even worth it. And we really operate on all levels. Colleagues I can think of off the top of my head include a guy who's working with a client CEO to determine how to shape the client's business strategy for the 21st century, a colleague who's working on restructuring recruitment processes for another client and yet another one who's digging up the nitty gritty of a failing IT system and trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

It's an enormously broad field.

Without wanting to denigrate myself, my colleagues or the work we do: we're basically really expensive temps (that typically come in teams) but instead of answering the phone our core job tends to be to solve problems, advise or innovate in a way that the organisation itself can't pull off without outside expertise.

The Civil Service Fast Stream is full of history graduates. They love the analytical and written skills that history students develop. You generally get to work in London and if you work in the policy area, you are heavily involved in issues which deeply impact the economy and business.

Some of these suggestions are great but bear in mind few consultancies or anyone else offer more than tasters to 1st years. Most internships are for 2nd years. Hence the need to do a bit more research first.

Was going to suggest the Civil Service Fast Stream. My friend’s DS is just finishing an Oxford history degree and has got that lined up. Not mega bucks but has potential.

There’s a link to ‘highfliers’ as well, if I can find it, listing lots of graduate schemes etc.

There you go www.highfliers.co.uk/download/2019/graduate_market/GMReport19.pdf

Takenforslanted thanks for explaining. I have thought consultants would be experts in whatever field they were called in to advise on. I’m sure you’re downplaying your credentials in fashion .

I have thought consultants would be experts in whatever field they were called in to advise on.

In some fields that's definitely the case (I must admit I'm a bit baffled how a new graduate could immediately become a consultant on anything)