Brutal grad jobs market

[anotherglass]

Hello, my DS 22 graduated last July with an BEng from a Russell Group uni. Since then he has applied for around 60-70 jobs with no success. The whole process of online assessment, video interview and then rejection / ghosting is starting to grind him down. It is even tough to secure a part-time job in our area - such as a coffee shop or retailer - as he is considered over qualified and a risk, due to the fact he is searching for a full-time role.
I am finding myself worrying more and more about his mental health and future.
He is already less enthusastic about applying for jobs.

Any suggestions on what to do from here? Is it worth considering a Masters to try and ride out the horrendous job market?

Thank you

And believe me, there's plenty of badly written CVs - written by supposedly intelligent students.

Yes, but its only refreshingly old fashioned because we only had 50 to deal with and because its not a commercial organisation, so doesn't have the budget or inclination to be an early adopter of AI sifting.

They do, however, sometimes use agencies for specialist recruitment, who may well use AI sifting. I do think that arms length recruitment via agencies leads to grim processes creeping in.

I can certainly believe that - there always have been! I’ve read a few applications for jobs where the applicant forgot to change the name of the organisation they were applying to in their covering letter, so were happily telling employer X how much they had always wanted to work for employer Y 🤣.

This Radio 4 phone-in about people's experiences of the current job market may resonate with people on this thread: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002rqlj

It includes a call from a small employer who is struggling to recruit, and some good advice for making your CV more readable by Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

No way can someone churn out 10+ high quality graduate role applications a week every week. For one thing, the graduate recruitment market isn’t buoyant enough to keep finding so many appropriate roles, and for the other, if they were genuinely high quality applications, the candidate wouldn’t be able to juggle all the different stages in the recruitment processes after progressing past the first sift. 10+ applications is someone churning out applications with the help of AI for jobs they don’t want, that aren’t in reality all likely to be logistically feasible, and in relation to which employment sector and specific employer they have not had time to do proper, in-depth research.

It's always been the case that parental financial support and parental networks and connections make a big difference. This starts from a young age at school and all the way up to uni and beyond. Meritocracy isn't widespread in many professions.

@Dangermouse999 In which ones? I’ve seen no evidence of that. I know business owners employ dc. That’s how you carry on a family business, but other people are not in a position to get dc a professional role at all. They can certainly guide and offer advice but string pulling is very difficult these days. I’ve seen it with non progressional jobs a lot more. Builders for example.

I think its common in trades. In that phone-in I posted a link to in my pp there is a call from a surveyor who intends to take his own son on as an apprentice. The roofer who replaced my roof was a family business proudly called "X & sons" and the sons were apprentices. In both cases, presumably subsidised by the Government's apprenticeship levy. I also know a self employed electrician in the film production industry who is training his own son as his assistant.

That said, I also know people working in HE professional services and the Civil Service whose children have got entry level jobs with the same employer. I've no idea whether that was because they just knew the jobs were coming up and pointed their kids to the adverts, or went so far as to put in a word for them with the hiring manager, but either is a helping hand.

Definitely true. Amongst ppl I know its amazing how much family connections have helped young grads get that foot in the door.

Either through valuable work experience, helping with the application or getting the person a role.

It is completely normal human behaviour to help your nearest and dearest get on in life. Some DC also grow up with constant conversations around the dinner table about their parents' professional lives and internalize knowledge, attitudes and behaviours that give them leverage when looking for graduate roles. I am fascinated that anyone finds this surprising or shocking.

@strungling As I said, they are family businesses and of course they employ dc . It’s normal to do that and if they pay the apprenticeship levy, they can have an apprentice. I don’t see anything wrong in small business’s doing that. Surveyors are not trades by the way. They have processional exams. It’s inevitable people take the devil they know!

@Ceramiq what you have said is spot on. Ultimately DC get their job through their own merit (in my DC case anyway) but the support they have received from our social circle throughout their life definitely shaped their aspirations and social capital.

@Ceramiq and @Truetoself Totally agree with you both. The conversations around the dinner table make a huge difference, plus the aspiration / interest / support from our social circle. We enjoy talking about business and our DC do the same. Obviously not all the time, but it's there in knowledge and aspiration. My DC are not academic and it's great that they are interested in life.

I grew up in a house where my father would ask us what interest rates were and the spot price of oil. Funny now, but it was normal for me to know this everyday! (I used to look it up in the paper). 😆😂

@GrumpyMuleFan We did nothing like that here. My DH had a very succesful business. My DD has a good career as a barrister. Nothing to do with us or any friends. It’s over played - except in the most competitive households!

@OhDear111, I had heard barristers are the most likely to be hired through connections. All candidates are likely to be qualified so the difference will be "right fit"

Graduates need to be on there look out for opportunities from all connections. My company has recently given a years work experience to a student, who met the hiring manager whilst playing on a local football team. The students degree wasn't specific to the role but it's opened the door and now there will have a job lined up when they finish their degree.

@Pleasealexa Well bigger fool your manager then. Presumably they don’t want to test the market further. This can be necessary in shortage areas of course.

Barristers chambers are a collective. After pulillage year, barristers are invited to join a chambers as tenants and pay towards the operational costs of chambers. Or they are rejected.

They are self employed in the main but the government and the CPS hire barristers too. No job there on a nod and a wink.

The members of chambers usually get a vote as to who joins them. Depends on the rules they have agreed but a committee recommends who should join. Committees also look at the vast number of applications and short list. Like any other job.

Where it can differ is indeed best fit which usually comes to light during pupillage. Even the brightest don’t fit in everywhere . This can be about personality or area of work but just nodding someone through to a life time attachment to a Chambers would be ludicrous. Some pupillages are competitive leaving dc without anything after a year if they are not voted in. Others can be offloaded early! I cannot imagine one existing tenant just has to say they want a person and everyone immediately agrees! It’s a lengthy process and a very very extended trial run.

@OhDear111 It's so funny (and wonderful), how different we all are. We are not a very competitive family as not academic or alpha-y, until it comes to sport.. But with talking thing, it's not about helping them to do well, it's just what we are interested in. I looked it up and haven't read it yet, but Pierre Bourdieu in the 1970s, developed this idea of 'cultural captial' which is there in families.

Families of entrepreneurs and the self-employed have eg a very different family discourse to families of public servants. The family's influence on life trajectories of children is not necessarily as directly tangible (paid for advantages/education or contacts) as some posters claim - it can be more a mindset around risk for example or threshold income.

I am always fascinated about people's attitudes towards risk - again it varies so much.

@GrumpyMuleFan Do you mean risk of failing and having no income? Some people would never take any risk but spend all their working lives moaning!

Both really, I totally agree with you! @OhDear111 It's just something I've noticed in our family - how differently we view and approach it. I have a DB who is VERY risk adverse - but then moans the whole time about everything that might go wrong (and frequently does). He also moans the whole time about his "investments" not making a good return, but his risk profile is no doubt, "no risk". He is a lawyer and I think he's v well suited to that, but honestly almost scared of his own shadow. He has always been a bit like that, but my DF (who is a risk taker), thinks it's become more pronounced since he married someone similar.

Traditionally, or in the past, a poor job market for graduates would lead to more entrepreneurial activity - but I'm not sure about that this time around. The economy (and maybe our society), no longer supports that in the way it did. Def interesting times ahead.

@GrumpyMuleFan We live in an era of massive institutions that wield power as well as economies of scale. This makes small entrepreneurial ventures much harder and less likely to provide a good return. Young people create startups and raise huge amounts of investments with the aim of creating yet more massive institutions that wield power and economies of scale. I find it frightening and depressing that companies need to be so massive and impersonal.

The largest sector for entrepreneurial activity is SMEs. Many don’t seek to be enormous or wield power. They just want a decent return on time and investment, Growth is very very hard now and people are risk averse in terms of employing people. Lack of jobs is the biggest issue facing young people and the government has no idea what to do about it.

SME owners don't wish to be enormous or wield power but current economics and politics make it hard for SMEs to be profitable. It's insane that this should be so given that small business owners work notoriously hard and make an outsized contribution to both to the economy and to social cohesion over time.