Graduate son down about job search

[anotherglass]

Hello, my son graduated five months ago and after a couple of months travelling has commenced the job search. While he was enthusiastic at first, he has recently become quite demotivated and down. The process is quite brutal in sending off application after application but not hearing back or going through quite soulless online assessments, designed to weed out neurodivergent candidates. He has hobbies but is starting to become withdrawn and flat. I am worried about him. How can I best support him without being overbearing?

Yes he has had 3 part-time jobs while at school and university.

This is completely normal at the moment, both for graduate and minimum wage jobs. And many jobs posted online are fake! Advice:

• Ringfence time for applications (9-5 equivalent to an FT job) to try and compartmentalise the often-pointless process from "real life" - success/failure says nothing about you in the current market
• Get him to pick up a new cheap hobby where progress is measurable - a language, sport, running, etc, it helps with regaining a sense of self-esteem and control which is essential when unemployed
• Can also try cold emailing companies who aren't recruiting - if the transport options are there, he could make a shortlist of 20-30 places best aligned with his degree interests and track down email addresses of those high up. Don't mention money, just talk about experience and interests and ask whether there are gaps to "shadow" someone in the role he's aiming for. This is good networking and won't hurt. Even if there's no time/space/insurance etc. it will probably serve him well when the economy improves/jobs increase
• Starting a blog with relevance to degree subject/personal interests is great for visibility - and a good pretext for networking if he can get attention from people doing well in the field

Everyone atm is a loser - the winners will be the ones who come out of it with zest for life and mental health intact, I reckon

Please don’t follow this advice. The disability box is there for a reason and you make a legal statement. Also applicant has to meet the criteria in the JD to be guaranteed an interview.
the information about race and sexuality are not seen by employers.

It won’t “guarantee an interview”.

We regularly get upwards of 500 applicants per role. We may have 200 that meet the minimum criteria and have ticked the box and we wouldn’t (nor do we need to) interview them all. We would choose the top 5 box and non-box applicants to interview.

OP stated her DS has ADHD.

Tick the box! If you meet the criteria for the role you'll be offered an interview

AFTER the “tick the box” advice.

See above. It’s not guaranteed even if you meet the criteria.

Some roles guarantee interviews for people who declare a disability, provided you meet the criteria.

I would advise everyone with any kind of dusability, however minor, to tick the box, even if they don't think of themselves that way, because there's literally no way of proving you don't have one when the criteria is self declaration alone. It makes you more likely to get an interview. Why wouldn't you do this

The NHS and Civil Service are two employers who guarantee interviews if you meet the role criteria and self declare as disabled

Did you read my post? I work for such an organisation, but we would not interview hundreds of people that met the criteria for a single role. We’d interview 5 or so, 10 max. We regularly get hundreds.

And as another poster says, it’s a legal statement. If no conditions were declared during onboarding that would be seen as a lie (similar to a lie on a CV) and you’d find yourself promptly dismissed, which is not a great start to a career.

All your advice does is flood one group of applications. It doesn’t really increase your chances in practical terms.

Is he going to be applying for the global engineering consultancy graduate schemes? I would recommend those.

THEY WILL NOT INTERVIEW EVERYBODY IF THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF APPLICATIONS.

The scheme provides no such requirement and it is practically impossible.

And that’s ignoring the 10k+ job cuts in the CS and redundancy programmes in the NHS…….

@Gruffporcupine

“fair and proportionate number”.

it’s not a guarantee.

www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/disability-confident-scheme/

If no conditions were declared during onboarding that would be seen as a lie (similar to a lie on a CV) and you’d find yourself promptly dismissed, which is not a great start to a career.

Then declare a condition. It's kind of irrelevant in this case as the poster's son does have ADHD. But you really can just make stuff up when disabilities are invisible and totally unfalsifiable.

In practical terms it gives the OPs son a better chance of interview, providing he meets the role criteria and has put together a solid application. It's insane not to do this

Ok, I stand corrected on the details.

I would still advise literally anyone to tick the box because why wouldn't you if it can confer an advantage

I really feel for him, it's so hard for young people at the moment, they do whats asked of them and get all their exams then there's nothing for them. I know this isn't helpful for you, but this exact situation is why we are encouraging our ds (currently in 6th form) to apply for apprenticeships, I honestly believe there is not much point in Uni now unless it feeds directly into a job ( eg my eldest did radiographers degree).

It is really tough out there but weirdly the one job which is always recruiting and always willing to give young people a go who have a bit of something about them is sales.

I'd encourage him to get a sales job, a hideous one, whatever - it might be commission only, but if you can stick out one of those entry level sales jobs for 6 months, interviews get much much easier. My DS is to graduate next year but because he has done those sales jobs in his holidays, he has already been accepted on 2 x grad schemes and will have a choice when he leaves.

it’s idiotic advice.

firstly, it’s fucking selfish and morally reprehensible to try and gain an advantage by using a scheme designed to remove disadvantage from others.

secondly, even without a moral compass, it potentially weakens your chances because you are likely to get caught out at some point and can then be dismissed for lying.

If every driver falsified an application for a blue badge, people needing disabled parking spaces would never be able to park, because the selfish able-bodied drivers would hog them.

My son was made redundant just months into his first job as an undergraduate. He spent several weeks really focusing on getting another job. I looked for him as well on places like Indeed to try and help. He did get a job in the end though he had many applications ignored and some interview rejections. I just hope he doesn’t get made redundant from this one as well. It’s really hard out there. He applied for pretty much everything that was vaguely suitable/doable.

Solidarity OP. Mine is in the same position. Loads of (relevant) work experience, great CV/grades, referees, bags of chutzpah going after all and everything.... and ghosted or rejected. Their applications are on the 100s. Getting tired and demoralised. It's heart-rending. The only thing we can do is reassure them that we are on their side and support support support. Good luck to your DS.

Oh I’m sorry to hear this. Engineering is a good thing to do, it’s hard though

All my graduate DDs were in the same boat. Unfortunately a degree is not the passport to a job it used to be. They all did some crap jobs while waiting and two volunteered within their chosen career settings and were employed off the back of that.

My apologies re the ADHD and box tick. Best wishes to your son some good advice here that my son may be needing in a couple of years time.

The graduate job market has been shit for years. Practically everyone has a degree these days so it doesn’t mean anything anymore.

However, I think that the current job market is particularly shit. Everyone is finding it hard to get jobs, not just new graduates, and new graduates are bottom of the pile. It’s not nice but at least he doesn’t have a mortgage or any real worries. He can afford to do some volunteering or low paid work experience for a while.

Tick the box for disability and then request interview questions in advance due to neurodiversity. Not all will give them (even some that are supposedly disability confident) but anything gov related almost certainly will. This is how mine got his software engineering role.

The more he does with his time now the better IMO. It's great he's had part time jobs and is volunteering already, get him to do some relevant moocs or do something like learn to code/learn more languages (or if already a good coder then build engineering related games or something like that), have a youtube channel on something engineering related.

I really hope he find something soon, it is brutal out there.

And with advice like @Gruffporcupine and @lostintranslation148 everyone will have some sort of disability too, including imaginary ones in order to cheat the system.

(have never wanted karma to be real more than now).