Spporting graduates struggling with unemployment and rejection?

[anotherglass]

Son (22) graudated last summer with engineering degree. Since then he has been applied for 100+ jobs, had interviews, but never got the job. He volunteers part-time in a charity store and works for a sustainability charity. He is learning another language, and playing in a band. In spite of this, he is steadily becoming demotivated and demoralised by the constant rejection.
Parents of l-t unemployed young adults, how do you deal with this?

Pretty glad I didn’t encourage my 17 year old down this path. He passed all his GCSEs and went straight into an apprenticeship at 16. On 27.5k now at 17 working in compliance. His GCSE passes were in the 4-6 range.

@BurnoutBee Thank you. This is so helpful to all the people struggling to keep their children afloat. Jolly well done to you. Sadly my child didn’t want to do an apprenticeship. But aren’t you the clever one.

@Treetreetreetree

My current 16 year old wants to do A Levels and Uni. It’s his decision of course, it’s just the 17 year old was more easily persuaded. It’s just a counter argument to the current rhetoric even amongst my sons own peers and their parents. UNIVERSITY at all costs. I am already worrying for my 16 year old. He’s much more academic also than my oldest. He is doing it all “right”, which scares me.

*guarantee not guard

@BurnoutBee The dc look at university because apprenticeships are hard to get. These 16/17 year olds won’t all get one. Then of course university becomes the only option quite often. I don’t agree it’s right for lots of young people but other routes into employment are tough. Plus we all know about neets don’t we? Wanting university feels better than getting nothing.

I think my dc went to uni partly to give them a few more years of deciding whst they wanted to do...

Agree.

If the graduate recruitment market is abysmal right now, it is even worse for those without degrees. The landscape between today and two years' ago is vastly different.

@anotherglass All the very best to your DS for his upcoming interviews.

It is so hard and, amongst some good advice, some of the responses on this thread have been less than helpful. It's almost as if you were somehow foolish or unreasonable to have hoped? Anyway...

I would like to touch on the psychological aspects. I had an early window into the current horror show by job-hunting myself a couple of years back. In that time period the ONS job vacancies figures fell over each successive quarter... A wider economic phenomenon is happening and the techniques/approaches of yesteryear will not work if the jobs simply aren't available.

Those who don't believe it simply haven't experienced it for themselves, yet.

What helped me to deal with the demoralising effect of job searching:

Restricting my usage of the job sites - only searching on a Monday and devoting the rest of the week to applications or other constructive activity. Otherwise it becomes another form of doom-scrolling.

Applying in batches, so I always had a live application in early stages while interviewing for another. So if I didn't get one then I had something else to hang my hat onto!

Trying not to overly invest in any one job, which is tricky but probably important.

Ideas:

How about some self-presentation skills training for 1-1 interviews? By that I mean, 'how you come across' rather than 'using Powerpoint.'

Sorry to ask, as it's a sensitive point, but is his grooming good? It is easier for men than women but I also think standards can be more exacting in terms of haircut, shaving, eyebrow hair-trimming and skincare. What is fine on campus might not fly in the workplace. It hasn't been mentioned on the thread so I thought it might be worth mentioning. Plus investing in some good lighting for video interviews.

There are currently 4 of these available in the whole country, all in Finance, according to Gov.uk.

This is the issue I've found, people will suggest apprenticeships but they're like hen's teeth and as hard to get as a job, if not harder.

Hello, thanks for your thoughtful response. DS does interview practise with us. He has improved as he's gone along but he's only had 5 interview so far in 11 months. He is very well groomed for interview: shaven, haircut and always shirt and tie. We are old-school like that.

It sounds like a test of endurance/resilience. There just isn’t much out there, but you will never get anything if you quit trying. So keeping spirits up and not getting beaten down is the game.

Your son is already doing the right things.

There are so many in the same boat. I wonder if there are any groups for mutual support and commiseration for recent graduates.

Dh and I are planning to set up a business that our DDs can take over. Skip the whole job shit show. It’s what I did when I went back to work after 7 years off being a sahm. If no bugger will give you a job make your own.

<I’d change the title of this thread as it still looks as if your son is a sports sciences graduate as someone mentioned above. But it’s up to you.>

Update:

I'm very happy to report that DS has been offered a permanent graduate role, nearly a year to the day after graduating. It is a technical role as a sales engineer for a big company. He's over the moon! I am hugely relieved as the past year has been quite tough with so many rejections but I am very proud of his resilience and willingness to learn from each knock back. He worked hard on his interview technique and and this is what got him over the line at the end. He applied for more than 100 roles and had about 6 interviews. Best wishes to everyone else navigating this brutal job market. Keep going and keep learning.

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions and support - it was much appreciated. x

Wonderful. Well done to your ds for persevering.

A wonderful update!

Well done! Amazing resilience. That's what mine had to do as well, over a 100 applications.

@anotherglass I hope applying for something slightly sideways from his degree and possibly aspirations, has paid dividends. Well done that he understood where he could improve and took action to do it! Excellent news.

Thank you. This role actually suits his personality better. He gets the technical exposure but won't be stuck in an office, and gets to travel and work across a lot of different product areas. I think he has landed in a good place. x

Oh, this is brilliant news. I hope others are inspired by the outcome.

Many many congratulations to your son.

So pleased for you all! 🎉

@anotherglass variety definitely can be more interesting!

Fabulous news. So happy to read your updates. Interesting that he got the job outside the main grad scheme period as well.

Maybe when you get a moment OP you could set out the positives and negatives of the search?

@Enginer Smaller firms don’t really have a grad scheme window. Plenty more have rolling programmes, especially if they are not putting grads on post grad training schemes. No grad should give up thinking they have missed a window. Keep going!