How are you helping your DC deal with the terrible job market?

[Holluschickie]

Posting here for some emotional support. Not practical tips. Are any of your DC suffering in the brutal job market?

Interview after interview and rejection after rejection? Mine are and it is very hard to keep good cheer and motivate them to keep applying.

@sansou agree with you about placement year jobs. DD (niche degree) applied to 5 - ghosted by 1, rejected by 1 so late they might have well have ghosted her, 1 withdrew placement after she had applied but not before she'd done the VR/SJ etc testing, 1 withdrew placement just before final stage. Luckily got one out of 5.

She's finding less ghosting from the actual applications this year (so far).

Alice, I have the same interests in why some people make it through and someone else doesn't as I have seen and still see so many good people fail.

I've been wondering the same. We're supposed to have a low unemployment rate and skills shortage. I've been wondering if many young adults searching for work and living at home are not registering unemployed (like.my own DS) and so the numbers are skewed.
My DS25 has a first in an integrated Maths masters and was still out of work all of last year. OP and all others I feel your pain - I was so anxious, angry, depressed about it myself by the end it was near possible to "model resilience". I just kept saying to myself and him "Yes, you're having a slow start, keep plugging away, It's a numbers game, things will change"
Since Jan he's been in a poorly paid job that he hates, which he says he only accepted cos of me, but I do see that he's now in a better position to move on to something more to his liking and I can see a time when we will look back and say, Boy, that was shite and Thank God it's behind him.

Feeling gutted at the moment as ds travelling in Australia, applied for his dream job for when he comes home and expected them to email him for interview... we would have flown him
Back for this. they tried to call him, didn't leave a message, he missed the call and now the job's gone.

Gutted for him as these jobs are few and far between and now he'll be despondent when he's home.

That's rough. Did they know that he was in Australia and willing to return for interview? Will there be more opportunities later in the year or is that it.

Any tips on how my DD can show commitment to job/company. Only negative feedback she's had so far. She thinks its a fair comment as
she's applied for lots, knows from the stats that chances of each are a couple of percent (so doesn't invest too much for her sanity) and is not very enthused by most but needs a decent paying job (wants money). She was hoping that they wouldn't assess her commitment until the final stages when she'd know herself which to prioritise (if indeed she gets to final stages for >1)

knows from the stats that chances of each are a couple of percent (so doesn't invest too much for her sanity) and is not very enthused by most

How does that manifest at interview? Is she turning up looking reluctant and half-hearted? Making a token effort at tasks or questions?

Or attending interviews without knowing anything about the company or the role she's applied for?

As a minimum she should know what the company says about itself on its website, how it's positioned (and positions itself) in the market, what its values and objectives are, how the role she's applied for fits into the business and where the role would take her. As well as how that all aligns with her skills, experience, goals and values.

She should be taking that information into account in her answers (not just reciting it) and should be able to tell a persuasive story about why she wants to work for this company in this role.

If she can't do that at first stage interviews, why would they want to invest more time going through later interview stages with her? It's really time consuming on the employer side, so if you've got candidates who aren't doing the above then it's a waste of time to take them forward.

It would also damage her credibility if she turned up to first stage disinterested and only started to pretend to be interested at final stage. It makes her look insincere and untrustworthy, which is not a good start to a potential employment relationship.

If she doesn't invest properly at first stage then she shouldn't be surprised that the return on her investment is also low.

Also, once she secures a role she will most likely have to at least pretend to be enthusiastic about lots of boring tasks or policies.

Treat the job search and interviews as preparation and development of this important workplace skill.

That might help make it feel more worthwhile and therefore help sustain the motivation to engage more fully - as that way she is still gaining skills for her future career by going through the process even if she doesn't land the job yet.

Yes, unfortunately you have to pretend this one job is the best thing on the planet even though employers and employees all know employees are applying elsewhere too. It is like a kind of dance or game.

Someone asked above why it is hard to get jobs?

1. We have the highest UK population ever in our history and 1.2m more people coming each year (640k net) of the lawful entrants
2. We have more graduates than ever
3. The higher paid graduate job eg in my profession law those big firms that pay for your post grad studies etc are like gold dust as most people don't want to work in lower paid work. Eg my older son who has chosen not to use his degree ever and is quite happy - he was a postman for 4 years etc . He found a warehouse job local to him recently. I don't think it was really that hard to find jobs for him on about £15 an hour, it's jobs with high pay that are usually in most demand.
4. I think the hardest job for anyone ever is their first job out of university.

@PearlStork Commitment to the job could be a holiday role in a similar field that makes her super keen for the role. Or something she has done on her course has lead to a deep interest in xyz. Can she link any of her modules? (eg DS did a climate change module in year one so that gets a mention on some applications where the company extols its green credentials.) She's fascinated by new developments at the company eg expanded plant food strategy at an FMCG as she's a vegetarian. Or a lot of blurb about how the company core values sit with her personal and professional priorities eg sustainability or EDI.
In a nutshell she has to hold a mirror up to the organisation's strategy and values.

Its interesting.
I worked in a niche part of the healthcare system. Opening question in most interviews for HCP was what do you know about us? Surprising how few people had investigated our organisation,yet they wanted to work for us.
She does need to investigate the companies she is applying to work for- annual reports,FB, websites, aims, values.

Thanks everyone.

DD's not daft. She has done some investigation/preparation on job/company but obviously not enough (or not coming across enthusiastic enough) as they are noting it as a weakness. I should have been clearer, feedback was from a recorded interview responding to fixed questions not in realtime. They've not binned her (yet) so she might be able to redeem herself.

It's very tough out there.

@Namechangedasouting987 fyi people can click on the "edited" button in your post to read what you posted originally. If you want a post deleted you need to report it to MN and ask them to delete.

Hoping to offer some hope here:

DD2 graduated in July with a First and integrated Masters in a STEM subject. She had a holiday job working in a local cafe which she had done for a couple of years - prior to Covid she worked in the ice cream shop at weekends when she was at school but that shut down. DD didn't really put in many applications during her Masters year as she wanted to devote her time to that. Once she came home & picked up shifts in the cafe, we said she could live rent free as long as she was applying for graduate roles. We live in rural Devon so there are not many decent STEM opportunities here. DD didn't want to go to London but was not bothered by other locations.

She had perhaps 10 interviews from her applications, most of which were online. She got through to the final in-person interview in a couple. She went to one in the Home Counties and really liked the place. They liked her, but the feedback was that as a Masters graduate, she might get bored. She was pretty annoyed by that as they knew her record once she applied. Then she was offered another interview for something quite similar to her Masters project. She almost didn't go because it was the local pub quiz and we have a reputation to maintain, but I persuaded her that it would be good practice for "the perfect job". She only went and got it! They took on 8 people out of 15 interviewed. She started 5 weeks ago, has just passed her training and is let loose in the lab properly for her first proper shift next week.

In the interview, they asked about scenarios, for example "give an example of when something went wrong and how you put it right". She had loads of examples from the cafe so chose situations which made her look like a good listener, good team player, quick-thinking etc. From the perspective of potential interviews. these sort of jobs can be really useful, so please don't dismiss them out of hand.

That is a lovely positive example. Most of my sons' friends have found jobs. Some took a year after university to do a masters. Some were on long courses - one just qualified this year as a dentist and my twins qualified as solicitors. One has his last accountancy exam next week but in that career you work whilst doing the exams so he has had his job since they graduated. 2 are in cyber security. One is something at a hedge fund - I think a quant. Another is in risk but I think for take overs so it is a kind of consultancy for mergers. One is doing very well in marketing or client development or something like that. One is at a famous TV company after doing a masters in journaliism or something along those lines. Another just qualified as a solicitor.

I was really happy today to see one of mine putting together a slide presentation for work to give a talk on Monday as at school he was so silent in class one class teacher said he might as well have attended the year by correspondence class and he hardly spoke in university sessions and now he is utterly transformed in terms of being more than happy to speak and contribute at work.

Good posts @Malbecfan and @Xenia.

My DD has worked part-time since school so could easily continue this full-time for a bit whilst looking again.

My DD wishing she'd did less building up her relevant experience and more practising recruutment testing particularly the personality ones.

This is truly awful after interview. I do get it on applications as sometimes for example we get literally hundreds (although if someone emails asking I try and give feedback). But definitely when someone has invested time, energy and often money into an interview we always give feedback.

I think if someone has done an interview it is not fair not to reply given the time they have put into it. Even to get this first qualified legal job my son had about 4 interviews including also a practical legal exercise in his own time. It seemed much more effort than the old days of just 2 interviews and particularly as it is an in-house solicitor job so not even the very high paid jobs of the biggest City law firms. It is interesting for me as both twins live at home and also work from home at least 2 days a week so I am much more involved in their day to day job applications than I was with their older siblings at this stage. They have 4 cousins at university stage too so the family has certainly been and is knee deep in getting first jobs for the last few years.

It's not fair to not give feedback and frankly it's not professional. HR departments should epitomise the corporate values. To send an email, even if it's just to say sorry we were inundated with applicants, is not too much.

I have noticed if an applicant goes through the Gradcracker site most companies seem to have signed a feedback pledge.

My DS went through this recently and I'll give you one piece of advice he has . If you are looking at jobs posted on LinkedIn or Indeed, always double check that the job is advertised on the company's own website before spending time on an application.

Apparently there are now lots of 'fake' jobs advertised . This is done to give the impression that the company is recruiting and therefore growing, even when it isn't.

Yes and no, I am going through the same with my DC but things I am telling myself are - it’s a marathon not a sprint and that they would have burnt out had they been doing this shit for three years in a row. That’s on my rational day. But the bottom line is - you absolutely have to nail down the psychometrics/job simulations etc, it’s an entry ticket to the game, there’s no going around this. But it’s only that - an entry ticket, after that once you get to a human you do need to click with assessors, differentiate yourself through experience and ability to give examples from real world not from “I had a disagreement with a team member on uni project”, “I got a B on my essay and that’s what I learned from that”. Finally, once she lands a job, being mature and having worked are huge advantages not only to performance but also to self-confidence. Then again, that’s all theory on a rational day. On a bad day with several applications going into a black hole and DC losing the will to go on, I want to opt out of society and the workplace because I don’t see any point in any of this shit. DC are screwed anyway when you look at the state of the world, aging population, tax burden only continuing to increase, healthcare and education going down the drain.

I work for a small business and currently have a team of recently graduated software engineers. The most recent addition to the team got his job by getting in touch with me directly (no vacancy had been advertised) and sending a snappy, tailored CV and then ringing a few days later to introduce himself. We didn't have a job advertised, but unbeknown to him we were discussing expanding the team and his speculative CV landed just at the right time (and saved me the going through the recruitment process). What really impressed me was the he knew exactly the kind of industry he wanted to work in, sought out the right sort of companies, did his reseach and then got in touch with us (and a few other companies too). He's keen to learn, hard-working and aware of what he doesn't know, as well as what he does.

Apply for advertised job vacancies isn't the only way to go about things.

@SaffyWall you are absolutely right but often new graduates, especially in non vocational degrees, don’t know exactly what they want to do. Or know only vaguely. But it’s a good tip.

Yes - this is one of the problems with non-vocational degrees - you can graduate from university and not actually be qualified to do 'anything' (other then continue in academia).

A graduate in Computer Science may be exceptionally knowledgable about the theory of software engineering but can get all the way through a degree with no practical experience at all - and as an employer that's a huge risk.

I understand that a recent graduate may not know exactly what they want to do with their degree/knowledge but it's not up to employers to create vague, wishy-washy jobs to accomodate this but rather the job-seeker should research, learn, explore and pick a lane - it might not be the right lane for them but it's much easier to get a job once you already have one. I definitely wouldn't be put off the perfect candiate because they were already working - whether that be in a 'gap-filling' job or the wrong job.

I do agree with the frustration about people applying for job and then not getting any response or feedback at all - that is a horrrible way to treat people and there's no excuse for it.