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.

DS is currently half way through his sandwich placement year which is based 4 hrs away from home. Initially, quite a few rejections, then as he wised up/got better at his applications, he started to get interviews and go through to 2nd and 3rd round stages. He was definitely getting disillusioned with the process so we had to encourage him to continue applying since we knew, having gone through it ourselves, that the graduate job market would be even more brutal without the experience of a placement year. Ultimately, he was fortunate to hold 2 job offers and had a choice. The first job offer was £20.5K and the second was £25K + generous relocation + pension + flexi benefits. Guess which he picked? Graduate salaries at his employer currently start at £33K. If he finishes his placement still enjoying it and they like him enough back, he'll be happy to have a graduate job lined up in advance of his final year. Fingers crossed.

In yours and my day @Xenia our applications would have been completed by hand on paper and sent by post which would have reduced the number of applications we would make and thus the number of applications per post. In my case I was in the final year of a vocational degree where the number of graduates was roughly the same as number of vacancies.
I feel today's applicants are applying for anything and everything because they can - electronic forms, cut and paste, prepopulation and AI. The companies then have to use all sorts of methods of culling - video questions, multiple choice questions, puzzles, lottery, heads or tails just to get the numbers for interview down to a manageable level.
Then there is the interminable wait for replies (if they can be bothered letting people know that they are unsuccessful).

Popping back with an update.

DDs number 1 choice has decided to postpone recruitment until the autumn. DD is lucky to have an offer from her number 2 choice so she will accept this.

Now to find some work for the 4 months between uni ending and grad scheme starting. Ideas welcome (she needs full time work as would like to remain in current flat).

DD with hindsight will say recruitment process was better than she expected (she thought she'd get no offers).

Good luck to others still looking.

What is she into and what student jobs has she done before?

She's mainly done barista/ waitressing/ bar work and sports coaching (unfortunately her sport is much more popular in the winter). Needs to make around £1500 pm x 4 months to stay in current flat (£1000 pm if she can get a temporary flatmate not so easy in the summer as market flooded with students going home). Will do anything (well almost anything). Has a year professional office experience but thinks temp agencies won't touch her with a September job offer (unless she doesn't tell them).

Another coming back with an update - graduated last year, just been offered paid internship in the sector they wanted - politics.

Weirdly after nearly a year of applying and coming close but not getting any offers, 2 offers came in the same week.

They had just applied for UC in the last 2 months and I do think the pressure of the weekly meetings/demands from the work coach actually increased the work search activity from moderate effort to extreme effort.

It was a long long struggle and hard to watch but so glad they actually have something.

My youngest has finally got his dream grad job, he is super excited to be starting ( and moving out again) I am super excited that my house will no longer smell of pig as he has spent the last 9 months working on a pig farm!

Brilliant to hear two young people have landed their dream jobs. Both showing it took much time and perseverance. Congratulations!

Yes well done junior @Ohfuckrucksack and @JaffavsCookie, especially the pig farm experience. Great show of resilience!

Could you send the luck over this direction - still nothing happening apart from video interviews or more usually hearing nothing - DC has been working shifts on nmw with crazy start or finish times so would be glad of a proper job with sensible start times and decent money so could move out

Sending luck over. I do think there is an element of luck (with so many candidates appointable. That and numbers of applications.

Good to hear job coaches useful even if its just to avoid seeing them that ups the application rate.

I'd look favourably on someone working in a pig farm - most couldn't stomach it.

@fiftiesmum As much luck as I can create winging your way.

It is so hard to watch this. It is tied into our role as parents to support and nurture them and launch them into the world.

They're ready, they've done everything they should. They just need a fair wind to come their way.

Sending luck, it’s so hard for them

My DDs lovely friend has just had a graduate job offer withdrawn because of spending cutbacks (she turned down other offers including a fully funded PhD for this job). If your DC are lucky to have multiple offers then I’d keep one in reserve just in case. Double blow is the timing, she’s missed many of this years graduate opportunities in her preferred area.

We are 18 months in here, with another DS graduating in the summer.
DS2 is applying for rather niche graduate traineeships and lower level non graduate jobs in the same sector and has had interviews but not got the job.
i feel he is disadvantaged in several ways, he has Autism and we live in a rural village in Scotland.
I think potential employers anticipate relocation hassles when in reality we are all highly motivated to help him with this ( London would be a bit tricky though).
he has kept busy doing relevant volunteer work and learning how to drive but hasn’t had any luck getting temporary work as employers don’t want folk who might disappear if they get a better offer.
DS1 is doing an in demand subject ( think AI) but was a bit slow setting up an internship last summer and ended up working at a start up that didn’t pay him or even thank him at the end and no follow up job offer. I anticipate him also taking a while to find work, he is ND too.
Encouraging, keeping spirits up, giving lifts to volunteering, checking they haven’t missed any opportunities, is basically an unpaid part time job for me.

DD is a couple of years out from graduating- got a first and has just finished a part-time MA with distinction. She was made redundant in the summer and it has taken a good three months to get another job. She’s in the charity sector in London. So many jobs she applied for, they then wrote and said they’d lost funding for the role. She had become very worried as she’s always been able to find work, from 16 onwards.

Her friend of the same age got a first in computer science from a top university but hasn’t been able to find a job since graduating three years ago.

It doesn't help that the time from verbal offer to written offer to start date can be weeks or even months (not graduate schemes with a fixed start date).
References and clearance can take forever and have to be in the right format, proof of right to work, identity checks and proof of address multiple times over.

Resurrecting this thread to seek advice on behalf of DS2.
After a long 18 months with very occasional unsuccessful interviews in the rather niche field he’s interested in it seems a combination of traineeships tending to be advertised in the spring, varied relevant volunteering and practice at writing good applications means DS2 has a clutch of interviews quite close together and more applications pending. His dream traineeships is the last interview ( it’s at the Bodleian and he wants to be a librarian!).
If he is lucky enough to get two or more offers how long is it generally acceptable to delay accepting one offer to see if another interview was successful too? I’ve never been in this situation, instinctively I’d say just take the first one and be grateful but I don’t want to give DS outdated/ bad advice just because I’m a cautious type.
Of course posting this means he’ll get one (or none) but I like to be prepared for all eventualities!

Accept the first one and then politely decline if a better offer comes through (but don't ghost them). Unless this is going to burn bridges.

If you just delay, they'll likely offer to the next person on their list.

My DD was in this position recently was offered a job she didn't really want in a part of the country she didn't want to be in with low pay for the area but pending clearance etc. but kept applying for things she wanted. The first job gave her a start date which she turned down when a better offer came. After rent, bills and travel she has twice the money and is doing something she believes in.