Young people being let down

[anotherglass]

Is anyone else struggling with a YP who is out of work? My DS graduated last summer with engineering dgree. He has been diligent with his job search, sending off applications and doing volunteering and other non career jobs to keep things ticking over. However, it is heart breaking to see him get up, put on his 'work shirt' to fire off CVs and applications where he gets very little feedback or response. He tweaks CVs and cover letters for different employes. His confidence is taking a knock and I am sincerely worrying about his future, given the state of the economy and predictions that unemployment will get worse. Anyone else struggling with worry about their adult children? How are you managing to stay positive?

I'm so sorry to hear of his struggle.

I cannot relate at the moment but my daughter is in 2nd year at Uni and this is one of her fears. She is seeing people, in her words, more intelligent than she is, top of their field, struggling to secure employment, and she is already worrying that she won't be able to find a job.

She has been home on reading week this week and she was discussing her fears. How will she find something when even the ones that are top of the class and graduating with strong firsts are struggling? She was close to tears and it makes me sad that she still has a year to go but is already concerned and worrying about this and its ruining the time she has left of her uni experience.

We have tried to be positive with her, and encourage her to not think about this until she has to, and just enjoy the here and now but its so hard.

So, although I cannot put myself in your shoes as a mother immediately, I fear this is where we are headed also when she is done.

No advice, I just wanted to say I sympathise and hope someone else will come along that can offer you more hope.

Thank you. It is hard for students still at University worried about the world they are graduating into. Hopefully the economy will have picked up by the time your daughter graduates. It's great you are encouraging her to remain positive. It is important to be a rock for them.

My DD (Y2 at Durham) is also extremely worried about jobs, her field is in social science. Currently she is doing everything she can to make her a stand out candidate. She’s a Laidlaw Scholar, did a paid research internship last summer which she presented at an international conference, starts another after Easter break, and a third in Columbia this summer. She also volunteers, had an executive role on her JCR, is one of the newspaper editors and takes part in the Debating Society and Women in Politics. She attends many guest lectures, is course rep and made sure she met everyone in her course department and attends all the socials, got her LinkedIn profile up and running day one and is in line for a First. She can’t think of what else she could do - she is trying to learn Spanish for her upcoming trip and will spend sometime in Spain in 2027 to become more fluent (whether this will help or not who knows but she’s embracing the challenge and it can’t hurt). I’m amazed at her focus and ambition. Most in her field get a masters so she will likely do that eventually. But even so no guarantees but she is trying to make as many contacts as she can. It’s so tough out there. All your son can do is plug away - broaden his focus perhaps and reach out to a contacts he made at uni. 40 years ago when I left uni I sent out my CV (such as it was with no direct experience) and did manage to get a few interviews, but ended up taking a sales job at a department store - the same position I had as a 17 year old - as I needed to pay rent. It was soul destroying at the time. Six months later I was called back to a place I had interview at earlier and worked there for five years.

Dc is looking at engineering courses at the moment. Is thinking of doing the 5 year option (placement year and masters) in the hope that by the end the job market will have changed. Its very worrying and many of dc friends are looking at not going to university because of this.
We went to a university open day on Saturday and they kept repeating that if after 15 months you didn't have a job they'd source an internship or job. How sad that that seemed to be a big selling point, that 18 year olds are paying for an education where by they don't know if they will get a job at the end of it.
Dc1 did an apprenticeship but his friends/ girlfriend that went to uni are struggling to get jobs. Ones got a good degree and working in a cafe, another at a supermarket.
I really do sympathise with your dc situation, its so demoralising.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. The brutality of the job search can feel isolating even though there are so many others in the same boat. Do you mind saying which university made the promise on sourcing a job after 15 months? I've never heard of that!

There are 2 issues
1 The govts increase in NI and corporation tax has reduced companies profitability
The first thing any company does when faced with increasing costs is look to save money
The quickest and easiest way is staff costs
We have reduced our staff numbers by 25%
Every day there is news of firms closing or making redundancies

2 The increasing costs have made companies look to embrace AI urgently to reduce staff costs - although this was coming in any event

There is no doubt that there will be millions of job taken by AI
What is happening now is like the first Model T ford car - progress will be swift and impact all sectors of employment

I honestly think we are heading to a time where poverty and unemployment is on the same scale as was seen during the Edwardian / Victorian eras.

Jobs that will be safe for a while are the trades =- gas engineer , plasterer bricklayer etc
Or very specialist skills in dentistry, medicine, chemistry for instance

My dd graduated last year.

very few of her fellow students have jobs.
many went on to masters to continue in education as the job situation is bad.

I read somewhere that there are a million graduates in the UK each year, and 200,000 graduate jobs.
I think young people need to think carefully if university is worth the debt, and consider a trade or emigrating.

The uni where my kids went to are still publishing graduate job rates from 2019!!! This is because the later years have been so poor as kids not getting jobs. This is a high end (supposedly) uni too - the fact that they alllow a society to praise and celebrate the Iranian government makes it more of a joke.

It's dreadful. My adult children both have degrees (eng and law). The eng works in a bike shop and the lawyer can't find anything and is moving home. We are encouraging them to consider work overseas. I really wish I'd had more confidence when they were younger to put them in Mandarin classes, because China is where its at.

Dd is about tot graduate in an arts-related field. I spend quite a bit of effort on trying to keep myself calm and not panic. I want to support her in pursuing her chosen field - after all, this is the age to do that before responsibilities set in. But I also went to steer/encourage as necessary - because at some point she just needs 'a job' and it's clearly going to be difficult to get anything. She and her bf want to get their own place - I can't see any chance of that in the near future at all as his prospects are even trickier. I get very anxious when I think about them trying to make a life going forward. So - I work on keeping myself calm and in check (because it won't help at all) and not coming across as as anxious as I am. Trying to be positive - but also realistic is quite hard to judge. When they are little - I think few of us realised how the worry would escalate when they became adults.

Yes. Mine left sixth form college wanting to work instead of uni. Small amounts of temp work but they all want experience for minimum wage jobs. Hardly any apprenticeships around. Depressing. He’s ok at the moment but this cannot go on like this.

Aw I'm so sorry, your DS sounds fab.

Mine got work by doing internships at uni - their uni really pushed them intensively into career-orientated stuff. Thank FUCK because the market is dire now. Unfortunately if you don't have an offer BEFORE graduation, I'm not sure it's an optimistic picture.

What does your DS want to do OP? Has he applied for graduate programmes with places like National Grid?

@anotherglassdid your son work prior to going to uni? Make the most of his time at uni with with placements/internships in the summer? Holding down a job?
Its all well and good going to uni, but that doesn’t qualify you for a job.
A few of my husbands friends are engineers in different fields but most of those went down the apprenticeship route and worked alongside getting their qualifications.
A few of my friends children (mine are too young at the moment) again have gone down the apprenticeship route, either to work in health care, electrician, engineering.
I work as a nurse and the students that we get through there are massive differences in those who have worked from 16 and those who haven’t.
Again there are quite a few apprenticeships into nursing now, starting as a HCA, then nurse associate and then nurse but there has been a recruitment freeze. The ones with more work experience seem to be the ones getting the jobs.
It’s a tough market, but even when I left school the schools were pushing and pushing people to go to uni, when in fact it wasn’t the right choice for a lot of people!

My cousin is now 23 and done a chemical engineering degree at a Scottish uni and still doesn’t have a job. However the only job she had was one summer at a shoe shop!

It is very, very difficult for young people now. My dd graduated from Nottingham with a degree in Criminology and despite applying for 0000s of jobs in her preferred field, and many generic graduate jobs, all she has been able to find is full time barista work at our local cafe. She is very frustrated, she feels she could have just left school and gone straight into doing that. You will get lots of replies telling you how to tailor their cv, how to apply for things etc but the truth is even doing all the right things there just aren’t the opportunities there anymore. Many of her friends (who all did different degrees) are in a similar boat.

It's definitely a different post-education world.

When I graduated 10 years ago as an engineer, I graduated in October (after an MSc year - hence not being a summer graduation), started looking for jobs iin November...only applying for ones in companies I specifically wanted so I was being selective, got an interview and job offer in December, started my job in the new year and I'm still here now 10 years on.

Now we are interviewing graduates who are in their final year, we know who we are employing before they graduate! We've also started doing summer internships again with the view that if the intern is good, then they join us when they graduate so that's moving the employment even further back into the degree process.

Following

It is very difficult. It took my child with a first from a top ten uni nearly a year to get a job - and they had lots of university group leadership roles.

They had no job experience because when they were 16/17 was when the pandemic started so few jobs available.

They did eventually get a job in their chosen field. It's not that secure, but whose job is at the moment?

Has your child thought about the defence industry or the forces? It seems it's where the money is going to be /expansion in the next few years.

I know it has its issues, but my personal experience in working with the Armed forces is that they're one of the only places left that really put money into people and really value those who work hard/have potential.

It's also about trying to get them to ignore the people denigrating their generation, be clear you are there to support them in these tough times and to keep going. Every job teaches you something and opportunities may come from his 'non career' work.

I really feel for you. I've had sleepless nights worrying about my son. This phase of parenthood is very hard, as you just want to see them launch into fully independent lives. At wobbly moments, I would remind myself that these times are meant to test us and build resilience. Keep faith that your daughter will find her way. I wish you all the best. x

These numbers are a bit misleading - there are only 200k official graduates roles each year, but many other advertised roles require a degree.

I think as others have said work experience seems to count almost as much as the actual degree these days.

My niece has a good degree in a STEM subject and also a Masters. She took almost a year to find a job in her field as she had not had much work experience and also came up against the issue of AI scrutiny of applications at the initial stages.

She has now found a job in her field and is so relieved. She is very bright but a little reserved so found interviews hard.

She was getting very down about it but I think all you can do is just plough on.

Hoping that your DS finds something soon.

It is soul destroying for them. I do think universities have a responsibility to only offer courses and places where there will be relevant jobs at the end of the course but I think the world is changing so quickly they can’t keep up. A pp rightly said that soon only trades and highly skilled/qualified jobs will offer any job opportunities. My DS applied for literally hundreds of jobs before he got a very menial, minimum wage job that he didn’t really want (nor did he need a degree for) but it was in an area he was interested in. He stuck it out for 18 months and managed to move on (having applied for hundreds more jobs) and is slowing moving on with his career albeit far slower than his dad or I did at the same age. Hang in there and persevere with the job search is the advice I’d give, however unhelpful it may seem

It really is soul destroying. My dc1 finished a levels in the summer, had no interest in uni. Was working as had a part time job they started age 16 so was able to sometimes pick up more hours but it was so hard. You have young school leavers, post A levels, last year's uni grads and the most recent uni grads all competing for the same things. Wasn't even getting interviews for a lot of retail jobs despite having 2 years experience.

Thankfully now has a full time job which will lead to a qualification but it was bloody tough and so hard to see them getting more and more dispirited.

He will get there. Worth looking at anything he can do to strengthen his position, volunteering etc too so that he has something to talk about post uni in interviews.

We haven’t got to the post uni job market yet so who knows how that will be, but DD has worked at casual jobs since age 14. She is now 20 and has a cv as long as your arm. As well as uni (2nd year), she has three jobs currently, plus a year of work between A levels and uni (in her hobby area) and has completed one paid internship with her university, as well as freelancing in her hopefully eventual career area. She has elected for an industry year before her final year, applied for one position, interviewed and secured the internship. I am convinced that her work ethic absolutely sets her apart and she has masses of evidence to back it up. I don’t think the importance of having a job during teenage years alongside study can be overstated! There are many, many very bright kids out there so what extra can they bring to the table?

Just want to encourage graduates who are struggling to find a job
Dd1 graduated last year in a STEM subject and has just got a full time job after many , many rejections
The rejections took a toll on her, but I reminded her that there are very few jobs and even the brightest students struggled to get a job . I told her to give herself some grace
i also encouraged her to use the time to upskill by taking some cheap or free internet courses . I also encouraged her to exercise and take part in hobbies
She took my advice . A few days ago she received a job offer with decent pay