Does your Graduate child have a job?

[Karma2023]

The volume of advertised jobs for Graduates is apparentely at a historical low which is obviously worrying for students and their parents.

Just interested in sharing experience and perhaps offering assistance to those going through the job hunting process.

Has your young person secured a job? If so what subject did they do and how did they find the role?

I have a dc who secured an internship this summer, he is studying STEM and found the job directly from the company site. He is hoping to get a return job offer however he hasn't loved the job so will be looking for other opportunities. He may take a year out and improve his language skills as it might add to his CV.

DD has a training contract with a US law firm. She decided that’s what she wanted the first term of her first year and started researching. She attended open days, volunteered at Citizens Advice, took a leadership role in her university’s law society, made sure she was on the deans list and ran her applications like a military exercise. It took her till her final year to land a vacation scheme. I think it’s a matter of hard work, organisation, and luck. It was pretty OTT, but she is a driven person.

Meanwhile, at my organisation, I need a junior on the team. I suggested internal recruitment. I am in the leisure/facilities management industry and we have a lot of young people doing seasonal summer work. It looks like I have a super candidate coming through who happens to be graduating the end of the summer. The job pays mid to high 30s in London, and it can lead somewhere. It will never be like law or investment banking though.

It’s hard to get a foot in the door. I wish there more opportunities being created. I don’t have much influence beyond my own little team. If we all try to make space for young people it could add up.

It's really hard at the moment. I know lots of recent graduates without jobs. DD graduated 2 years ago (arts degree, Oxbridge) and got a paid internship doing marketing for a law firm in London 18m ago, which then became a permanent job after 9m. She's enjoying it, even though it isn't the "dream job". She mainly likes living in London!

DS graduated a year ago, he's working part time in a pub and working part time on a voluntary basis for a charity, doing analytical work related to his degree (environmental). He's not had any luck applying for graduate jobs yet but we hope this unpaid experience will pay off when he has another push in September. He's not applied for much recently.

@DinnerinfrontoftheTV Assume she studied English law, so how does it translate?

She didn’t study law, they are paying for her law conversion course. It’s the London office of a US firm. I don’t know much about the legal industry, but I think she would have to pass the bar to work in the USA.

DS Economics got a grad role in Auditing with one of the big 4. - been there a year now. Didn’t need Economics but quite a few of his colleagues have it. Brutal hours - just about doable with good colleagues, absolute hell when they are not - he’s grateful for the job but would recommend people take something else if they have a choice.
Dd did a science degree converted her industrial year into a full time job in production development - her’s was a dream job - they usually required a couple of years experience, she was very lucky with timing.

I’d agree.
In my social circle theres also a lot of parental help too. Not just having them back home whilst they look but HR friends checking CV’s, friends in relevant industries and plenty of contacts for anything else.

It would be good to hear from MN’ers whose graduates aren’t finding it easy too. My friends son committed suicide this year. He graduated from a top Uni with a first and struggled to find a job. His poor parents said it was the first time he hadn’t succeeded at something and he couldn’t cope. Absolutely heartbreaking.

I understand this and so difficult for many graduates. However I was also thinking how refreshing it is to read a thread predominantly full of balanced but good news.

You’re right - my friend asked me to help her dd with her job search. We completely reworked her cv, I helped her understand how she needed to present herself - she felt very restrained, didn’t realise that when she was being interviewed, the company wanted her to show her human side - she was trying desperately hard to come across as serious, straight laced and professional - she forgot all about charming, friendly and engaging - she forgot to be herself!

Dd graduated with a Masters in Psychology. She applied for a number of grad schemes but was accepted onto Civil Service fast stream as a statistician. Really enjoying the work despite the fact her degree is not in stats but the workload is brutal, she works every evening and most weekends as they are so under staffed.

I'm sorry that's so awful.

DD graduated last year in a frankly useless degree esp w the explosion of AI in the past two years.

She is working in a bit of a niche retail sector as she has specialised knowledge of the ‘subject’ from working p/t in the summer hols. She has just got a permanent full-time role as what was supposed to be a specialist ‘advisor’, but they’re short staffed so she’s doing everything (so not happy). Def didn’t need a degree for this but it could lead to management role in a couple of years.

DS graduated this year in STEM with a first, but unfortunately has no relevant work experience although we’ve plumbed contacts and he has some coming up.

We’ve urged him to go down the LinkedIn route more but he hates blowing his own trumpet - unf that’s what you have to do now. I wish he’d done an internship but at the time he was going to do an intergrated masters and it wasn’t open to masters’ students. Then he decided to just do the normal BSc (right decision for him but not great for his prospects).

He’s currently p/t volunteering in a charity shop aligned to his interests and applying for jobs. I can’t see him going down the graduate job route as his MH isn’t great and he’d get so stressed w the process. He’s also v much in to his hobby (and successful with it), which could turn in to a side hustle but it’ll never be a f/t job.

Also my DH helped his nephew get a great job as a solicitor in a decent firm (post training contract) as he knew a partner. He’d never have got that job otherwise. It’s def who you knew.

I have to say neither of my DDs knew anyone to help with grad employment. They did everything themselves. DH had a business but their skills and ambitions were completely different. They were not engineers. They had to put in the hard yards and it was nothing to do with who they knew or parental leverage. We knew no one useful to them either.

We have certainly seen parents help in terms of advice but they are not in the interview with DC. They are not the one needing to demonstrate good fit to a job. I did buy DDs suitable clothes! It’s worth noting most firms have equal access to jobs now and knowing someone doesn’t circumvent their recruitment policies.

I think dc can make a number of mistakes when job seeking. Presentation still matters. I’ve seen dc absolutely certain they don’t need to be anything other than themselves in terms of appearance. They also don’t tailor cvs to the company. They don’t research the business. Their cv is just the same as every other cv. Some dc have done absolutely nothing other than go to university. They have no evidence of working with others, limited conversation skills, in fact limited experience or no experience of what a job requires. Some dc are significantly more switched on and get jobs more readily.

Im truly sorry to read that not getting a job lead to suicide. I’d like to suggest parents help by guiding as much as they can from before dc get near a university. Dc don’t have to win the glittering prizes of academia to get a job. The better advice is to be a rounded person and pay attention to the final goal of university - and that’s a job. Far too many students pay scant attention to this and have made poor choices so their cv is virtually empty. (Lesson over!)

Yes DC1 graduated in Chemistry in 2024. Applied for 4 jobs and was offered 1. DB told them their employer has a good reputation, so DC1 looked on their website and found tbey had a suitable opening and sent on their CV. They had one interview which involved giving a presentation about their masters project (which had some relevance to the job). They are working as a scientist.

DD graduated this year and has a job. It's in her field, and whilst a degree isn't essential it's very competetive and the degree definitely helped significantly. Pays £35kpa, with a strong progression path to £60kpa within about 6 years. After that, she'll have to specialise and go for specific promotions to grow her salary significantly.

I also recommend to tale any job at first while also volunteering in the area they want to work in the longer run.

One of the two has. She’s just completed PGCE and starts her first job next week. The other one is taking a gap year post graduation and will do a masters. She’s working in a bar and doing some volunteering while she’s at home. It’s tough for lots of grads including her, but she is realistic.

Yes, DS did a Financial Mathematics degree and got a graduate scheme job at one of the UK's biggest insurers/financial services firms. He must have applied for 30/40 graduate scheme jobs and spent a huge amount of time and effort jumping through the "hoops" of the recruitment agencies doing stupid online games, questionnaires, live and pre-recorded interviews, etc. He kept a spreadsheet for each, of deadlines for each stage, etc., so that he didn't miss anything. It basically dominated his life for about 3 months. He ended up getting to final "in person" interview stage for about 5 or 6, got a couple of concrete job offers after the first 2 or 3, and withdraw from the others as he was happy with both offers he got. It was VERY hard. He's now been there 3 years, absolutely loving it, and he readily accepts it's the best decision he's made, and the best 3 months of sheer hard work and determination to get through the recruitment processes.

Sometimes it's who you know but probably not that often. None of us knew anyone working in the firm our DS works for, so no nepotism at all, none of our friends/family even work in the same industry.

@MeetMeOnTheCorneri practically begged DD not to do her degree. I knew it was BS. Maybe if she was exceptionally talented or driven it could’ve worked , but she got a first in the basis of the written element, not the execution / I saw her module marks (she worked very hard I’ll give her that.

DD just did not listen, she changed course after a first year of a STEM degree (did all STEM A levels and got As across the board) to an arts-based subject. Keep it as your hobby, you can have a side hustle etc. A year later she’s made a few £100 selling her final year project's prints to friends (mainly) and working min wage in a job she was sold to on false pretences.

You can lead a horse to water & all that …

I have three in their 20s. Disappointing to have to agree it’s who you know far too much of the time.
So. They’re better taking any job and getting a foot in the door and just getting out there and meeting people somehow. Staying in your bedroom and applying online will be much harder.
Anyway my eldest got into Civil Service via a mass campaign and quickly worked up to a £54k job she loves. Didn’t need a degree for it.
Next did apprenticeship and was kept on. Great job but took a year to get the apprenticeship.
Youngest deferred uni to work and took a basic admin job in local bank and has worked up a couple of levels. Works with graduates but has no debt. Has decided not to bother with uni now.
I have friends with children who graduated a couple of years ago and work in coffee shops and pubs as they’ve had no luck. So maybe best to take a job with some sort of prospects if at all possible.

I know medical school graduates - ie DOCTORS - that can’t find a job . Not enough funded jobs for the number of doctors being trained

Internships here also: (maths) worked very hard and got offered jobs with both places they had interned at. Significant money in consulting.

The other (arts) was bright but very lazy/phone addicted and TBH is just working part-time in retail and has given up on doing anything else. I'm sad for them but can't live their life for them!!

I agree - don't allow them to join the victimhood of saying it's all about who you know - because it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
I helped some young people I knew to get a job. I helped them to understand what employers were after - the kind of qualities they are looking for in a person by very carefully reading the job spec and how they could demonstrate that they had those qualities. I helped them understand what was important to highlight on their CV. Encouraged them to prepare for interviews, have examples of times when they demonstrated skills through their hobbies and min wage jobs. To research companies before applying and even more before interview. I helped them see themselves in a more positive light. To approach their job search like they would any other piece of work - do the research find out how to present yourself in 2026 for a job in the UK (stay away from American advice, unless you are applying to an American company and you think Americans will be interviewing you - it's a very different culture). Don't assume that the CV you were taught to write at school is still appropriate and to tailor everything you do for every job you apply for. Better to do 5 amazing applications than 100 very good applications. Careers depts at Uni can be invaluable.
The information I shared is freely available online if you search for it...or you can decide it's who you know and just give up.

DD1 just graduated and no - she is still trying but it's the hertiage sector she aiming for so always hard. She got a p/t job very quickly and has a plan for further study at nearby univeristy starting next year in course top of it's field. She's hoping as part of that involves another intership she'll make more contacts.

She already done interning while she was studying.

I'm getting a lot of flack from wider family - though DH and I did post graduate study as well.