How easy is it to get a job right now?

[CosyScentedCandles]

DH has recently finished a PhD for which he was receiving a stipend but there isn’t much of it left. He has pretty much always been in education and never really had a full time job, although he has worked part time to supplement his stipend and has been doing some paid teaching at university for the last two years of the PhD.

Obviously now the PhD is finished, he needs to get a full time job. He would love a post-doctoral position in academia but he can’t apply for those until his PhD result is confirmed so he is applying for “just anything” in the meantime.

The last of his stipend money runs out in April and although I work full time, I don’t make enough to allow us to continue our current lifestyle and we might have to dip into savings if he hasn’t found anything by then.

I keep hearing rumours that there are more jobs than people looking. Is it easy to get a job at the moment?

What skills and experience does he have?

What area is his PhD in?

I think it depends on what you do/ what kind of roles he’s looking for. In my area, demand outstrips supply and I ended up with three good offers at the end of last year.

what's your area? Thank you.

@GoldenFarfalle Compliance.

He can apply for academic positions now. It's quite normal for PhD students to have a post doc secured before submission and viva, although the job might be conditional on passing the viva, with or without corrections, but it's very unusual that a candidate will fail.

Surely he has a number of ideas of different jobs, different avenues to explore. I would be looking at all things, applying for what I wanted in 4 or 5 different areas.

I work at a university and we are struggling to recruit across the board. If he’s happy to get ‘a job’ he should be able to easily get something. He can definitely apply before final submission and viva. Or he should be applying for fellowship grants to fund a postdoc.

I would be surprised if he couldn’t pick up an academic role, such as a Teaching Assistant supporting seminars or labs in his department. Every person I’ve ever known do a PhD has done that at some time or another.