Graduates - post here if your work and jobs so far are not as you expected or hoped

I admit I'm about as far as you can get from an expert in graduate recruitment, but I would have to disagree with this. Surely a select few really well thought out, competitive applications to positions that correspond best to your studies/previous professional experience would be better than a load of impersonal applications with the same CV and a non-personalised, rushed application letter?

I mean, with (paid) internships (not the same thing I know, but still) I only applied to 4, got interviews at 2 and an offer at 1. Whereas I know people that have applied to hundreds (only a mild exaggeration ) with no success.

Why are you on this forum, are you even a student or prospective student?


That seemed like a personal attack; I didn't mean it to be - I'm genuinely intrigued.

Why are you on this forum, are you even a student or prospective student?


That seemed like a personal attack; I didn't mean it to be - I'm genuinely intrigued.

Very well done indeed. Don't think that those others would have had more success by applying to fewer jobs, though.

Don't be put off by this thread.

So long as you are going to a decent university and aren't doing something woeful like BSc Hair Dressing it will be worth your while.

I'm always a student, I'm a student Pilot doign my PPL exams. However I was on this forums from when I started SATS in year nine, just a different profile.

I'm 25 and have nothing to do with being a student. I joined when I was 17 for UCAS stuff and kind of just never left. TSR has many uses.

I see all kinds of figures thrown around in newspapers and such, for example that after 6mo the average graduate salary is 25k or so. I find that hard to believe and it must surely be taken from a sample of top graduates. Maybe it's just my friends but after six months most people I knew from uni (left in 2008) were unemployed or working in a supermarket. I took a first in a bioscience from a well-regarded university, but had no work experience or connections in industry and so on. I also didn't realise (poor guidance at school, imo) how there's really no work in biosciences at all, and it offers little or no access to other disciplines.

It took me over 3 years to land a job, and now I earn 15k (gross), working as a lab technician in an unrelated science. That's several thousand £ less than a typical PhD student earns, taking tax into account. I've applied for other jobs but now that I'm several years past graduating I've been told in interviews that they worry I have lapsed a bit, drifted away, mentally - and it's true, I have. My current job doesn't let me use my brain very much and I've forgotten everything I did at uni, so I'm really back at square one, but rapidly ageing and becoming less valuable to an employer with each passing year.

I have no idea what to do - this job is pretty boring but has some positive aspects. It's a complete dead end and my pay scale tops out at 17.5k I think, which I would reach over a number of years if I perform well. I'm closer to 30 than 20 and am still living in a shared student house, no chance at all that I could afford anything better.

I'd be interested to hear from others who were perhaps a bit naiive about their choice of subject, or didn't realise what one has to do to get a decent job, or can't find anything worth doing for reasonable money, etc.

I'm a bit confused by it all, and disillusioned. In my case, university made it harder for me, by letting me live like a child for even longer and shielding me from the real world. People who left school at 16 and started work can do much better for themselves than someone like me.

Let's discuss this situation, increasingly common with jobs as scarce as they are today. I don't like being in this awkward middle-ground. I either want a decent, engaging job earning a wage appropriate for someone my age, or I should just drop out entirely and go and live in a cave somewhere. I could maintain my current lifestyle on benefits alone so I'm not sure why I bother.

A common theme of people here is not trying to get any work experience until after graduating. Thinking a degree is enough to get a job. Now I haven't even started my degree yet but I'll be applying to do internships and bits of work experience from day 1 because I know experience is key in getting any good job. Or a tonne of luck but you'd be a fool to rely on that.

Also, maybe it's just coincidence but seems 90% of people here did a biology-related degree - could be a massive shortage of jobs in that area, or little demand for biology (and related disciplines) graduates for some reason.

What subject did you do? and at which university?

Government's crying out for science teachers... You could look into that... Doesn't have to be the subject you got your degree in.

biochemistry, at York (rated 3rd in the UK for biosciences)

Don't be put off by this thread.

So long as you are going to a decent university and aren't doing something woeful like BSc Hair Dressing it will be worth your while. Choose somewhere with a placement year if you are worried about gaining experience.

It's threads like these that make you think twice about university

I also graduated 2008 with a BSc in Marine Biology and Zoology. Ended up working part time at Debenhams for 2 years (lol) and now I'm in an entry level job with the NHS and going back to uni in Sept to do Radiotherapy. Although my First degree is now virtually useless, I wouldn't have gotten onto Radiotherapy without it because my A Levels were dreadful!

Don't be put off by this thread.

So long as you are going to a decent university and aren't doing something woeful like BSc Hair Dressing it will be worth your while. Choose somewhere with a placement year if you are worried about gaining experience.

Not necessarily. There is a presumption that graduate unemployment only involves those from ex polytechnics taking non-traditional degrees; this is simply not the case.

There is incredible competition at the moment in some professional fields, like engineering or my own field (law), so the odds really are stacked against you. I think everybody really is in the same boat which makes "standing out" a lot harder than people make out. So you are head of a society, volunteer regularly, have work experience? Well so does every other candidate at the moment, you have to even to be considered for low paid work today.

Where do you work now and how did you get there?