Three quarters of employers 'require 2:1 degree'

It makes life easier, imo, if you:

*Get a 1st
*Study a traditional/academic/"proper" subject
*Study at a good institution
*Obtain relevant work experience
*Do summer placements/interships

I certainly hope your right, for those of us whose degrees are *ahem* difficult to apply to a real life work situation.

Read the other posts, what she was saying is pretty much obvious - it is the fact she is a 14 year old serial troll that is annoying.

English literature and creative writing. Whilst i definitely do not regret my degree choice, i am beginning to understand how it might make things rather awkward between me and graduate employers.

lol, did all five of those and I got a job fine.

Also, you forgot to mention good EC's.

The job market isn't easy for anyone at the moment. Doing all the things I'm so academic has said helps, but it's far from guaranteeing a job. With so few jobs around there's a very fine line between someone who gets the job first time and thinks the job market is easy, and someone who narrowly misses out on several jobs who think it's impossible to get a job. When I was at uni everyone I knew thought they'd walk straight into a job after uni, but in reality it is quite worrying how few of my friends have gotten into graduate jobs, and that's 2 years after graduation!

Having a high threshold makes sense, employers have plenty of choice, especially now PhD students are applying for jobs meant for graduates. Even graduates with 2.1s need that special something to stand half a chance, so I don't think the argument about 2.2 graduates with unique skills being ignored stands up. It's a shame, but if there is low supply and high demand employers can ask for whatever the hell they want. They'll get the best person for the job, and plenty of people who are qualified or even over-qualified will lose out, let alone the people who don't meet the requirements.

Original thinking is original.

Of course what I said doesn't guarantee one a job, but I believe they are factors that could *potentially* help an application.

Well I might say that the bit about Hard traditional courses and reputable uni are wrong, unless you are going to a technical job related to your degree it does seem doing any degree anywhere is enough for a lot of grad entry schemes as long as you hit a 2.1.

Who wants to work in one of these massive, boring, corporate companies anyway? Far more fun to work at a startup. You actually get listened to, no matter what your position is, and there's no bureacracy.

A 2:1 at any course is the only requirement of course. But meeting the minimum requirement is really not what you're wanting for a grad job. You need to distinguish yourself when there's so many graduates chasing so few jobs.

There is a marked pay disparity between those at top unis and those at lower unis.

A 2:1 at any course is the only requirement of course. But meeting the minimum requirement is really not what you're wanting for a grad job. You need to distinguish yourself when there's so many graduates chasing so few jobs.

Employers know the difference work involved in getting a 2:1 in Engineering at Imperial and a 2:1 in Film Studies at LJMU.

Surely if anybody has insight into the attributes that will (or won't) make you stand out in the graduate employment market, it's the graduate recruiters themselves, not pompous TSR users who haven't left university (or even college).

Only 7% of the surveyed recruiters use the university itself as a significant criterion in the selection process. Hopefully that should make some of the snobs think twice about comparing, for instance, Oxford to Thames Valley.

It depends on the industry and nature of what is being hired for.

Most of the grad. pool have 2.1s - if you're seriously suggesting even the most of naive HR are going to place Cambridge undergrads on the same levels as those from UEA, you're very much mistaken.

You're comparing the top university and one of the bottom universities. Obvious difference is obvious. I'm talking about the universities from numbers 15 to 40 or something like that and people freaking out because they think employers will choose someone from Liverpool over Cardiff because there's a 5 place difference or something like that. It's all very well to say "I go to Cambridge and have a 1st in Law, therefore I have a very good chance at getting a job" but don't kid yourself. Employers aren't as clear-cut on picking candidates as people on here would have you believe. There are many 3rd party factors that come into play. Your 1st in Law from Cambridge won't do much if during the interview you came across as a miserable, unenthusiastic character vacuum.