2015 Graduates: How long did it take you to find your job?
Poll
How soon after finishing your degree did you get a job offer
How long after your degree finished did you get a job offer?
Did you have something lined up before you graduated? Did you only get your job offer last week? Or are you still looking?
Forgot to add an option for people who aren't looking for a job straight after graduation, but feel free to join the discussion and tell us why, and how that's going!
Did you have something lined up before you graduated? Did you only get your job offer last week? Or are you still looking?
Forgot to add an option for people who aren't looking for a job straight after graduation, but feel free to join the discussion and tell us why, and how that's going!
(edited 8 years ago)
Scroll to see replies
Lined up before I graduated. Started looking in January of this year and had a (conditional) place secured by spring. No one should wait until they have graduated to find a job, if they can avoid it.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Keyhofi
Lined up before I graduated. Started looking in January of this year and had a (conditional) place secured by spring. No one should wait until they have graduated to find a job if they can avoid it.
I just added a poll so you can be the first to use it!!
That's great, what are you doing?
I definitely agree that getting something lined up is a good idea, but I wouldn't recommend people do what I did and panic apply over exams and end up with 3 interviews a week as well as revision and exams! If there's nothing by the start of the exam period, take a break to focus on getting a good classification!
Original post by shawn_o1
^ wow, thanks for telling me that 
You needed this thread last year
What sort of job are you looking for and where? Have you had interviews or not even heard back from applications?
Original post by Katie_p
You needed this thread last year
What sort of job are you looking for and where? Have you had interviews or not even heard back from applications?
What sort of job are you looking for and where? Have you had interviews or not even heard back from applications?
2 phone interviews since end of exams. Both passed to assessment day stage. Both failed. First - couldn't attend the assessment day. Second - passed the tests but failed to impress in front of the interviewer
Original post by shawn_o1
2 phone interviews since end of exams. Both passed to assessment day stage. Both failed. First - couldn't attend the assessment day. Second - passed the tests but failed to impress in front of the interviewer
Oh that sucks, especially the first one as so many places have enough applicants that they don't care about your arrangements and assume that "I can't make that day/I'm really ill and throwing up everywhere" means "I'm not interested enough".
At least if you're getting interviews you've got a strong application, and as you have more interviews your technique will improve (or even you'll just have an interviewer who clicks with you better than that one did). I've had assessment centres where I've turned up but my brain didn't so my tests were OK, nothing special, but my interview was so terrible I was sitting there knowing that it was bad but just unable to change what I was doing or saying!
Good luck finding something soon!
Original post by Katie_p
I just added a poll so you can be the first to use it!!
That's great, what are you doing?
I definitely agree that getting something lined up is a good idea, but I wouldn't recommend people do what I did and panic apply over exams and end up with 3 interviews a week as well as revision and exams! If there's nothing by the start of the exam period, take a break to focus on getting a good classification!
That's great, what are you doing?
I definitely agree that getting something lined up is a good idea, but I wouldn't recommend people do what I did and panic apply over exams and end up with 3 interviews a week as well as revision and exams! If there's nothing by the start of the exam period, take a break to focus on getting a good classification!
EngD (1 year study, 3 years empoyment) with Heriot-Watt University and Toshiba Medical Visualisation Systems.
Yeah you do have to be careful with interview timing. I missed some classes to attend them as they were such a long way away. I had to pass three interviews for this position (two one-hour face-to-face interviews and a 30 minute phone interview). One morning I woke up at 4am just so I would have enough time to get to the train station, get the train to the airport, get the right plane, and then get a taxis at the other end and find where my interview actually was. I didn't get back home that day until midnight and then I had to be up for 9am lectures. 'Twas a fun time
The joy of applying for a position 400-odd miles away. I'm fortunate to have good friends though who caught me up with everything when I got back.Moral of the story? Graduates need to look far and wide to find what they want. I always get annoyed when people on here say they are unemployed but they have only searched for jobs in their town or local area. Unless you are tied to the town for some reason or another (which is unusual for young graduates) you must be prepared to move anywhere in the world to find a job.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Keyhofi
EngD (1 year study, 3 years empoyment) with Heriot-Watt University and Toshiba Medical Visualisation Systems.
Yeah you do have to be careful with interview timing. I missed some classes to attend them as they were such a long way away. I had to pass three interviews for this position (two one-hour face-to-face interviews and a 30 minute phone interview). One morning I woke up at 4am just so I would have enough time to get to the train station, get the train to the airport, get the right plane, and then get a taxis at the other end and find where my interview actually was. I didn't get back home that day until midnight and then I had to be up for 9am lectures. 'Twas a fun time The joy of applying for a position 400-odd miles away. I'm fortunate to have good friends though who caught me up with everything when I got back.
Moral of the story? Graduates need to look far and wide to find what they want. I always get annoyed when people on here say they are unemployed but they have only searched for jobs in their town or local area. Unless you are tied to the town for some reason or another (which is unusual for young graduates) you must be prepared to move anywhere in the world to find a job.
Yeah you do have to be careful with interview timing. I missed some classes to attend them as they were such a long way away. I had to pass three interviews for this position (two one-hour face-to-face interviews and a 30 minute phone interview). One morning I woke up at 4am just so I would have enough time to get to the train station, get the train to the airport, get the right plane, and then get a taxis at the other end and find where my interview actually was. I didn't get back home that day until midnight and then I had to be up for 9am lectures. 'Twas a fun time
The joy of applying for a position 400-odd miles away. I'm fortunate to have good friends though who caught me up with everything when I got back.Moral of the story? Graduates need to look far and wide to find what they want. I always get annoyed when people on here say they are unemployed but they have only searched for jobs in their town or local area. Unless you are tied to the town for some reason or another (which is unusual for young graduates) you must be prepared to move anywhere in the world to find a job.
Exactly what I'm doing. I'm not going to university but I'm going into the merchant navy instead. A truly global job.
Original post by Keyhofi
EngD (1 year study, 3 years empoyment) with Heriot-Watt University and Toshiba Medical Visualisation Systems.
Yeah you do have to be careful with interview timing. I missed some classes to attend them as they were such a long way away. I had to pass three interviews for this position (two one-hour face-to-face interviews and a 30 minute phone interview). One morning I woke up at 4am just so I would have enough time to get to the train station, get the train to the airport, get the right plane, and then get a taxis at the other end and find where my interview actually was. I didn't get back home that day until midnight and then I had to be up for 9am lectures. 'Twas a fun time The joy of applying for a position 400-odd miles away. I'm fortunate to have good friends though who caught me up with everything when I got back.
Moral of the story? Graduates need to look far and wide to find what they want. I always get annoyed when people on here say they are unemployed but they have only searched for jobs in their town or local area. Unless you are tied to the town for some reason or another (which is unusual for young graduates) you must be prepared to move anywhere in the world to find a job.
Yeah you do have to be careful with interview timing. I missed some classes to attend them as they were such a long way away. I had to pass three interviews for this position (two one-hour face-to-face interviews and a 30 minute phone interview). One morning I woke up at 4am just so I would have enough time to get to the train station, get the train to the airport, get the right plane, and then get a taxis at the other end and find where my interview actually was. I didn't get back home that day until midnight and then I had to be up for 9am lectures. 'Twas a fun time
The joy of applying for a position 400-odd miles away. I'm fortunate to have good friends though who caught me up with everything when I got back.Moral of the story? Graduates need to look far and wide to find what they want. I always get annoyed when people on here say they are unemployed but they have only searched for jobs in their town or local area. Unless you are tied to the town for some reason or another (which is unusual for young graduates) you must be prepared to move anywhere in the world to find a job.
That sounds like a really interesting 4 years! Congrats on the job.
I managed not to have any crazy distances to travel because I did have quite a lot of vacancies nearby - my early applications were for nationwide schemes, and were unsuccessful early on, but my exam-time applications were local (as in, up to 60 miles away).
I think the difficulty with extending your search net is funding interview attendance. I was working at Tesco, so I could only attend local interviews after noon on a workday, and if they were further away, I'd have had to be fussy about the date, which many employers see as a red flag. If I left that job, I wouldn't have had the funding to travel to interviews!
I think a good approach is to apply for "graduate" schemes and jobs across the country, a few at a time so you don't get 5 interview invites for the same week, and apply for slightly lower-level jobs locally as well. Travelling 400 miles is fine if the job at the end of it is at an appropriate level (without meaning to sound snobby or entitled) but if it's an entry-level admin role, it's probably not worth it. But yes, flexibility on location is definitely going to help, particularly if people are quite specific in what they want.
Original post by Keyhofi
EngD (1 year study, 3 years empoyment) with Heriot-Watt University and Toshiba Medical Visualisation Systems.
Yeah you do have to be careful with interview timing. I missed some classes to attend them as they were such a long way away. I had to pass three interviews for this position (two one-hour face-to-face interviews and a 30 minute phone interview). One morning I woke up at 4am just so I would have enough time to get to the train station, get the train to the airport, get the right plane, and then get a taxis at the other end and find where my interview actually was. I didn't get back home that day until midnight and then I had to be up for 9am lectures. 'Twas a fun time The joy of applying for a position 400-odd miles away. I'm fortunate to have good friends though who caught me up with everything when I got back.
Moral of the story? Graduates need to look far and wide to find what they want. I always get annoyed when people on here say they are unemployed but they have only searched for jobs in their town or local area. Unless you are tied to the town for some reason or another (which is unusual for young graduates) you must be prepared to move anywhere in the world to find a job.
Yeah you do have to be careful with interview timing. I missed some classes to attend them as they were such a long way away. I had to pass three interviews for this position (two one-hour face-to-face interviews and a 30 minute phone interview). One morning I woke up at 4am just so I would have enough time to get to the train station, get the train to the airport, get the right plane, and then get a taxis at the other end and find where my interview actually was. I didn't get back home that day until midnight and then I had to be up for 9am lectures. 'Twas a fun time
The joy of applying for a position 400-odd miles away. I'm fortunate to have good friends though who caught me up with everything when I got back.Moral of the story? Graduates need to look far and wide to find what they want. I always get annoyed when people on here say they are unemployed but they have only searched for jobs in their town or local area. Unless you are tied to the town for some reason or another (which is unusual for young graduates) you must be prepared to move anywhere in the world to find a job.
Moral of the story: graduates in engineering have it easy, whatever the uni.
Original post by Josb
Moral of the story: graduates in engineering have it easy, whatever the uni.
The only problem with that is that by makin engineering look more attractive, what we will start to see eventually is an oversupply of engineers and a downward spiral on salaries. Too many people going into it will kill its ability to be lucrative. Same thing is happening with pharmacy, dentistry etc. The good thing about engineering though is it is all encompassing and is an internationally demanded job so I don't think we will see an oversupply until 5-10 years from now hopefully.
Original post by marco14196
The only problem with that is that by makin engineering look more attractive, what we will start to see eventually is an oversupply of engineers and a downward spiral on salaries. Too many people going into it will kill its ability to be lucrative. Same thing is happening with pharmacy, dentistry etc. The good thing about engineering though is it is all encompassing and is an internationally demanded job so I don't think we will see an oversupply until 5-10 years from now hopefully.
What course is more worth it? .
Biomed science , dietetics, speech lang therapy or audiology ?
Original post by Keyhofi
Lined up before I graduated. Started looking in January of this year and had a (conditional) place secured by spring. No one should wait until they have graduated to find a job, if they can avoid it.
Many jobs require an immediate start, so not always possible. At least once you've graduated you're not restricted by other commitments.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by justag
Many jobs require an immediate start, so not always possible. At least once you've graduated you're not restricted by other commitments.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
Ah, very true. But often you can ask to start later. If a company wants your skills so badly then they should be willing to wait a few months for them.
Original post by Keyhofi
Ah, very true. But often you can ask to start later. If a company wants your skills so badly then they should be willing to wait a few months for them.
Not likely in this economic climate. There'll be another graduate happy to take the job straight away in many cases.
Having a job lined up months in advance generally only works for graduate schemes as it's what they expect. Though schemes aren't representative of most graduate jobs.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Josb
Moral of the story: graduates in engineering have it easy, whatever the uni.
you're assuming engineering degrees are as easy as the social sciences & humanities
Original post by Uz25
What course is more worth it? .
Biomed science , dietetics, speech lang therapy or audiology ?
Biomed science , dietetics, speech lang therapy or audiology ?
I know that biomed is not a particularly good route to go down unless you're going down to medicine as a post grad thing though that's going off of what I hear around these forums. I hear(no pun intended) that audiology is a field that's relatively new and is still expanding so you may have better chances there. Dietetics and speech language therapy I don't particularly know much about in terms of industry, employment and salaries so I would ask around/look at employment statistics. Prospects.uk seems to be a good site to look at
Original post by Katie_p
That sounds like a really interesting 4 years! Congrats on the job.
I managed not to have any crazy distances to travel because I did have quite a lot of vacancies nearby - my early applications were for nationwide schemes, and were unsuccessful early on, but my exam-time applications were local (as in, up to 60 miles away).
I think the difficulty with extending your search net is funding interview attendance. I was working at Tesco, so I could only attend local interviews after noon on a workday, and if they were further away, I'd have had to be fussy about the date, which many employers see as a red flag. If I left that job, I wouldn't have had the funding to travel to interviews!
I think a good approach is to apply for "graduate" schemes and jobs across the country, a few at a time so you don't get 5 interview invites for the same week, and apply for slightly lower-level jobs locally as well. Travelling 400 miles is fine if the job at the end of it is at an appropriate level (without meaning to sound snobby or entitled) but if it's an entry-level admin role, it's probably not worth it. But yes, flexibility on location is definitely going to help, particularly if people are quite specific in what they want.
I managed not to have any crazy distances to travel because I did have quite a lot of vacancies nearby - my early applications were for nationwide schemes, and were unsuccessful early on, but my exam-time applications were local (as in, up to 60 miles away).
I think the difficulty with extending your search net is funding interview attendance. I was working at Tesco, so I could only attend local interviews after noon on a workday, and if they were further away, I'd have had to be fussy about the date, which many employers see as a red flag. If I left that job, I wouldn't have had the funding to travel to interviews!
I think a good approach is to apply for "graduate" schemes and jobs across the country, a few at a time so you don't get 5 interview invites for the same week, and apply for slightly lower-level jobs locally as well. Travelling 400 miles is fine if the job at the end of it is at an appropriate level (without meaning to sound snobby or entitled) but if it's an entry-level admin role, it's probably not worth it. But yes, flexibility on location is definitely going to help, particularly if people are quite specific in what they want.
Yeah, my post was very general. Everyone has their own limitations. I do believe it is worth saving up £500 or so across the 3-4 years you are at university so you can afford travel if you need it. I know not everyone can do this, but if you can cut back by just £5 a week during term time then you can exceed this number across three years. Your local area is actually pretty big
For me, anything more than an hour away by walking or public transport is no longer local. And then I know some people who think anything more than a 15 minute walk from their house is too far.You are right in saying that the distance travelled should be proportional to how good the job is. The further you are prepared to travel the greater the number of job opportunities there will be and so the higher your chance of finding a really good one. I also agree with only applying for a few at a time, but for a very different reason to you. I feel as if too many people are 'desperate' for work and simply apply to any and every position that vaguely interests them. From what I have seen this just doesn't work. When I was looking for places I would go through what felt like hundreds of positions and pick out only a handful that were extremely interesting (anything below this high threshold was immediately discarded).
Knowing my heart was in these I was able to passively express enthusiasm during the interview and because I only had a few going at a time I was able to research deeply into each company, read their publications and their policies, learn some technical terms that I could let slip in the interview and so on. Anyone who applies for a lot of positions at once simply cannot maintain high enthusiasm for every position and cannot afford to research deeply into each company. They may believe that by applying for lots of positions they have a better chance of getting one, but in reality they have a much lower chance because they will perform poorly in each interview. I honestly think the higher your application density (number of jobs applied for per unit time), the lower your chance of actually finding work. I personally wouldn't have more than two applications on the go at once and I would put all my effort towards these two positions.
Original post by Table dust
you're assuming engineering degrees are as easy as the social sciences & humanities
I didn't know degrees in humanities were easy.
Quick Reply
Related discussions
- uni students... ask me anything
- How long did you take to get your first (office/white collar) job after graduation?
- Career prospects in Kingston’s BA Fashion and any other top fashion courses in UK
- MMU Accounting & Finance
- Parents criticising you for not having a job after university
- difficulty finding a job?
- Sky graduate programme 2024
- 2023 deloitte audit and assurance
- TFL 2023 graduate scheme
- jaguar land rover graduate scheme 2024
- Is it worth doing an arts/social science/humanities degree?
- Deloitte Graduate Scheme 2024
- Enterprise rent a car graduate scheme..good thing or bad thing?
- Zurich Graduate Scheme 2023
- Atkins Graduate Scheme 2023
- 3rd Class in engineering
- 2023 HSBC graduate scheme
- Grayce graduate scheme
- HSBC 2022 graduate scheme
- J.P. Morgan summer interns 2015!
Latest
Trending
Last reply 4 hours ago
Government Social Research - Research Officer Scheme 2024Last reply 5 days ago
So I made the worst decision of my life. I chose Biochemistry as my degree.Last reply 1 week ago
Issues with jobs because I cannot driveTrending
Last reply 4 hours ago
Government Social Research - Research Officer Scheme 2024Last reply 5 days ago
So I made the worst decision of my life. I chose Biochemistry as my degree.Last reply 1 week ago
Issues with jobs because I cannot drive
