I'm a 2:2 graduate I can't even get minimum wage jobs

Work on acquiring employable skills. Why should the company hire you? How are you different to all the other graduates coming out of uni with zero experience and skills?

Has everybody with whom I've worked with have 2:1s ? Of course not, many don't even have degrees. But they've been picking up skills in their spare time and just self learning. Heck, some of my seniors only achieved 2:2. It's not an excuse.

When I'm hiring people, I don't care which uni you graduated from, what your grade is, what your family background is or what you eat for breakfast. All I want to know is whether or not you have the skills to do the job and whether or not you'll fit into the team. I know and have seen grads with 1:1s who couldn't code their way out of a paperbag and I've seen BTEC holders pass interviews with flying colours.

As an IT graduate, you should be well aware you can learn most the skills you need from your own home. Be it, Software engineering, network administration, software testing, etc. Time to upgrade yourself

(If you're interested in Software Engineering, I've written some tips to successfully getting an entry level job in the industry in this thread. If that's the case, there should be plenty for you to get cracking on with to improve your employability).

What? I got a 2.1 from a RG uni in Law with relatively minimal work. I am still out of a job since graduation in 2013. It is very difficult out there, very few jobs to give and intense competition.

I've basically been lied to and been told that doing my degree will make it easier for me to get a job, which I believed when I was a naive 6th former

No

There is no guarantee that a degree will get you a job. All the degree is, is to say you've gained the basic knowledge (not skills) to be able to do a job in the profession. Note, you do not yet have the skills to do the job at hand. The fact that a graduate is more or less useless coming out of uni, it is the benevolence of an employer to take on a risk (you, the graduate) and train you up, expecting little real productivity in your first few years. Why should an employer invest time and money to do that? They could just recruit a junior who already has an idea of what they're doing. None of them owe you that privilege for simply holding a degree. They invest in you hoping to see real passion to blossom into a productive employee. Whining on forums as opposed to learning the skills that are clearly bullet pointed on the job description isn't showing any resolve to achieving that goal.

You can ignore my previous post all you like, as you send the impression of some sort of over-entitlement of studying a degree without wanting to do any extra work to get the job. I'm sorry, the market is this competitive. It's this sort of attitude to working that can be directly attributed to your current situation.

But I assure you in IT, that 'hard work' was only just the beginning; as IT is one of those careers that require career-long learning. You get as much as you put in.

Other than by looking at what grades they got from what uni, how do you assess what skills applicants have?

Wait.

what. the. ****.

You're presumably about 21 and you've NEVER had a job?

Jesus christ, be glad they'll let you work for free. Most people your age will have been in consistent employment for the past 5 years.

I had probably done about 10-12 different jobs by the time I finished uni and could have got a glowing reference off any one of them.

I live in a crap place with zero opportunities

In IT this is can be shown by previous personal projects for clients, friends and family. You just need to be able to talk about the sort of technologies that were used, weigh up the advantages and disadvantages, how smooth the delivery was, etc.

Being able to hold a conversation about the industry, its trends and direction is impressive enough for the employer to know you have an active interest and engagement with the industry to take you on as an employee with potential.

I live in a crap place with zero opportunities

What? I got a 2.1 from a RG uni in Law with relatively minimal work. I am still out of a job since graduation in 2013. It is very difficult out there, very few jobs to give and intense competition.

Computer science is a challenging degree compared to other degree. Other subjects you can get away with making mistakes and come out with a good grade whereas in my degree if we couldn't hand in a working program we would pretty much fail the module

All of which and more they will have been assessed on far more thoroughly during their university degree than you could ever hope to achieve in a 10 minute assessment.

Being able to bull**** about industry trends in an interview is not a particularly valuable skill, unless you're employing them to be a cold-calling sales rep.

What? I got a 2.1 from a RG uni in Law with relatively minimal work. I am still out of a job since graduation in 2013. It is very difficult out there, very few jobs to give and intense competition.

You live somewhere that jobs don't exist?

All of which and more they will have been assessed on far more thoroughly during their university degree than you could ever hope to achieve in a 10 minute assessment.

Being able to bull**** about industry trends in an interview is not a particularly valuable skill, unless you're employing them to be a cold-calling sales rep.