Escaping Long-Term Unemployment

The civil service is more like 30:1, but given people will be applying for around six different organisations, its more like 5:1.

Not sure about your maths there but I doubt it's >300:1, at least.

I would welcome any comments from people who have been in a similar position/words of encouragement/suggestions.

I've posted here before and got trolling comments pointing out I took a useless degree. Please no comments like that. As I've said below I regret taking a degree but what is done is done.


Degree Success

I graduated with a First in Politics from a top 20 university and a reference describing me as “easily in the 10 ten students in the year group academically”. Had a brilliant time but by final year I felt I had outgrown the trappings of student life – didn’t want a Masters and couldn’t afford one anyway.

Following that I did an internship for an MP which was useful for the CV but was a bit limited in terms of the responsibilities I was given.

So far so good? But after that I really struggled to get anything.

Signing On

After struggling to get anything for a number of months I swallowed my pride and signed on. My local job centre is in a pretty working class town. They said I spoke “posh” and it was clear that middle-class uni graduates were not their usual clientèle. I signed on next to someone with an obvious drug dependency and was threatened with a “sanction” of my benefits if I didn’t sign up to something called Universal Jobs Match.

I went from being a confident positive university graduate to someone whose self-esteem had been trampled on and the consequence was that my interview performance was being impaired as I was so desperate to sign off. Eventually I signed off realising that UKJCP were hindering rather than helping my job search.

Volunteering

To pick myself up I started volunteering with a local charity shop. The other volunteers my age are someone repeating their GCSE English and Maths and someone with moderate SEN on a Seetec welfare-to-work programme. Decent people but I can’t help but think ‘how on earth have I ended up here?’.

With a First from a Russell Group university and straight A grades at A-level/GCSE I stick out like a sore thumb. It was initially useful in terms of getting me back into a routine but I’ve been there too long and have needed to move on for some time. It is a world away from graduate level employment and frankly a bit of a dead end after a while.

I am particularly keen to move on given that their head office at Angel rejected me without even offering me an interview for a temp role.

Impact of unemployment

I know a sob story gets you nowhere but the impact of what has become long-term unemployment is not pretty in terms of loss of friendships and my own sense of self-worth. I’m frankly embarrassed about my situation and my social media pages have all been closed for the past six months so I don’t have to field embarrassing questions about what I’m currently up to.

It is pathetic but I miss going for a beer of a Friday night in London like I did when working in Parliament. Beyond the obvious financial consequences of not having a job it is also pretty isolating.

Interviews

I’ve had a few interviews for public affairs roles. I’ve been bombarding W4MP the jobs board for politics type roles but very little is coming back and I am starting to think maybe that is just too difficult to break into. “Lack of experience” is coming up again and again whether that is the real reason for rejection or just their way of fobbing me of. I was recently rejected for a minimum wage internship and this is having already done one internship before and gained a first!

More internships?

Being honest with myself the idea of being a perpetual intern isn’t that appealing and there is a part of me that would prefer the “stability” of some minimum wage retail job in Debenhams or Marks and Sparks as opposed to being a here-today-gone-tomorrow intern again worrying about where I’ll be in six months. There is something infantilising about internships after a certain age – I want to finish learning to drive – something impossible when you don’t know whether you will be earning 3 months down the line.

Perhaps I was just an arrogant graduate but there was a time when I would have considered minimum wage retail roles as not what I spent 20k on a degree for. Now I would be delighted with one – seeing I’m essentially doing the same thing but for free at the moment.
I deeply regret getting my degree but you can’t turn back the clock. The “overqualified” tag is a problem – I didn’t work during my degree so removing my degree leaves a three year CV gap – something even worse in employer’s eyes than the degree itself.


Conclusion

In some sense this is a typical tale of student with perfect academic record who has had trouble adjusting to the real world. I was initially gob-smacked realising that a degree meant so little in the real world.

Inexperienced when applying to graduate level jobs. Overqualified when lowering my sights.

In any case long term unemployment – covered up with travel and voluntary work – makes all employers more risk averse.

The economy is starting to improve and excuses about the recession become less easy to maintain.

I feel like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall.

LOL! I don't usually read these long sob story posts but yours was a giggle from start to finish. I love when things go wrong for people who think because of their fortunate upbringing, they're automatically better than those born on council estates.

Posted from TSR Mobile

I would welcome any comments from people who have been in a similar position/words of encouragement/suggestions.

I've posted here before and got trolling comments pointing out I took a useless degree. Please no comments like that. As I've said below I regret taking a degree but what is done is done.


Degree Success

I graduated with a First in Politics from a top 20 university and a reference describing me as “easily in the 10 ten students in the year group academically”. Had a brilliant time but by final year I felt I had outgrown the trappings of student life – didn’t want a Masters and couldn’t afford one anyway.

Following that I did an internship for an MP which was useful for the CV but was a bit limited in terms of the responsibilities I was given.

So far so good? But after that I really struggled to get anything.

Signing On

After struggling to get anything for a number of months I swallowed my pride and signed on. My local job centre is in a pretty working class town. They said I spoke “posh” and it was clear that middle-class uni graduates were not their usual clientèle. I signed on next to someone with an obvious drug dependency and was threatened with a “sanction” of my benefits if I didn’t sign up to something called Universal Jobs Match.

I went from being a confident positive university graduate to someone whose self-esteem had been trampled on and the consequence was that my interview performance was being impaired as I was so desperate to sign off. Eventually I signed off realising that UKJCP were hindering rather than helping my job search.

Volunteering

To pick myself up I started volunteering with a local charity shop. The other volunteers my age are someone repeating their GCSE English and Maths and someone with moderate SEN on a Seetec welfare-to-work programme. Decent people but I can’t help but think ‘how on earth have I ended up here?’.

With a First from a Russell Group university and straight A grades at A-level/GCSE I stick out like a sore thumb. It was initially useful in terms of getting me back into a routine but I’ve been there too long and have needed to move on for some time. It is a world away from graduate level employment and frankly a bit of a dead end after a while.

I am particularly keen to move on given that their head office at Angel rejected me without even offering me an interview for a temp role.

Impact of unemployment

I know a sob story gets you nowhere but the impact of what has become long-term unemployment is not pretty in terms of loss of friendships and my own sense of self-worth. I’m frankly embarrassed about my situation and my social media pages have all been closed for the past six months so I don’t have to field embarrassing questions about what I’m currently up to.

It is pathetic but I miss going for a beer of a Friday night in London like I did when working in Parliament. Beyond the obvious financial consequences of not having a job it is also pretty isolating.

Interviews

I’ve had a few interviews for public affairs roles. I’ve been bombarding W4MP the jobs board for politics type roles but very little is coming back and I am starting to think maybe that is just too difficult to break into. “Lack of experience” is coming up again and again whether that is the real reason for rejection or just their way of fobbing me of. I was recently rejected for a minimum wage internship and this is having already done one internship before and gained a first!

More internships?

Being honest with myself the idea of being a perpetual intern isn’t that appealing and there is a part of me that would prefer the “stability” of some minimum wage retail job in Debenhams or Marks and Sparks as opposed to being a here-today-gone-tomorrow intern again worrying about where I’ll be in six months. There is something infantilising about internships after a certain age – I want to finish learning to drive – something impossible when you don’t know whether you will be earning 3 months down the line.

Perhaps I was just an arrogant graduate but there was a time when I would have considered minimum wage retail roles as not what I spent 20k on a degree for. Now I would be delighted with one – seeing I’m essentially doing the same thing but for free at the moment.
I deeply regret getting my degree but you can’t turn back the clock. The “overqualified” tag is a problem – I didn’t work during my degree so removing my degree leaves a three year CV gap – something even worse in employer’s eyes than the degree itself.


Conclusion

In some sense this is a typical tale of student with perfect academic record who has had trouble adjusting to the real world. I was initially gob-smacked realising that a degree meant so little in the real world.

Inexperienced when applying to graduate level jobs. Overqualified when lowering my sights.

In any case long term unemployment – covered up with travel and voluntary work – makes all employers more risk averse.

The economy is starting to improve and excuses about the recession become less easy to maintain.

I feel like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall.