Unemployment and Graduate Advice

At the point of writing I’m still an unemployed graduate so you might already be thinking about why I of all people should be writing a post such as this? While this might be the case, I do think my missteps have allowed some clarity which could be useful, though.

Being unemployed is difficult.

It’s isolating and lonely and any kind of social interaction is tinged with a complex dread: on one hand you feel “undeserving”; on the other you don’t have a lot of capital to socialise while also genuinely needing to spend time looking for work. The internet’s a useful tool to make sure you’re not completely alone but it’s still not the same as conversation in person. You feel like your degree is worthless or the amount of experience you have is nowhere near enough (2 years for an “entry-level” role). In other words, you must be Objectively Bad*.

If a job is not on the cards due to it being irregular shift work, or the vetting process for even part-time work is being as quick (slow) as your desired career, consider welfare.

Getting on some welfare is not the end of the world.

A lot of media likes to vilify the very concept of welfare. Often it seems that the only people who are on welfare are scroungers—frauds, low-lifes, nobodies. If you ever get to the point that you require it then you’re a failure. This is sad for a lot of reasons but get on it if you need it. It exists for this exact purpose so if you’re not walking into the welcoming arms of employment when you graduate, you’ll probably have nothing. It’s not like our job market’s booming. It’s understandable.

Moving in on this early is especially pertinent if you’re eligible for Universal Credit. The payment process takes 6 weeks but it’s at least a week on top of that for your registration to be acknowledged. The sooner you do it, the better.

The requirements for JSA/welfare are usually that you should be searching for employment for the amount of time you would be working full-time per day (so around 8 hours), but that won’t be too divorced from the overall goal. Co-operate with your work coaches. In general, they’re pretty friendly and patient people. They get it: the economy’s bust. The children have been failed. Broken Britain. Thanks, Brexit, etc. But honestly? It’s helped me out quite a bit. It’s very flawed but it is something.

The bulk of this post is to explore some other things I’ve picked up on the Long Road.

CV advice

Brevity is a gift. You’ve probably heard this enough times before but the CV is about information, facts: you’ve got to get out where you studied, where you’ve worked, skills, hobbies & interests, all within two pages. You haven’t got time to chart a tome-sized epic, as large as the temptation is.

That being said, being specific with what you did in certain roles will go a long way. So describe your duties, responsibilities, and main achievements, then quantify these accomplishments where possible.

(Improvements and expansions are obviously favourable: “I worked in a team that managed project X and we got firsts,” as a stock example that definitely did not happen to me. Seriously.)

CVs needn’t be the standard format either: they can even be a little creative (within reason/it’s relevant).

Here’s a thing you might not have thought about: think about making a CV into a pdf.

I was at a graduate jobs fair many moons ago at university and the person presenting, a recent graduate, told a horror story about how she did an application. It took her hours of careful formatting to produce but the person with she sent it gave it right back saying that she “didn’t bother” with formatting—it was a mess.

The truth of the matter was that both the person and the employer had different versions of Word and that meant that the formatting for one didn’t carry over to the other. Putting your CV into pdf format will preserve your formatting.

Unless expressly asked for as a Word document, I would make your Word CV into a pdf, and keep a copy in either format, making sure to update both regularly.

The actual content of your CV usually follows a basic structure: your name and contact details; a four or five-line personal statement, education, work experience, skills and achievements, and hobbies and interests. Again, within two pages.

I’ll break down each bit from top to tail.

1.) Name and contact details.

Fairly self-explanatory. Your name, address, phone number, and email address all go here. Should go without saying that crudeness in the email should be avoided (no “wellhung@hotmail.co.uk”, thank you very much).

This might be personal preference but for applications that make you fill in your name and contact details as well as adding a CV means that I usually don’t put that stuff on my CV because that information is needlessly in duplicate.

2.) Personal statement

This is pretty tricky but have four or five lines describing who you are (graduate, current job role, etc.), what you can offer. It’s best to update this regularly and for every job you apply for because certain jobs might require you to privilege certain skills over others. In a lot of ways, the personal statement is a truncation of the CV-proper, but with the added bonus of being even more directed at the specific role. Think of it as a synopsis for you.

As I said, it’s pretty tricky to get this right. Reed has a good guide for one if you’re stuck and have never done one before. Through this link, there is more general advice (if you scroll down there’s stuff to help out graduates).

3.) Education

Where did you go to school/college and/or university? What did you get? Don’t laboriously list every grade. “x number of GCSEs between grades y and z“ usually is enough. That’s if you even want to include your GCSEs. If all your A-Levels are different letters then do that. That won’t take up too much space. Neither should your degree result (or equivalent) if you just put the grade and subject, as well as the place you got it from. Go from most recent to least recent so university downwards if you’re a university graduate, for example.

4.) Work experience

This covers work experience, internships, and actual jobs you’ve undertaken. Listing what you’ve done in each of these roles and understanding their relevance is useful to highlight. For example, going for a marketing role? Highlight where you might’ve aided a customer, helped shift products, or promote and distributed things. This needn’t be huge. Retail experience will give you similar skills that you can highlight, and demonstrates your understanding of how you can help transfer skills from one role to another. Again, start from the most recent thing you did.

If it’s been over four years since you had an experience, it’s probably worth removing it from your CV altogether.

5.) Skills and achievements

This covers anything not part of your work experience, like extra-curricular activities. What societies have you joined, for example? If so, were you committee? Any other kinds of things? Part of any student-bodies?

6.) Hobbies and interests

There might be overlaps with skills and interests but this section is for anything else that rounds you out as an individual. Anyone can put that they like to read on their CV but that’s hardly uncommon. Besides, it has little relevance. Let’s say that you want a finance role. If you put “reading” what do you read that relates to that? The Financial Times, The Economist? Do you read anything else?

When people say “tailor” your CV, really tailor it. Every aspect of it has to reflect your interest and relevance for the desired role. This means taking things out that aren’t as relevant or putting relevant work experiences, hobbies, etc. towards the top of its respective section.

Don’t bullshit in this because it’ll be pretty easy to spot the lie, especially in an interview situation—you wouldn’t want to make a nerve-racking experience more nerve-racking. My general rule for people who are worried about what to put in sections v.) & vi.) is that everyone has something of interest that they do/have done. Think carefully and list them down, then decide on which ones are likely to be useful on a CV.

N.B.: I’ve laid out the CV structure as such but honestly you can mess around with it. Example: you might want to put your work experience before your education. Keep your personal statement near the top though. It’s supposed to tease the CV and it’s pretty useless in the middle or the bottom.

UPDATE: Having multiple CVs will prove beneficial if you have different areas of interest. I have 12 CVs, 3-4 of which I actively use, and they vary in terms of the skills they highlight not complete overhauls of their structure and things like font, for example. So my copywriting CV highlights my writing skills, while my publicity and marketing CVs highlight my interpersonal and communicative skills on top of my writing chops. I also have one that I use for hospitality which is significantly different to the aforementioned CVs. This can be time-consuming but the sooner you do it, the better overall your time when it comes to applying for these roles.

Cover letters

Sweet Mother Goddess cover letters. The bane/boon of the application process. This can either be the best or worst time during your application.

I’ll do what the cover letter is not: it is not CV Redux: The Long And Accomplished Times of [your name]. It is a way to demonstrate a vested interest in the company and role that you are applying for. This is hard to pull off. It requires very specific skills that can be the difference between an interview and the dreaded no response.

It has to convey your interest in the role, the skills you’ve cultivated that are relevant for it, as well as why you might be an asset to this company as opposed to an awkward flailing mess. For a more detailed way of cover letter etiquette, have a look at Pub Interns’ incredible post. I found it just after sending off an application that followed basically none of those rules and I didn’t get a response (surprise, surprise). Though it’s specific to publishing, it has a lot of things in it that are transferable for other sectors, I’m sure.

Also, another weird thing is that you have to marry the idea of job application promiscuity and showing a vested interest in a specific job role which, considering the likelihood of even getting a rejection letter is hard to think about, and is worse if your interests are multifarious—even worse if you’re applying for different roles in the same company.

The probability that your dream company (if you have one, that is) will hire you and you’ll land your dream career in mere weeks is low. That’s just the reality. But if you have a dream sector and you apply for all the companies doing that then the response probability increases … but is still low. So of course the natural solution is to focus on a maximal set of companies: just fire off a bunch of CVs and cover letters and hope that there’s a fair ratio of call-backs from that large quantity.

Unfortunately, companies have a lot of applications to sift through so they’ll know what they don’t like in an application fairly quickly, and unoriginal, template-filled affairs are going to be ignored. I learnt this hard way.

Treat every cover letter like it’s a work of art. They take time to write, I know, but the potential pay-off, both literal and metaphorical, makes it worthwhile.

Interviews

I’m not very experienced with interviews but this post is working via negations—learning from my mistakes moving forward—so I hope you get more out of your experiences sooner.

Clichés incoming:

1.) Do your research into the company you’re interviewing for.

This should be obvious but if you legitimately show interest in the job and company you’re interviewing for, it will go a long way. It’s bandied around a lot, true. But an easy way to know if a company’s a good fit for you is when you research them you don’t feel exceptionally drained. Enthusiasm for a company is fairly difficult to feign. Though I am certain people will try to prove me wrong.

The kind of research has to be a little deeper than the research for your cover letter, more than the About page and a couple of blog posts. Look to trends and previously favourable incentives the company has done. Stay positive. If you criticise (which I say it’s better to stay away from but hey, what do I know?) then do so with the intention of effecting change, improvement. Note this, however: you’re clearly desirable if you’ve got to the interview stage and there are a lot of fresh things that graduates can contribute in terms of new ideas, but remember that people already working in the industry trump you in experience of said industry. Obviously.

Bonus round: be wary of the news. I don’t mean have a grasp of it in a I Know Everything There Is sense, I just mean know what’s what in the news. Current affairs, and the like. You’re more likely to be asked about your industry and the news therein but don’t rule out general news. I think they ask this so you can demonstrate awareness of wider cultural impacts and changes to the social sphere both locally and globally. Have an opinion on something.

Just explore farther afield than your Twitter or Facebook feed for less reactionary things and with some meat on the bones. Try to read from an array of sides/perspectives. Most articles online average around the 800-word mark which is about a 10 minutes committed read at most. 10 minutes of your day is not going to be a burden, especially if you’ve unemployed.

2.) Answer the question

If you don’t know, it’s fine to take a moment and think about it. It’s way better to not know than bullshit an answer. It’s embarrassing. Also, sometimes interviewers ask questions that even they can’t answer so demonstrating your abilities to solve a problem shows off your skills, especially in unfamiliar territory, which you’re more than likely to land in during the job. It’s not the answer per se, but rather how you get there that matters.

3.) Handle your nerves

This is not always the easiest the thing to do, I know. Sounds lame, I know. But if you charitably acknowledge that the interviewer is not trying to catch you out, then things should fall into place. At least a tiny bit. Nerves are natural. Remember to breathe and take your time.

4.) Follow up; ask some questions

People love this because it does two things:

i.) Shows your interest because you’re listening and;

ii.) Brings the interview as close to a conversation—a two-way interaction—as possible.

A good one that I like to use is asking about the qualities and challenges of the interviewer’s day-to-day life. This is a good and simple one because you’ll get a quick insight of what you’d be doing on a daily basis.

There are others but ruminate on them further.

Think about what you don’t know about the industry as opposed to asking a question through the lens of what you do know (though that can be good if it’s framed well). This way it’s from genuine curiosity. Scribble a few ideas down before your interview or—even better—ask after things you’re curious about across the course of the dialogue. Here’s a useful post to get the ideas flowing.

I think it’s fair to say that there’s an implication in your interview you want a job for more selfish reasons, like basic sustenance as well as non-essentials. This is of course beyond what the role provides intellectually and skills-wise, so being sensitive to the idea that it is Known you want the Basic Sustenance As Well As Non-Essentials, while not explicitly saying that will go a long way. You should probably not mention salary at all. Only if you’re asked.

I don’t know the nuances of salary expectations when it’s requested of you but it’s generally accepted that the starting salary of a graduate in 2016/17 is between £19,000 and £22,000 so negotiate between there. If there’s demand (which I doubt) I’ll come back to this point because I wouldn’t know where to begin with this but it’ll be pretty useful to know.

The hilarious thing is that even through learning more about improving your chances, it’s still very plausible that you might not get what you’re after. This has been one of the hardest parts of the job application process.

It might sound trite but do your best and try not to take it personally, which is biting advice considering, and very tough to swallow, trust me. But it is true. Take every loss as a chance for growth, fuel for determination. It takes some time to actually secure work but you’ll get there. Those articles are gloomy in tone, the process might seem crushing, but we still have to try. Else what’s the point?

Right, how about some actual job resources, eh?

LinkedIn is constantly bandied around for where one can find potential jobs. I personally have not mastered the resource so I can’t massively vouch for it. But it might be worthwhile to do some investigating in case it can be useful. Here’s a way to help use it. And another right here.

If you know what industry you want to get into, following their Twitter and Facebook pages and checking frequently is useful for any new job opportunities that may or may not be posted on their respective company websites. Some people have spoken about asking companies directly about opportunities. Some people love this and there are some success stories. I have not done that yet but I wouldn’t dissuade it. Understanding who appreciates that will be helpful. You don’t want to contact people who explicitly mention that they do not like to be contacted beyond the jobs they list, for example.

The Guardian has a comprehensive list of jobs that can be subdivided into industry and job level. Good resource. I know it updates on Mondays and Saturdays but I only have this information in relationship to the publishing industry but I can’t see how it doesn’t apply to the site more broadly. Check frequently.

Graduate Talent Pool from the Government posts fairly frequently in a variety of industries that you can sort through the drop-down menu.

Inspiring Interns has a system where grads post a video CV (usually about 30-60 seconds) and potential employers will offer interviews if they’re interested. Good spread of a wide-range of jobs. The sign-up for this is pretty painless.

Target Jobs tends to have a lot of opportunities about. Less so for some creative jobs but if you’re interested in stuff like finance there ought to be some arable pickings.

Prospects is another site. Not too familiar with it but it is a resource worth investigating.

Talentpool is an interesting resource. I’m fairly biased because the first job I applied for was the first one that I got but the structure is fascinating. Basically, instead of your CV and info on a typical jobs board like Reed, you fill out only your skills and education level, and the fields you’re interested in (like finance or marketing). From there, potential employers approach you with job offers and you apply if you’re interested (or refuse if not). It’s fairly intuitive.

Switch is an app that works like a hybrid of Tinder and LinkedIn. And yes, I said Tinder. As I understand it, you match up with employers based upon skills and job interests. When you do indeed match you can chat and see if a job comes from it. Both this and Talentpool seem to reflect what the future of job seeking might be.

Then there are the typical job sites such as Reed and Indeed. Of these two, I recommend Reed more; its search functions are more sophisticated. You should be using both.

The Dots is a resource for you as well. They have internships in a variety of sectors. To filter results you will need to sign up.

Any others, I’d love to know about to add to the list. You know for, er, unselfish reasons.

Good luck out there. Leave some for me, too.