Any Job Will Do: Graduate employment figures show difficulties for graduate job-seekers

Graduates who are job-seeking are increasingly entering into employment which either does not use or is incompatible with the skills and knowledge acquired in their degree, a report published last week has revealed (Source: The Guardian website, 07/11/2012). Whilst the news may not be what graduate job-seekers would have hoped for, it does offer an insight in to how to get on the job ladder once the lecturers and dissertations have passed from the rear view mirror.

In a survey conducted by Warwick University, 40% of the 17,000 subjects reported that they were in non-graduate jobs, which they could technically have achieved without a degree at all. But does this break the stigma which has long been attached to graduates who take non-graduate jobs? This news comes at the same time as figures from the same survey suggest there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of graduates getting graduate jobs. A ‘good news, bad news’ story if ever there was one. So is the lesson for graduates looking for jobs to take any job they can in order to get on the employment ladder?

There is some advantage to this way of thinking. With clear links between unemployment and mental health issues (Source: British Medical Journal, BMJ 1998; 317:115) and no guarantee as to the continued health of the recent emergence from recession of the UK economy, graduates could do worse than to take a job and from there look to either work upwards in the company, or undertake additional studies to compliment their degree and make them more attractive to employers looking for graduates.

  Whilst some graduates would naturally be unhappy with taking a role either out of their interest area or not requiring their degree knowledge, the advantages of earning money whilst exploring their options do seem to outweigh the benefits of remaining unemployed in an ever-competitive graduate job market.

For more information on job-seeking, visit the Wordsworth Reading resource page for job-seekers at http://www.wordsworthreading.co.uk/jobresources.shtml