Not all sunshine and daisies aka still unemployed

So it’s been an entire year since I graduated from uni and like the vast majority of graduates in this country and further afield I am unemployed. (big woop) As readers of this blog may know that is not because a lack of trying but let’s just say that it’s not been easy sailing. However with the job market being so over run with people looking for work and so few places I have often found that the odds are stacked against me. The vast majority of people have degrees these days….even if they are in Mickey Mouse subjects so employers may look in other area to find the right candidate and here I’m talking about the one word that every graduate dreads: EXPERIENCE

In a previous post (here’s the link) http://dinniethepooh.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/we-regret-to-inform-you-that.html I concluded that job interviews are really just pot luck. 

Shall we examine the evidence that shows that luck is CLEARLY not in my court? (all these reasons are what I have concluded myself, for a list of what the actual interviewers said my shortcomings were see the link above)

1. I did not get a 2:1 (or higher) in my degree (I got a 2:2, two measly marks away from a 2:1 but evidently still not a hallowed 2:1) The minimum requirement it seems these days for a large variety of jobs is that you achieve a minimum of a 2:1 in a BA degree. However there is nothing really to say what subject the said degree should be in, of course it would make sense that you would have a degree in a similar topic to what job you were applying for. Nevertheless you could have got a second class degree, higher division degree in a very taxing subject or maybe have still gotten the same grade in a Mickey Mouse subject but a 2:1 is still a 2:1 which is seen to be better than a lower mark, even if the lower mark is 58 instead of 60.
2. I didn’t do a masters. So you’ve spent three long years of your life slaving away to get a piece of paper and once you have graduated and mumbled to yourself ‘I’m never doing that again’ you learn that the whole experience was not worth the time and effort because you don’t have a masters. I have lost count at the amount of job opportunities that I have not been able to go for because I didn’t do a further degree and write a 20,000 word essay. (That’s twice the amount a dissertation!)
3. I don’t drive. This is the point in the post where everybody stares at me like I am some sort of alien and asks ‘but it’s the 21^st century how can anyone survive without being able to drive’ I think that my potential employers may also have had thought this when they read my applications.
4. I don’t speak Welsh. I didn’t think that it would make any difference either but apparently if I wanted to take a job in visitor experience in Wales I’d have to speak Welsh.
5. And last but certainly not least is my favourite shortcoming of them all: experience. 

The job/experience cycle is one of the most head scratchingly confusing conundrums when it comes to job searching; you need to have experience to get a job but you need a job to get experience. However if this weren’t confusing enough you need to have relevant experience. So if say you wanted to apply for a managerial role you would have to have experience in management. If a bin man for example or someone with a completely unrelated job role woke up one morning and decide ‘I’m going to be a manager’ the odds are that they wouldn’t even get as far as an interview. Even if they had an impeccable CV with a 2:1 in (let’s say) English they would fall at the experience hurdle because the experience they have gained is not relevant.

Another point that I would like to pick up on (if I may) is about getting stuck in a rut. In the constant battle to gain experience so that we are able to strive for our goals are we not endangering ourselves in becoming stuck in dead end jobs or going down career paths that we never planned having got lost on our way to get the required experience it takes to get the job that we want. We might be wasting the talent of top managers by having them work as bin men!! We might never know, with the job market as it is these bin men may always end up working as bin men.