Graduate jobs market – a beginner’€™s guide

Starting to think about graduate jobs is a challenging time for most students.  If you are not one of the lucky ones who decided at the age of seven that you wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer,  even deciding when to start can present all sorts of difficulties.  Even for those who know the direction they want to go in, it is not always clear how best to go about it.  Will a graduate scheme be the only way to get a foot on your chosen career ladder?  Or should you start trying to find internship positions to get experience and make contacts?
University careers centres can be very helpful with these kind of things, but turning up with no idea of what you want from your future, and asking them to wave a magic wand and come up with all the answers is unlikely to yield results.  These careers professionals are very well informed about the paths into various graduate careers, but are less likely to have a strong grasp of your skills, interests and background.  So it is generally not worth going to careers advisers until you have at least some sense of what they might be able to help you with, and the sector or field you are interested in.  This can be as vague as ‘media’, ‘health’ or ‘consultancy’, as the careers advisors will be able to tell you more about the various roles and graduate jobs that are available in each sector.

It is good to decide as early on as possible what the best route in your chosen career might be.  The reason for this is simple – applications for graduate schemes and internship positions can open as early as September in your final year of studying.  For those who need to be interning in order to gain experience in their chosen area, it is often useful to start applying for internships in your first year, so that you can gain experience in every university break.  Graduates interested in law, journalism and advertising will thank themselves later if they have invested this time in gaining contacts and skills during their holidays.  Those interested in more corporate jobs such as accounting and finance will often find that a graduate scheme is the best way in, but your application to one of these is much more likely to be successful if you have completed an internship prior to your application.

graduate jobs need not be a headache if you invest in a little bit of preparation.  Whether it is internship positions or a graduate scheme that will help you achieve your goals, all you need to do is decide what they are as soon as possible, and you should find yourself on a smooth path to success.

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