Securing a graduate job is just ridiculous

Soldato
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Yes it sucks balls applying for loads of jobs and not getting much back, but there is nothing you can do but keep going.

Have you considered casting your net further afield ? There are other countries in the world which are doing better than we are economically, i believe Germany are going hard for IT and enginering at the moment, i'm in the process of after being a tit when i was younger and buggering about at uni (not that my degree would have proved to be any use anyway, but it would have helped) of applying for an apprenticeship scheme that is backed by the German government, as they are looking really hard for engineers, health workers and IT people I believe.

So look at some of the big German/US/Canadian etc firms and fire off some applications (obviously only bother if moving to another country appeals)
 
Soldato
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If I went to university now and ended up with 40ks worth of debt, it would have to be from a top 20 university. It would also have to be a core subject to even be worthwhile.
 
Associate
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Is it not too late for a lot of companies 2013 graduate schemes? I was going through this exact same process back in October-November time. Lucky enough to secure myself a position at one of the Big 4. It took four months from me sensing my application in, to receiving my job off.

I know exactly how it feels to be face rejection after rejection, you just need to stay positive and ensure you're putting in enough effort and research to each application.

I do agree with posts made in this thread that degrees are being devalued. Personally I would not have bothered going to any university outside the top 20, even perhaps top 10. I went to a top 3 so it was targeted by every employer you can imagine. I attended dozens of networking and careers events and fairs before even starting my applications. Having access to people within a firm, especially as you progress through the application process, is extremely beneficial.

Good luck with your hunt OP. I know it's easy for me to say, but try not to get too disheartened.
 
Soldato
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I got an internship with IBM about a week before the credit crunch kicked off (I remember the news the day before was that we were heading for a food shortage, LOL!)

That's mostly how I came to get a graduate job there 3 years ago. But for those three years they have been hiring record numbers of Grads each year. Combination of grabbing the talent while nobody else is hiring and that there is a wave of retirees at the moment.

I'm talking about Engineers here. Are there any other companies hiring like mad now?

Oil and gas companies (BP, Shell, Exxon, ConocoPhillips etc.) also doing the same with regards to numbers of graduates, largely for the same reason. The average age of oil and gas workers in the UK is quite high so there has been more aggressive recruiting of graduates so they can get trained up in time for when the workers retire. There's also the matter of a large wave of new investment into North Sea oil, so the companies are also expanding their personnel bases for this :)
 

alx

alx

Soldato
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Oil and gas companies (BP, Shell, Exxon, ConocoPhillips etc.) also doing the same with regards to numbers of graduates, largely for the same reason. The average age of oil and gas workers in the UK is quite high so there has been more aggressive recruiting of graduates so they can get trained up in time for when the workers retire. There's also the matter of a large wave of new investment into North Sea oil, so the companies are also expanding their personnel bases for this :)

This. There's a huge lack of engineers in oil & gas atm, partly because of the lack of engineers in general, but also because of the oil price slump of the 90s which meant workforce sizes and recruitment was minimal.
 
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So the company who cancelled on the first arranged phone interview rescheduled it for today, and didn't even bother calling me at all. This was one of the things I was stressing in my OP. How can these companies demand top organisational and time keeping skills as well as for us to be proficient at answering the pointless questions when they themselves cannot be bothered?

Absolute idiots!
 
Associate
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So the company who cancelled on the first arranged phone interview rescheduled it for today, and didn't even bother calling me at all. This was one of the things I was stressing in my OP. How can these companies demand top organisational and time keeping skills as well as for us to be proficient at answering the pointless questions when they themselves cannot be bothered?

Absolute idiots!

Which company is it? Some companies I know outsource their telephone interview process to a third party company, after-all most of the questions asked will be competency based and you just need to tick the correct boxes.

However, the experience you had with this company has been very unprofessional.
 
Caporegime
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I got an internship with IBM about a week before the credit crunch kicked off (I remember the news the day before was that we were heading for a food shortage, LOL!)

That's mostly how I came to get a graduate job there 3 years ago. But for those three years they have been hiring record numbers of Grads each year. Combination of grabbing the talent while nobody else is hiring and that there is a wave of retirees at the moment.

I'm talking about Engineers here. Are there any other companies hiring like mad now?

I'm in the US and most software companies are hiring strongly, really hard for our small company to bring in talent, just not enough good engineers out there
 
Associate
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Which company is it? Some companies I know outsource their telephone interview process to a third party company, after-all most of the questions asked will be competency based and you just need to tick the correct boxes.

However, the experience you had with this company has been very unprofessional.


I'd rather not disclose the company name here in case I end up getting the job (lol rescheduled for monday).

However I can tell you it is a smallish company and the person calling me is a MD there so it definitely isn't outsourced!
 
Soldato
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Going from your first post, I expect at least 10% of your time at your first graduate job will be spent thinking along the lines of:

How did x person get a job here
Common sense doesn't seem to apply here
Why do they do it like this when it could be done more efficiently
Everything seems to get fed down from management but nothing seems to get fed back upwards
 
Soldato
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So the company who cancelled on the first arranged phone interview rescheduled it for today, and didn't even bother calling me at all. This was one of the things I was stressing in my OP. How can these companies demand top organisational and time keeping skills as well as for us to be proficient at answering the pointless questions when they themselves cannot be bothered?

Absolute idiots!

Well you have to realise that the conversation with you is last on their list of priorities. What should they prioritise, a call with an unknown graduate or any kind of work-related issue that may come up?

They can't all of a sudden hang up on a client who is demanding something by saying "sorry, got a grad phone interview and I'm 15 mins late for it! The grad is going to go nuts at me if I don't call him!"

It's just one of those things - it may be very important to you, but it ranks pretty lowly for them.

What were you doing during your positions at Barcap and Citi (desk and role/asset class)? One of the issues a high number of economics/finance/Maths graduates face is that there's a great deal of gravitas and popularity that surrounds the top 20-30 institutions in finance and this acts as a set of blinkers - grads want to send their CV off to Goldmans... Whereas they've never thought of LBBW or MainFirst. There are literally thousands of banks, brokerages, hedge funds, prop trading firms, private equity firms, wealth managers, private banks, information providers, etc that you can fire your CV off to.

Also, it would be a good idea to check in with the people you worked for at Barcap and Citi and ask if they know of any roles going internally, with any of their mates or with any of their clients.

Let me know if you need any company names - am a financial headhunter, so may be able to direct you towards a few :)
 
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Soldato
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Well you have to realise that the conversation with you is last on their list of priorities. What should they prioritise, a call with an unknown graduate or any kind of work-related issue that may come up?

They can't all of a sudden hang up on a client who is demanding something by saying "sorry, got a grad phone interview and I'm 15 mins late for it! The grad is going to go nuts at me if I don't call him!"

What a load of rubbish. If you arrange a meeting you stick to it or get in touch to reschedule. It doesn't matter whether the meeting is with your biggest shareholder or a potential employee.

Also, most big companies with grad schemes will have graduate recruitment staff, so it's not as if something is going to come up for them apart from graduate recruitment issues.
 
Man of Honour
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Well you have to realise that the conversation with you is last on their list of priorities. What should they prioritise, a call with an unknown graduate or any kind of work-related issue that may come up?

They can't all of a sudden hang up on a client who is demanding something by saying "sorry, got a grad phone interview and I'm 15 mins late for it! The grad is going to go nuts at me if I don't call him!"

It's just one of those things - it may be very important to you, but it ranks pretty lowly for them.

That sounds like a desperately short sighted attitude from them and a lack of basic respect if you're correct about the approach. For many companies the graduates they recruit are going to be the "future of the company" or whatever other way you want to describe it - not all will work out of course but when you're investing a fair chunk of money into getting what you hope will be a quality employee for the future it seems a bit daft to not take the recruitment process seriously.

As manic111 says most big companies will have HR staff of some description who can contact the graduate even if the person taking the interview doesn't. That might not be the case here from what supergt has said due to the size of the firm but in a slightly different way it should be important to a smaller firm too because for them the risk (and potential reward) for hiring a graduate is proportionally higher. If a big firm can afford to hire say a dozen graduates and if three make it then that's a reasonable return for them, a small firm might employ one graduate per year so they're not hoping that this one person is a quarter competent - they're hoping that they're fully competent because failures for them have a bigger impact in percentage terms.

As for the difficulties of securing a graduate job - it was fairly competitive five years ago when I went through the process for mine but I think it's probably worse now. That said there are still a number of opportunities out there even if sometimes you might have to think a bit laterally e.g. a number of firms have development programmes for internal candidates so it may pay to just get into the company even if it's a lowly position and apply for the development programme. I'd also point out that you're looking for ways to distinguish yourself from other candidates which isn't always easy but remember that you're probably being judged against competencies so if you can do a bit of research and find out what those competencies are you can tailor your examples towards them - it's the same as with exams, if you can make the assessors job easy then they're probably more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt.
 
Soldato
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Securing a graduate job is just ridiculous

... Then apply for non-graduate jobs too.

Contrary to popular belief, your degree in Mickey Mouse's underpants does not make you an awesome employment prospect. In fact, the over-whelming majority of graduates couldn't find their way out of a paper bag, regardless of how large their ego and sense of entitlement is.
 
Associate
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This thread makes me a bit scared of graduating next year! Ill prob end up with a similar thread. (should grad 2:1 mechanical eng masters)

It's really not that bad at all, the biggest tip I can give is to take your time(I'm talking 2-3 days) with the application forms/CV, tailoring each one to the job and company. I only applied to 2 grad schemes, almost got the first, nailed the second :D

Masters EE/Defence sector btw
 
Soldato
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Not all companies are the same, even large ones.

Once I'd finished my degree, I applied to several companies and eventually got to an assessment centre with my preferred one. After probably one of the most exhausting days of my life, I was offered a job the next day.

After working there for a month or so, I began to see some familiar faces from that day. Turns out that they hired all the normal, personable and smart people from what were mostly a bunch of talkers who seemed to believe they were on the apprentice. That made me realise I'd gone to the right place.

I'd say, do your research on the companies too so you know what to expect in terms of their strategy, attrition rates etc. You may find the financial companies already quite full of the *rubbish* they may appear to hire. You could ask yourself if you really want to work with these people.

The only other thing I would advise is, it's never too early to get some outside experience (e.g. part time work, even in unrelated fields). You do learn from it, even if it wasn't great or what you wanted. If you can explain that relatively eloquently to someone, then you'll surely improve your chances of being hired. I think the right companies aren't looking at what you are, they're looking at what you could be, how you learn from things, how you have taken your experiences on board to become a better person for it.
 
Soldato
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It's really not that bad at all, the biggest tip I can give is to take your time(I'm talking 2-3 days) with the application forms/CV, tailoring each one to the job and company. I only applied to 2 grad schemes, almost got the first, nailed the second :D

Masters EE/Defence sector btw

Yeah, I'd say take your time and apply early. If you're graduating next year, start looking in October. A lot of large graduate schemes close around Christmas.

I know it's a lot of work when you're into your final year of uni and have other things to do, but its better than coming to the end of your degree with no job lined up.
 
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