Graduate recruitment

So you got your nice shiney new degree and now you have to figure out what the hell to do with it?

Well, here is some practical advise from someone who has seen his kids go through it - and believe me, it ain't easy...

From my recent post, you will have hopefully realized that you have been conned. You were persuaded to stay on at school and go through university to keep you off the dole queue and make Labour's unemployment figures look better than they actually were.

But that is not to say you didn't do the right thing, although maybe it was not the right thing for you. Graduates tend to get jobs with other people or go on to professional qualifications. Entrepreneurs are frequently those who chose a different road. Different horses, different courses.

Here's the hard bit : your degree won't get you a job. What it will do is to establish that you have certain level of education and that you can apply yourself. It will open doors otherwise closed to you. It is not proof of intelligence. You can be thick as two short planks in the practicality stakes and still be a brilliant academic. If this is you, think about going into teaching.

And here's another heart warming statistic - In the 1980's 80% of the graduate output of this country became Chartered Accountants. What a waste of talent, but it does show that getting a job after universty wasn't any easier then either - and they didn't have JobServe!

Which brings me nicely on to my next point : If you are going into the big bad comercial world, then get yourself a computer. Use it to compose a well written and well presented cv. If you are sending it out in hard copy, print it on coloured paper - it will get you noticed.

More importantly, get onto job sites and apply for everything you can do, not just what you want to do. You need a job. You can get a career later. If you are not applying for 20 jobs a day, then you are not trying hard enough.

Don't spend all day on the computer scanning job sites. Get a routine. When you have done all you can for today, put it down until tomorrow.

And check your Facebook profile and information about yourself - your prospective boss will. If you look a prat on there, you won't get the interview.

And finally, don't give up. Winners never quit and quitters never win.

Good luck. You'll need it...