We’ll be adding FAQs to this page as we are asked them, so please send in any questions you have as a comment and the answer may appear here soon. We don’t promise to be able to provide the answer to every question we’re asked (there is a limit to our knowledge!) but we will endeavour to provide a response.
Click on the question in the list below to be taken direct to the answer:
- ‘I graduate this year – how will I be affected?’
- ‘I’m graduating in 2010/2011 – will it affect me?’
- ‘I’m looking for work experience or a placement – how will I be affected?’
- ‘I want to find a part time job, so it won’t affect me, will it?’
- ‘If I can’t find a job, should I do a postgraduate course?’
- ‘I don’t want to work in finance, so it won’t affect me, will it?’
- ‘I wanted to apply for jobs in investment banking. Should I change my plans?’
- ‘I’m an international student. Is it worth me trying to find a job in the UK or will employers only consider applications from home students at the moment?’
‘I graduate this year – how will I be affected?’
If you are graduating this year, you may feel the effects of the recession the most. Depending on the sector you are wanting to apply to, companies may have cut the numbers they are recruiting. You’ll need to be flexible in your approach and think about what you want to do, what you can do to help you towards that goal, and the skills and experience you can build to help you stand out when making applications.
It’s not all doom and gloom – a lot of the stuff in the media can seem like there’s no hope, but there are still positive news stories coming out every day about sectors and organisations that are doing well. We’ll hopefully be writing posts about some of these positive areas when we hear about them.
It might be tempting to just bury your head in the sand and hope to ignore the recession by taking time out before applying for a graduate job, but don’t! Competition for jobs will be intense as you will be competing with your peers as well as recent graduates. If you are out of the job market, keep focused and doing things so that when opportunities arise you’ll be well placed to take advantage of them.
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‘I’m graduating in 2010/2011 – will it affect me?’
We aren’t psychics, so we can’t say for certain what will happen next year or in future years. What we can tell you is that we expect the employment market to continue to be a tougher place than it has been since the early 1990s for some time, but exactly how tough and for how long will depend on what happens over the next few months and how different sectors/industries are affected by the recession. Again, as we hear things, we’ll pass them on to you on the blog.
Now is the time to try and build up skills and experience that will help you in your future job search. You might have to do a bit more research than in the past to find the opportunities, but there are vacancies out there. See the recession section on the Postgraduate Student blog for videos and tips about marketing yourself and finding jobs.
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‘I’m looking for work experience or a placement – how will I be affected?’
How you’ll be affected will depend on a number of things including the sector you are applying to and how organisations are reacting to the issues they face. At the moment, we are seeing vacancies being advertised at the same rate as a few years ago. This is lower than last year (which was the busiest we’ve recorded) …but that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities out there. You might have to do more research to find them or create your own opportunities. Equally, it might be more competitive to secure work experience so you need to do all you can to make sure you submit good applications and stand out from the crowd.
Despite the gloom, you might find that if you already have skills which mean you can make an immediate impact, you can be useful to organisations that are having to make cutbacks. Equally, even if a company isn’t able to take on graduates at the moment they may still be offering work experience so they don’t cut their ties with the graduate recruitment market and risk missing out on talented people in the future.
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‘I want to find a part-time job, so it won’t affect me, will it?’
Hmm… you might think it is just graduate recruitment that is affected, but it isn’t. Employers in a range of different sectors have been hit by the recession and others will feel the effects as time goes on. For example, some retailers have been hit hard by the recession with many having to cease trading, while other parts of the retail industry are faring comparatively better, such as certain food retailers. Some companies might be having difficulties, because businesses they trade with are struggling.
As a result, some sectors have seen a reduction in the numbers of part-time vacancies available. It means that finding a part-time job may be more competitive than it has been, but also that you need to look at more sources of vacancies to find a job. As well as the Careers Service website, make sure to have a look at the ‘Jobs Seen on the Street’ posts on our blog each week to give you ideas about where else to search.
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‘If I can’t find a job, should I do a postgraduate course?’
There’s no easy answer to this, as no one knows exactly how long this recession will go on for or what state the economy will be in when you finish a postgraduate course in a year’s time.
It’s important to consider that there’s no guarantee that at the end of a postgrad course you’ll get a job immediately or that your pay will be substantially more than if you’d just done an undergraduate degree. You’ll also be competing against another year of new graduates, plus other postgrads and any unemployed graduates for roles. So before you get into extra debt and embark on a new course consider:
- Does this postgrad course substantially contribute to your career goals?
- Do employers look for it?
- Does it give you desirable professional qualifications or skills – check with professional bodies to see if the course is accredited or recommended.
- Does it give you opportunities to get valuable work experience related to your future career?
You can also look at our sister blog, the Postgraduate Student blog to get an idea of some of the issues faced by postgrads.
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‘I don’t want to work in finance, so it won’t affect me, will it?’
It’s not just finance that has been affected by the recession. A lot of the news has been about the financial sector as it has an impact on a wide variety of sectors.
All sectors will no doubt be hit by the recession, but the extent to which they are and when they are will all differ. Some sectors such as finance, construction and retail have been high profile areas that have already felt the effects. Others may take longer to feel the impact of the recession, e.g. the impact on the public sector might not be felt immediately, but in years to come the effect of the Icelandic bank crisis and reduced investment may lead to cutbacks.
Have a look at how the sector you are interested in is doing as a whole. Within the sector there might be niches that are doing better or have been harder hit than others. Try to find out as much as you can to help in your job search/career planning – good sources of information include the business news, vacancy advertisements, professional journals and websites of professional bodies. Why not make an appointment to see a careers consultant to talk about your plans and the sector you are interested in?
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‘I wanted to apply for jobs in investment banking. Should I change my plans?’
It might depend on why you wanted to apply to Investment Banking. If it was only for the money – maybe a rethink would be a good idea! If it’s still something you are dead set on, you might need to think long term and not be put off by the fact that the situation is bad now.
In the last recession in the early 1990s, some employers cut graduate recruitment completely but then faced a skills/talent shortage in the following years as a result. This time, many recruiters are trying to do things differently so that they are able to compete/build their businesses once the economic situation improves. In terms of investment banking, it may well be that a) there are fewer jobs, b) it’s more competitive to get into a job, and c) it’s naturally a high risk industry (both in terms of the work and the job market).
You can always try and gain related work experience etc to help to differentiate yourself from others applying. Look at the recession pages on our sister Postgraduate Student blog which have videos and tips on differentiating yourself from the competition and much more.
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‘I’m an international student. Is it worth me trying to find a job in the UK or will employers only consider applications from home students at the moment?’
You may have heard different things in the media recently – about companies not targetting international students, the government pushing for jobs for the UK, and the new post-study work visa being created enabling international students to work in the UK after graduation for a period of time. A lot of contradictory information is out there – so take a look at the International Student blog written by our colleague. The blog has lots of useful information on it and also has a recession section to help to answer some of the specific queries facing international students at this time.
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