What job should you do?

This is a particularly difficult question to answer, as there is not a correct answer. Naturally your degree course and grade will significantly influence your future career options/prospects. Although comprehensive work experience and a real passion for a particular career unrelated to your degree should be enough to get you into the interview process, unless the job has strict prerequisites, which you simply don’t satisfy.

If you are really unsure of what the future holds, the best way of finding out is by doing something. Doing something gives you experience. Experience is what tells you if you will like something or not. How do you know if you would like to climb Mount Everest, if you have never climbed a hill? How do you know you would like Las Vegas, if you have never been? If you haven’t experienced something, your opinions on the subject are created by what other people have said and what you have read. Vegas only sounds great because most rave about it. However, they are ‘other people’ and when it comes to choosing jobs, they might find a job enjoyable that you find impossible or irritating. In short, find out what ‘you’ enjoy and what you want to do! What is important is you understand what sort of environment you want to work in; a buzzy sales office or a quiet research based position. Do you want to work people, in team or prefer working alone?

Any temporary or permanent position will start to show you the environment in which you might enjoy working. Love partying, go and work in a nightclub. You will probably be shocked at how little you enjoy working in the same environment in which you revel, when partying. At the begging of your career, what you do doesn’t really matter, as it just gives you experience. This helps you make a better choice of career.

Doing something also means you open yourself to opportunities you would have not been exposed to if you hadn’t thrown caution to the wind and tried something in the first place. This is why I don’t see the unpaid internship debacle as so outrageous. As long as they pay for your travel costs, you are getting free, fantastic work experience. What more can graduates in this recession ask for? You never know who you are going to meet and what might happen. See my other post for the importance of making a good impression when meeting people!

Graduates forget they are just graduates and have little commercial experience that can make the company money. So in this economic climate, they can’t expect to rock up for some work experience and get paid handsomely for their time. This whole topic is hotly debated, so I will refrain from commenting further at this point.

However, to summarise, if you want to help yourself don’t hang around after university on endless family holidays. For those without jobs, your search has now become a full time job, so treat it like one! This may sound harsh, but I want to see you employed and getting on with your career. So if this means taking jobs for just a few months, to earn some cash and help you get closer to finding your dream job, so be it! For further info on graduate employment please follow this blog. Who knows what might happen...