"I realized how depressing it is not to be able to get up in the morning and go to a job.” – Media/marketing graduate, Chelsea McIver. Photo: Emma Do
Students are told the path to full-time employment is paved with a university degree, but the reality of life after graduation isn’t so assuring.
Graduate Careers Australia’s 2012 survey, reveals nearly one in four (23.9 per cent) graduates were searching for full-time employment, four months after leaving university.
“New graduates are taking longer to find full time work than they would have five years ago,” said GCA executive, Noel Edge in a press release.
For Roger Francis, an engineering graduate of Victoria University, two years passed before he finally landed full-time work in his field.
“Post-graduation was a bit ups and downs…wondering what I was going to do with myself,” he said.
It’s a sentiment shared by Chelsea McIver, a media/marketing graduate of Melbourne University who found her current digital coordinating position after six months.
“My initial idealism changed…I realized what unemployment meant and how depressing it is not to be able to get up in the morning and go to a job,” she said.
A conservative forecast
In 2012, 12.5 per cent of employers recruited no graduates, compared to 2008 when the figure was 4.6 per cent.
The Federal Government’s 2013 National Workforce Development Strategy links the difficulty experienced by graduates with the global financial crisis.
The same paper states that employers have been hesitant to take on graduates who are not “work ready”.
Dr Phil Vines, deputy head of RMIT’s School of Computer Science, said it was a common problem IT graduates faced.
“One of the reasons is that the industry standard employer will say ‘find me someone with five years [industry] experience, they can start work tomorrow’,” Dr Vines said.
“How do you get the experience that everyone wants?
“You might have to take a job that’s a bit lower than what you expected as a graduate.”
In between finding full-time employment, graduates are increasingly seeking menial jobs to make ends meet.
Thomas Amos, co-founder of Sidekicker, a Melbourne based temporary employment agency says the majority of the business’s freelance workers are university students; about a third of these are university graduates.
“In the past six months, we’ve probably received about 400 to 500 applications,” he said.
Getting ahead in a tough climate
Marc Zanotto graduated with a Bachelor of Technology in computing studies last year but found his course lacking in practical experience.
“It didn’t teach you how to do cold calling, how to write a resume or sell yourself to a particular type of field,” he said.
But Dr Vines says help at universities is available.
“People with strong results are sitting there with two or three job offers,” he said.
Dr Vines also stressed that research into the job market prior to graduating is important.
“The Government maintains a list called MODL, that gives you an indication of where there’s a shortage of workers in Australia.
“Develop a network of contacts… only a percentage of jobs are advertised through the formal means,” he said.
Ms McIver noted the jump between university and working in a full time role.
“There’s so much about working in an office environment that’s so different to when you’re at uni,” she said.
“Just being exposed to things like that earlier would have been good.”
