Stressing about potential and future job prospects is something that university students are far too familiar with. Upon graduating, university students are metaphorically speaking, entering a battlefield. A battlefield that requires them to fight for jobs against their competitors. Not only will they need to compete with their fellow classmates, but also with other graduating students across Australia.
SERVERE COMPETITION LEADING TO A LACK OF CONFIDENCE?
The pressure of competition in the work force is one of contributing factors that lead university students to have a lack of confidence in their professional capabilities.
“I’m not confident that all those who graduate will be able to get a job after university because without being incredibly proactive I think that the competition will be too intense to guarantee employment security”, Laurie, a journalism student from RMIT says.
Comparing degrees with one another based on which university it has come from is another added pressure university students face. Students question whether the degree they receive from their own university could possibly match up to the same degree that others receive at the more “prestigious” universities.
Genel Dinaw, a student from Victoria University, has found it extremely discouraging when her accounting course is compared to other accounting courses from different universities.
“I think that students from other universities like RMIT and Melbourne University have a higher chance at getting a job than I do because I go to VU.”
HOW MANY GRADUATES ACTUALLY GET JOBS WITHIN A YEAR OF GRADUATING?
In a study conducted by Graduate Careers Australia, “76.1percent were in full-time employment within four months of completing their degrees (essentially unchanged from 76.3 per cent in 2011, and down from 79.2 per cent in 2009 and 85.2 per cent in 2008)”
To put that into perspective, if one million university students graduated in 2012, approximately 760 thousand would have jobs within four months of completing their degrees, leaving 240 thousand without jobs.
HEAR FROM GRADUATES
Michael Wong, a journalism graduate from Charles Strut University in New South Wales, thought, “finding a decent job was elusive” after graduating. “I thought it would be hard to get my foot in the door, but I didn’t expect the door to be slammed in my face, then welded shut”
“I applied three times for cadetships at Fairfax, and got nowhere.” Says Wong.
Amanda Nguyen, an RMIT Public Relations graduate has been in the workforce for 6 years. She also faced the same problems and struggled to make her mark in the work force upon graduating.
“It was difficult to get a foot into the industry because there are a lot of talented people in my industry. I found that networking was the most important thing that eventually helped me find a job. You really do need to go to every industry drinks, conference or development day.”
Nguyen realized that “there is so much more to working life” than what she expected, and was taught at university.
“Having said that, I enjoy my job immensely so I’m willing to put up with the huge amount of competition and uncertainty that comes from working in such a creative, fulfilling and highly intelligent industry.”
