What To Do After University

Someone should really do something about graduates. I don't think they're prepared enough about the real world. How do I know this? I'm one of many unemployed graduates scattered across the country. In my world I am currently trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. This boils down to two key questions:

Should I settle for whatever work lands in my lap or should I focus my attention on developing a career that will ultimately make me happy? 

Sometimes I feel that the two choices are synonymous, so inexplicably tied together that they are actually only one option, one solitary way forwards. Despite this, we naive graduates believe we have options and that we can be the masters of our own universes, that we have the ability to freely choose the next stage of our life. The reality is much starker. To survive in this world you must take what work is offered to you, and by doing so you will be contributing to your career development, although that might not be obvious from the start.

How is accepting seemingly any work helpful? Well, you could glean valuable skills from the world of employment, you can demonstrate nerve and determination and you can work a little magic on your CV in order to show the world you have value. That you will make an excellent contribution to whatever sector it is you wish to work in. Plus, it is better to be doing something than sitting idle.

Not only do you gain work experience, which is truly priceless in our current economic climate, you can earn some money too. Your very own hard-earned cash that is yours and yours alone. Spend it on whatever you will. You earned it. You could even work on your career development at the same time. Go and volunteer in your industry if all you can find is part-time or temporary work. Just don't let life pass you by. Time is precious and it wouldn't do to let it slip through your fingers.

If only matters were that simple. It has been the summer of discontent for me. I have tried my hardest to land work, only for nothing to come my way. I haven't had anything to distract me from my situation either. The weather has been poor and my friends are no longer a five minute walk away, having returned to their home towns in order to pursue their careers. Having friends who are dotted around the country is bittersweet. On the one hand you can visit them and see different parts of the world, but on the other hand, it means spontaneous cinema trips are out of the question. The combination of poor weather and distant/unavailable friends made for a lonely summer, interspaced with the odd day-out or trip to the cinema.

It's also left me feeling pretty jaded.

I want to work and earn my own money. I want to own a car. I want to be able to rent my own flat. I want my independence back. The issue is I can't even get a job. I just want the simple things, little pleasures. I want a purpose.

I'm not asking for the world. I just want to feel productive. Someone needs to go into schools ASAP and tell kids that university isn't the jewel of the career world it used to be. When everyone has a degree, it takes something special to land a job, something that only experience will give you. What I'm finding now is that I'm "too qualified" to work in retail or take on an apprenticeship. I'm "too intelligent" to do so-called menial tasks such as sorting the post.

And the worst part of those descriptions is that other people are giving them to me. This is how potential employers are perceiving me from the words on my CV and from my decision to pursue a degree. Nobody wants to give me the chance to show them I'm a capable individual, regardless of my background, and when I look at graduate jobs, I find that I need more work experience in order to fit the job specification.

I am stuck in no-man's land, the place between high-flying careers and the more general day-to-day jobs. I am fast losing the self-esteem I earned at university and I need a way to restore it.