What might happen within the next 10 years?
Well, employment trends forecasting is becoming a career in itself! Social and demographic trends suggest that the service industry will continue to grow, healthcare (from nursing to bioscience) will expand dramatically because of the aging population, and green energy is likely to provide new jobs.
What are the main issues for graduates?
For all the doom and gloom, some of the issues remain the same. What shall I do with my life? How can I find a good job? These have always been issues for those starting out in their careers. There have never been enough ‘graduate jobs’ and it has become hard to define what a ‘graduate job’ is.
We cannot change the situation. What we can do is respond to the situation differently.
What won’t work any more?
- Leaving it until you finish your degree to do your career research
- Last minute applications to graduate recruitment schemes
- Only applying to big, established companies
- Finding the job of your dreams in a boxfile in ‘Careers Services’
- Relying on the milkround or other traditional means of recruitment
- Relying on job listings or jobsites, or other passive methods of job-hunting
What will work?
- Learning about yourself so that you start to narrow down some attractive and realistic career possibilities
- Learning about that elusive ‘hidden market’
- Learning to use social media to find jobs that are not published elsewhere
- Learning key skills of self-marketing and networking to land work experience or a job
Have you heard the expression “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”? How is your career planning and job search going today?
Tags: career, graduates, job hunting
