The Graduate Gap

Prospective graduates have been told for the last couple of years that there is a shortage of graduate jobs out there. Moreover employers can now knit pick from the top universities to get the most high calibre graduates for the role. Having nearly graduated myself and from my experience thus far from the last couple of years, the story is a bleak one.

It is of my opinion that there is to exist something called a graduate gap, where the graduates graduating this year, may end up in the role or job, they do not want or not related to their degree programme, but it is the only job they can find at this time. This may even be part time employment which for some probably didn't even cross their mind when they started their degree.

The problem with the whole university degree system, is that there is no limit on the age you are allowed to go to University, furthermore graduate schemes don't restrict on the age you can apply, for some though you must have graduated within the last two years, but in terms of age there is no enforced restriction.

Some key points I keep hearing about my colleagues coming back from assessment centres "When you ask what university your fellow competitors went to? Cambridge, Oxford. It is OK if you can afford to go there.

"Do you have any experience? I have worked for Goldman Sachs for two years prior to University, then another financial placement. Over qualified perhaps? But these are the people we are up against. Another example and this is true, a friend said she was up against someone who had been in a graduate scheme, before for 7 years. Why would you want another graduate scheme surely if you were in one for seven years then it must have been worthwhile?

Altogether this will create something called the graduate gap, where thousands of prospective graduates, graduate and go into a job they aren't entirely set on as a career, of which they may have had different opinions when they started their degree.

Are you a graduate? Are you graduating in the next four to six months I would like to hear from you. What competition have you come up in interviews, assessment centres?