Would my chances be better since I have more job experiences?

The TRUTH about Job searching! (long question)?

• I have effectively been without a graduate job 7 months after I finished university. And before you say it, I’ve done it. I’ve done everything you can do in a job search and more. I’ve effectively become a professional job searcher and it is here where I can tell you what works and what doesn’t work! What doesn’t work; 1) You don’t have the experience, but you say in your CV or to the interviewer, something along the lines of you “have this and that experience which helped towards it” or you “have the desire to work hard, great attitude and want to exceed, etc”. Doesn’t work regardless of how you phrase it. I have tried a million times, they just won’t listen, especially if they are a recruitment agency. 2) Sending your application of to a job hired by a recruitment agency and taking no further action. This won’t work, I mean it when I say people who work in recruitment agencies are idiots! They don’t specialise in your sector, so don’t understand the skills and experiences you have. For example, if they require a candidate with knowledge of ‘x’ software, and you have knowledge of ‘y’ software (which is the exact same, just an industry rival) they will fail to make that connection. Another vacancy asked for someone with knowledge of a certain software, when it was the only company in a 200 mile radius that used that software (they obviously didn‘t know this). So how on earth would anyone have extensive experience of it, unless they didn’t already work there. Therefore, you often have to phone these people up and educate them on how to do their job properly in order to find the best candidate! 3) Applying for jobs that are made up. Yes, that’s what I said, made up! Some recruitment agencies lie and pretend they have vacancies (so they look busy and successful I guess) but the truth is those vacancies don’t exist and have probably been sitting there for years on end in some cases. For example, I applied to a job in June, its January, that same vacancy is listed. The truth of the matter is, it doesn’t exist! 4) Doing extra-curricular activities to increase your chances of getting a job. Once again, why bother, I have done loads of extra-curricular activities, I’ve done charity work, volunteering, tuck part in student magazine, joined a host of groups and clubs, part-time job, etc. None of it works, interviewers are totally disinterested. 5) Careers service and their advisors aren’t all their cracked up to be. By all means use them, they might have a job vacancy available (one in a million chance, but still a chance) and if you’ve never looked for a job before, they might be helpful. They may also be helpful long term in the form of a sympathetic ear. But other than that, they are useless. I know more than them and often have to tell them the real situation. Most of what they’ll tell you are things that never work such as "you don’t have experience, but you have this and that experience". I’m telling you interviewers just won’t listen to that. 6) Statistics. There is a big difference between national figures and local figures, and its usually the case that the local figures aren’t good at all. 7) Big companies. You’ll see advertisements everywhere and they’ll usually be at jobs fairs. Truth is that they’ll have like 10 vacancies, and that’s on a national scale. So that means thousands upon thousands of students are applying for that job. This will include Oxford and Cambridge students, so it’s safe to say, you don’t stand a chance. By all means have a go, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope. 8) You're protected under the discrimination act and human rights act, etc, so don't have to be conscious of these things. Wrong, at the end of the day, if someone doesn't like you, they aren't going to hire you. Humans aren't that developed and many of them who are interviewers are just plain nasty! 9) "90% of all our students get jobs straight after uni" and "Walk straight out of uni and into your dream job". Wrong, this is all nonesense! I will admit, i was guulable enough to believe it, i didn't have a reason to doubt, i thought what they said was true. Well it's not! I don't know where they got these figures from, but if i carried out my own survey, the results would be quite different i can assure you! What works; First off, if you want a job, be related to someone! Time and time again I see people getting jobs not on the basis of their suitability for the role in question but because they were related. Second, be rich! By this you can pay the company to hire allowing you to gain the necessary experience. Third, be lucky! If you don’t fall into any of those 3 categories, welcome to my world. You’ll either wind up unemployed or under-employed. Rant over. Your thoughts and views?

• Answer:

  I'm in exactly the same situation. I graduated last year and have been on the dole ever since. What's more, I'm older than the average graduate (30 this week) so I had a good nine years in the 'real world' before deciding to do a degree, which I did because I wanted a job in that field (environment), and that doesn't help at all. It's a nightmare and not at all where I envisaged myself being at 30. Finding work is all but impossible in the field I want, or even in a loosely related one. If I might add my own little notes to those you've done: 1) The jobcentre are utterly, without exception, f***ing useless. They make NO effort to help, and when you do need help they hinder you. Example of this, the one interview I've had I booked an appointment to get a travel voucher as it was 45 miles away and when I got there the woman spent an hour telling me stuff I knew, acted surprised when I said I was there to get a travel voucher. Then the 'system' changed my signing day from the following week to the following day, which was the day before my interview, so I had to waste 2 hours going to sign on that I wanted to spend preparing for the interview. They don't care, they don't even pretend to care, they don't even know what help is available and it angers me that public money is spent paying these morons. 2) Experience is pretty much irrelevant. I applied for a job at the environment agency for an inbound customer service role. I gained a lot of customer service experience before going to uni and I've a 2:1 in environmental biogeoscience (and my dissertation was published). Didn't even get an interview. Everything else I've applied for I've had emails back saying 'we had 65+ applicants for this role, all of which had a related degree...' Which brings me to point 3. 3) A degree is worthless. The system has been created to up the statistics so that young people are trained for 2 years to pass A levels, then go on to uni to get a degree, which isn't as hard as I think it should be. The result is a labour market saturated with graduates, and of course if you saturate a market with anything, the value of it decreases. I spent 4 years of my life and over £20K of borrowed (taxpayer) money to get mine. Was it worth it? No, not at all. I'm back exactly where I was 4 years ago, but with more debt. The only thing I've got going for me now is that I've finally finished a book I've been writing for 8 years. I'm going to try and get it published but I'm well aware of the chances of that happening and it's frustrating that the only thing on the horizon for me is something with such a minuscule chance of actually working out. I've also started looking at shop jobs which is what I was doing five years ago, has no chance of a career coming from it and frankly is a waste of my intellect.