Focus on your career, not the negative headlines

Job-hunting takes time, energy and confidence, and in a competitive graduate jobs market getting your career off the ground calls for real resilience and resourcefulness. Right now, it also calls for a willingness to look beyond negative headlines.

Much of the press coverage of last week’s survey from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) focused on the finding that there were 69 candidates for each graduate job. This statistic related only to the graduate jobs on offer from AGR members who took part in the survey, but a quick scan of the news reports would have left you with the impression that this level of competition applied to every single graduate vacancy in the country.

However, AGR members tend to be larger employers, who might be expected to have a higher profile and attract more applications. The AGR report suggested that this finding was in part due to increased competition as a growing pool of graduates chased a smaller number of opportunities, but also put forward the theory that graduates’ approach to job-hunting had changed because of the tough market, and they were submitting higher numbers of scattergun applications.

Another recent AGR survey found that half of its members still had graduate vacancies to fill, so it’s clear that there are still opportunities out there for those who stay positive and keep on looking. So don’t let the gloom and doom put you off; be realistic, not pessimistic, keep calm and carry on.

Yes, the jobs market is tough at the moment – but it won’t help you to convince yourself that it’s tougher than it actually is. And next time you see a reference to the 69 candidates chasing every graduate job, remind yourself that it refers to the jobs on offer from 199 companies who belong to the AGR and responded to its survey – not to every employer across the UK.

• Students who don’t know what they want to do are OK!
• Which sectors are most likely to offer graduate jobs in 2010?
• Top tips on how to behave during your work experience with a graduate employer

Posted by Alison_TARGETjobs on 13 July 2010

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