One of our Careers Brand Ambassadors, Steph Gardner, let’s you know her Christmas wishlist when trying to land a grad job.

The countdown to Christmas has begun. So, we thought it would be ‘fun’ to talk about…you guessed it: Grad Jobs! We know, nothing can quite ruin the holidays like the thought of impending unemployment, so here’s Steph’s Christmas Wish List for the perfect grad job…

Minimal Entry Requirements

So you’re reading through a job description and everything is going great, it seems like a great opportunity and all you need is a 2.1. Then you get to the very bottom and it says that you need not apply unless you donate your kidney to the manager’s sister’s best friend’s cousin. Obviously that’s an exaggeration, but nothing is more annoying than getting excited for a job and realising that because of your degree, or your A-Level results, or anything out of a list of about a 100 things, your application will be tossed aside before it’s even been read. So unless it’s a highly specialised field, my first wish is for a job that doesn’t demand ridiculous things before we’ve even started to apply.

Money to Spare

Nothing is quite so disheartening as realising that the type of job you want pays next to nothing, and that in order to afford rent you’ll probably only be able to eat rice and nothing else for a couple of years. So my second wish is for a job that pays well, or at least enough to not be forever penny-pinching.

Free Stuff

Recently, while job shopping, I came across a graduate scheme where part of the perks were free fruit and yoghurt. It seemed at first like a strange thing to advertise, but as a student (or former student) any free stuff is good stuff, so grad schemes that offer gym memberships, private healthcare, and more get bumped to the top of the list. My third wish is for a graduate job that offers perks aside from just working for them, let them make it worth my while to apply.

Not Too Much Competition

Some people might find the idea of fierce competition a challenge, and while I don’t mind a bit of healthy competition, nothing quite puts me off applying for a job like company statistics saying that only 1 out of every 1,000 applicants gets hired. It could be that there are just lots of bad applicants, but if I’m not deluding myself, I know that a great chunk of the people applying are amazing candidates, and even they are not good enough. So even if some companies have only 1 or 2 vacancies, they’re worth applying to anyway because you might only be facing 100 other candidates instead of 3000.

Anyway, that’s enough about grad jobs, enjoy your holiday, and good luck with any revision or applications you might do! Remember you can always come to Careers for advice and help with job applications, your C.V., and interview prep.