Graduates are entering one of the toughest job markets in decades. Sylvia Morgan writes about how she finally landed that crucial first post.  

 

I was by no means typical among my peers, but I feel I was well organized in my approach to job hunting. Even before graduation, when many of my friends were enjoying what they termed their final year of freedom$,$ I was attending career fairs and getting an idea of which companies were hiring in my chosen field publishing. I had some sit$-$down meetings with representatives at the fairs and distributed my CV$,$ but even then, there was a feeling of lets wait and see$.$ Nobody wanted to commit and none of the companies seemed sure they would even have jobs to offer in the summer, assuming I graduated with the degree my lecturers expected from me$.$

I did but found myself back home in July feeling I was starting again from square one. Although I had taken a short holiday straight after leaving university, I had spent it looking through newspaper job advertisements and online job sites. There had been very little movement in the publishing field and when I got home and found that none of the companies I had contacted before graduating were prepared to make a job offer, I made the pragmatic decision to widen my focus considerably.

I approached job hunting, as much as possible, as a job in itself. Monday to Friday, I put in nine$-$to$-$five days $($with a break for lunch$)$ filling out online application forms, sending out CVs and following leads. If something looked promising, I was prepared to work overtime in order to exploit the opportunity fully. When I got an interview, I did my homework as a sales representative on a business trip: researching the company, plotting a sales strategy and trying to put myself in the potential employers shoes by asking myself questions such as What are they looking for?

So$,$ the interviews did start coming. There would have been many more, however, if I hadnt had a strict rule; I refused any that even hinted at working as an unpaid intern. These positions are becoming more and more common in the UK$,$ which I think is an extremely damaging trend. Not only do young people nowadays get into debt to obtain a degree, but they also have to be prepared to work for six months or a year without remittance, in the hope of a position with a salary at the end of it$.$ Certainly, you gain experience in the good positions of this kind, but in many you may end up as a glorified coffee maker.

Rejection is something you have to prepare yourself for mentally. First of all, because you will, in all likelihood, receive many of those dreaded emails $($or letters, occasionally$)$ before you get the break you are looking for. Secondly, because no matter how strong your self$-$ confidence is$,$ those brief polite sentences will eventually dent it$.$ I strongly advise you not to walk that path alone. Compare notes with university friends and you will find many are going through the same thing. Without my friends, I would have felt like a failure and then Id never have got a job.

Because I did, eventually, find someone who was prepared to overlook my lack of experience and appreciate my qualifications, I was offered a job and I accepted it$.$ It was after $139$ applications I kept careful count. The starting salary isnt wonderful, but its a young, fast$-$ moving company with good opportunities for promotion. Three months on$,$ I could look back at my six months of unemployment as a waste of time, but I prefer to see it as a learning curve and a growth experience. This is the real world and the more leisurely life of academic development, careers counseling and self$-$discovery at university is over.

Answer the following questions:

For each question, you should write $3$ sentences.

$1.$ What is the main idea of the text? Explain using one example from the article above.

$2.$ How does the author support their main idea? Explain using one example from the article above.

$3.$ What is the authors purpose? Explain using one example from the article above.

$4.$ Who is the intended audience of the text? Explain using one example from the article above.

$5.$ What is the tone of the text? Explain using one example from the article above.