Four things preventing graduates from exploring careers they might enjoy
Originally posted on Escape the City in May 2014. 2 years on and I wouldn’t have got into working in start-ups had it not been for the founders I met there. I also wanted to keep all my writing in one place.
Stepping toward the escalator
Sometime during my second year at university I found myself sitting in an internship interview at a city law firm. “Why corporate law?”, they asked me. “And why our firm?”. Both were fair, and predictable, questions. Yet the best I could manage was an impressively generic response, mainly consisting of buzzwords lifted from their website.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get that internship. More surprising was how categorically unmoving I found this rejection.
Anybody who has been passionate about something will know that pit-in-your-stomach fear that however hard you try, that thing will not work out. I have met people who are this engaged with city law (or banking etc.), but I wasn’t. And it shouldn’t have taken an awkward interview scenario for me to question whether I had any justification for pursuing that career.
So why did I start down this route?
And why did the other passionate, opinionated people whom I graduated with feel they had to indiscriminately apply to these jobs which weren’t compatible with their interests beyond being paid?
We were told to choose a degree subject based on what we enjoy. That if you were actually interested in what you studied you would push harder to learn about your subject and achieve more. Why should choosing a job be any different ? This sense of drive behind everyone’s careers could only be a good thing.
Four things
The Monopoly on Advertised Options — With a pretty full-on course, I didn’t want to spend my scarce free time extensively researching careers. This meant companies that could afford flashy recruitment were the only ones on our radar. (some examples…)
Careers Fairs Representatives- Oh only 30,000 other applicants? For the 2.7 places on the pre-Internship Open Day you’ll never get a job without? As corporates compete for our attention they create a mass panic that we’re already behind in a race we didn’t even realise we entered. You come out clutching a year’s supply of branded stationery and feeling the pressure to apply first and ask questions later.
Lack of paid non-corporate internships — If you can’t commute from a family home or sleep on someone’s sofa then getting experience at companies that are interesting but can’t pay anything — or pay only limited travel expenses — just isn’t an option.
“It’ll only be for a few years” — It can’t be that bad. You might learn to enjoy it! Everyone hears this from relatives/friends/Careers Advisors at some point. I’m not expecting to find ‘my calling’ straight out of university, but I’d like to at least care about what the company I’m applying for works toward.
