5 Things You Should Know as A Graduate

As a graduate, I often find myself looking back at how things have changed since graduation. People would often tell me, the world is your oyster. But the world after you graduate can often be a harsh world and one that is not full of opportunity.

By graduation, I had already been on countless job interviews and applied for many more and I was beginning to lose hope. When it came to writing this,I thought about what I would have wanted to read. What would have given me some understanding of what to expect. Therefore, I decided to write a list of 5 things all graduates should know.

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1. The Countless Job Interviews

Going to a job interview for me was one of the scariest parts of graduate life. I used to and I still do get very anxious and I tend to panic and overthink all the ways it could go terribly wrong.

However, with each interview that you attend, you become more relaxed, more poised and more confident in answering questions, even questions that you may not have come across or been asked before. You just need to try and stay calm and remember that the one thing they want to know most when interviewing you, is what YOU are like.

Are you nice? Polite? Can you handle pressure? Are you okay when put on the spot? They want to see how YOU do. Not how your previous roles have been or how much experience you may or may not have. They want to know you first. Your personality and what you can bring the to the team.

When your sat in your role and talking to colleagues, it isn’t your experience that makes you friendly or helps you to get on with your colleagues, its your personality. Let that shine through!

2. Scrap all your Graduate Plans!

Everyone will ask if you have a plan and wonder what you are going to do now you have graduated. It will make you think you should have a step by step plan and a time frame for everything. You should not.

You can never predict how life after graduating will go. Some of your peers will get a job within a month and some may not find a job for 2 years. Each of you are on your own paths and there is no right or wrong time frame.

If you have a plan of when you think you should be getting a job or moving out or when you should be doing anything, scrap it! Throw it away and never look at it again. You do not need to hold yourself to a time frame.

Life has a way of giving you what you need, when you need it. There is no rush to find a graduate job, you have 40+ years to find your career and build it, please don’t think you need to find it within your first year.

3. Go for Anything

When I graduated, I had it in my head that i must stick to what related to my degree. I spent hours and hours searching for a particular role and i became so disheartened when I thought there was nothing out there that suited me.

Until I learnt that life is an adventure and that just because you did a degree in a certain subject, it does not mean you have to stick to it.

Two months after graduating, I started my own travel business. This in no way at all, related to my degree in criminology and quantitative data…. But, it gave me something exciting to do and work on. It allowed me to learn skills and connect with people in areas that I never would have if I stuck to what related to my degree.

My travel business, taught me so much that I now use in my role as a business analyst. Don’t throw away other opportunities for fear of people thinking “well she didn’t do a degree in that, why is she in that job?!”. Ignore all this judgement and confusion. Take whatever opportunities are given to you, even if it is the furthest thing from what your degree relates too. Because I promise you, it will teach you something new and something you will value.

4. Just Go With It

My biggest and most important point of this list is that you need to just go with it. Whatever graduate life throws at you, please just go with it. Don’t let the small things bother you. Don’t let anyone or anything hold you back. Go on that holiday, travel to a new country, take that shitty apprenticeship even if it doesn’t pay well. As graduates, you need to just go with it.

My journey as a graduate started in July. In September, I started my own travel business. Then December rolled around and I fell ill and spent Christmas in hospital. Finally, in January I started my job as an analyst, whilst still recovering from my time in hospital. Yet just as I was settling into my new role, Covid-19 hit.

Being a month two months into a job when a world wide pandemic hits, was nerve wracking to say the least. I packed up my desk and set up at my desk in my bedroom. Training’s and team meetings via Skype were a new normal but certainly very different. It was hard and I struggled. I really struggled. Being so new to a company, so new to a team who i was still trying to get to know and who were still trying to get to know me. It was a lot.

My first year as a graduate was far from what I expected. I expected the year to be such a high. Instead, it was a rollercoaster of emotions. But, I just went with it. I didn’t let the small things get to me. I remained positive and focused on the fact that when the time was right, I would find my first step into my career, and I did!

5. Make Sure You Hustle Hard

You might be a new graduate and whilst you don’t need to be in a rush to find a graduate job, you still need to put the work in. Listen to podcasts, learn new skills and connect with people. Build your network and branch out. You never know what a simple conversation with someone new may bring. LinkedIn is an amazing network to start with. Reading books is another useful yet simple thing to do to help. I found that reading personal development and motivational books allowed me to really open up myself to new opportunities and learn so much that helped in the process of finding a graduate job. Changing from an educational environment too a professional workplace can sometimes be an adjustment. But, you will get there. You can hear all about how I got on when I started my first professional job here.

Whilst there is so much out there to learn and navigate through, I hope this list brings a little comfort and some clarity on how you can navigate graduate life. There’s a lot, but you’ve got this.

Good luck graduates,

Han x