Its now been over a year since I graduated (how has the time gone so quickly?!) and I can tell you that I was seriously unprepared. I had no plans and zero interest in working within my degree field. A lot happened in my life very rapidly during the period between handing my dissertation in and actually graduating. One of the biggest things that happened was that I got made redundant. I hadn't even graduated yet and I was losing my job! Talk about bad timing!
I worked throughout my degree but had spent the final two years working in a challenging office role within the care industry. The job suited me perfectly as the hours were ideal for a student and although the job was tough, I learnt a huge amount about the working world (not to mention kept my finances healthy, but more of that in a later post). The upshot is, a week after handing my dissertation in I found out the job that I currently had, was no longer going to provide me with the income I was hoping to rely on between finishing uni and finding another job.
So I worked my final shift a week after finding out about the redundancy and when I got home I fired off two job applications. Nothing fancy, I just saw two roles that sounded like I could do and quickly emailed over a CV. To be honest it was the first time I had ever actually applied for a job and it was a pretty lazy attempt. But I wanted to be able to tell my parents I had applied for something, to keep the inevitable 'have you applied for jobs yet' at bay.
The roles I had applied for were through a recruitment agency and I received a call from them the very next day. It turned out the two roles I had applied for, were with the same company, one of which was temp work and the other was full time but required more experience. The recruitment agency asked if I could start temping on Monday. So less than 48 hours later I had a new job working night shifts for a large financial services company. No it wasn't the dream, I definitely wanted a job with more security, better pay and more sociable hours but beggers can't be choosers.
I was used to working shifts from my job in care so the hours didn't bother me but the world of work within financial services was a whole world away from what I was used to doing in the care sector.
The industry is heavily regulated and working for such a large corporate company was a bit of a shock as well. I was so nervous before my first shift, especially because most of the other temps had been working there for a while and a lot of them had relevant industry experience. But I adapted quickly and proved myself to be efficient and capable at my new role. Turns out that the experience I had from working in care, as well as the skills I gained at uni were a lot more transferable than I had thought.
A few weeks later the boss approached me and asked if I was still interested in the full time position. I eagerly confirmed that I was and I had my interview a few days later. Despite having worked throughout my four years at uni this was actually my first interview! It was a tough interview which lasted over 2 hours, but I actually found to my surprise I was enjoying it. Thanks to all the experience I had with working in care I had lots of good responses to the questions they asked and was able to draw upon examples of handling tricky clients etc.
I was so excited when they offered me the job! The role was a big step up from what I had been doing while I was temping but I was so glad that I had the opportunity to find out what it was like to work both within the industry and for the company beforehand. Mostly because I would never have thought that I would be any good at it! I now had what I had wanted all along, a steady job, with regular hours and decent pay. It also helped ease the transition as I was familiar with the company systems, had already completed some of my training and had started to get to know some of the full time staff from other departments. All in less than a month after graduating and being made redundant.
If you had asked me before I went to uni if I would ever work in finance I would have laughed til I cried. Me work with money? What a crazy idea. Now though, a year on from graduation I have moved onto my next role, still within the finance sector but this time my role is more technical and builds upon the skills I have gained since I first started temping.
I've surprised myself with finding I actually have a genuine interest in the industry. One which sounds as dull as dishwater but actually learning how people build wealth, manage their finances and what goes on behind the scenes in a large financial company is really interesting.
So why have I written this? To let other recent graduates know that it
can be done, job hunting is not impossible. You might end up surprising
yourself and putting your skills to use in ways you never thought you
would. What seems like a set back, might actually be putting you on a
better path all along!
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