Mountains of opportunity

There will be thousands of graduates venturing into the world of work this summer and you might be one of them. Your search may involve looking for graduate jobs, part-time work, or just ways to gain experience and develop new skills. Whatever it looks like, finding the right opportunities to apply for is often the most difficult part of the process.

Many graduates start the search thinking their degree determines exactly what they should do for the rest of their career. In reality, there are far more options available than you might realise. Your degree has helped you develop valuable skills and knowledge, but it doesn't have to define your future. Don't feel pressured to limit yourself to roles that are directly related to your course – explore different opportunities, stay open-minded, and you may discover a career path that's an even better fit for you.

A great tool to get you started is the Prospects website that has a section on What Can I Do with My Degree?. It has a myriad of job opportunities that are available with each undergraduate course. Who knew you could do so much with a history degree?

We encourage our students and graduates to look in, around, and beyond their degree subject when it comes to finding work experience or a graduate job. This simply means reflecting on the transferable skills you learned during your degree and exploring opportunities to develop them further. A creative writing or filmmaking student could just as easily take their storytelling skills into marketing, publishing, or even careers for that matter. Most employers care less about what your degree is in, and more about what you learnt during that time.

But all this means nothing if you can’t find opportunities in the first place.

Tools that support your search

We talk about LinkedIn a lot, and it is a great resource for discovering opportunities, research, networking, and building your brand. But it shouldn’t be the only tool in your toolbox…

Use a variety of websites to find vacancies, such as Milkround, Bright Network and Target Jobs, as well as commonly used sites like LinkedIn and Indeed. You’ll also find a dedicated Jobs Board on our MyHub page, which is consistently monitored and vetted by your friendly Beckett Careers team.

If you’re a STEM graduate, check out Gradcracker, which has a jobs board full of graduate jobs, placements and internships, as well as a toolkit offering advice on how to improve your chances of entering all kinds of STEM sectors, from telecommunications and gaming to aerospace and defence.

We also often encourage people to research smaller, local businesses or organisations that they’d be interested in working for and reach out with their CV and a tailored cover letter, even if they aren’t actively advertising. We call this a speculative application.

It’s always better to find a specific person within the company to contact directly. If nothing else, you might make a new connection or get some useful feedback to help make the next application even better! We’re always happy to help and check CVs and cover letters.

Helping you to find and access job opportunities is our reason for being, so take advantage of Beckett Careers and the vast resources at our disposal. You have access to us five years after you graduate. We’re here all year round, and however you want to connect whether it’s visiting us in the Careers Centre on City Campus, booking an appointment, or dropping us an email, make the most of careers workshops, employer events, psychometric testing practice, mock interviews, and lots more.

Keep an eye on the vacancies board and the events listings on MyHub, as well as the exciting opportunities that we include in our e-newsletter. Graduates and final-year students can join our LinkedIn Job Finder Group, where members of the Graduate Progression team regularly post careers advice, LBU success stories, and weekly lists of roles related to a particular sector.

Pace yourself

Don’t feel like you need to do all this at once, though. Back-to-back applications for every job under the sun will be draining and make you undervalue yourself. Instead, set yourself goals that are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

So rather than saying ‘I will get a part-time job soon,’ you could say, ‘I will apply for five part-time jobs over the next two weeks’. Then, you can pick five jobs that interest you, that are at your level and worth applying for, and most importantly, achievable. Make each application the best it can be, then give yourself a pat on the back and take a break. Take time to reflect after each application and consider how you can make the next one even better.

Framing your goals in this way also helps with resilience, as you’re focusing on your actions rather than the result. It doesn’t always feel like it, but you will find success if you persevere. Stay open-minded, look for opportunities that will make you want to get out of bed in a morning, and don’t shy away from applying to them. You are good enough.

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