Monday is not my favourite day of the week especially when it happens to be my first day back at work after a holiday. This Monday morning was more depressing than most and I am not just talking about the miserable weather.
The Chartered institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) published their latest report into the state of the UK jobs market which is facing a "slow, painful contraction". Understandably firms are uneasy about taking on more workers against a backcloth of global economic uncertainty. I have written before about the importance of business confidence to jobs growth and with so much unease about the future of the European Union and the Euro, it is hardly surprising.
And it is not just the private sector. Confidence in the public sector is low. Hardly surprising in view of the cutbacks that are taking place. My association has just launched its latest survey questionnaire to the country's leading graduate recruiters. The survey looks at what is likely to happen specifically in the graduate jobs market in 2012. The results will not be known until the end of January. There is a degree of nervousness as we await the outcomes of the survey. It does not automatically follow that the economic uncertainty will result in a falling off of job vacancies for Class of 2012 and we must all hope that it doesn't. However, the fragility in the market makes accurate predicting difficult. This uncertainty is something that all of us have to get used to and that includes those graduating next year.
What is certain is that competition for jobs will remain high even if the market expands. The best advice for any final year student is to prepare for the worst while expecting the best. Don't delay applying for jobs; seek advice early if you are unsure what you want to do; put a decent CV together and take advantage of employer campus visits to talk to recruiters and agencies such as GRB. Network, network, network!
Finally, take the time to make any job application look good. 10 decent applications are worth much more than 100 tardy efforts that are almost certainly destined for the reject pile.
Carl Gilleard
