Freshers week: Most Common Fears Students Have About Graduating
At 8:42am today I was happily sat on the bus to work when I turned to see 3 students walking down Oxford Road one in a dressing gown and the other two in fancy dress with what looked like marker pen written all over their clothes. It was then it hit me, FRESHERS’ WEEK is indeed upon us.
Now freshers’ week is many things: a chance for a fresh start, a chance for new opportunities, a chance for club owners to rinse naïve students of money by promoting mediocre club nights as their only opportunity to make friends in a new city. But for 3rd year students’ freshers week is one thing. The beginning of the end. The end of university. As overly dramatic as that sounds, the end of university can be daunting for many students. Lots of my friends now are facing graduation and are terrified of what life has in store for them after university. Personally, as a student on placement myself, not being able to use my McDonald’s student discount is a scenario I’ll never truly prepare myself for. Luckily Prime are here to help and as we specialise in placing graduates in sales and recruitment roles, we deal with our fair share of third year students. That’s why we’ve gathered five of the most common graduation fears students have and we’re going to tell you why there’s no need to worry about them.
“I have no idea what job I want”
We’ll start with the most common fear – not knowing what job you want after you graduate. So often you find students doing courses without even knowing why (an issue which the constant nights out definitely help them forget). Many students even finish their courses and decide they don’t want a career in their degree, so where do you go from there?
Why not to worry…
I know it seems cliché but even though you’re graduating from university, you’re still young. There’s pressure on students to fall straight into their dream career as soon as university finishes, but life isn’t often like that. Sam in our office, graduated from university in the same position, with a Sport Science degree and no clue what he wanted to do with himself. So he went travelling. Upon returning Sam fell into his role as a Sales Recruiter and is now one of Prime’s top earners. If you don’t know much about sales and recruitment one thing I’ll tell you for free is it has very little to do with Sport Science. Some people will know exactly what they want to do when they finish university, and that’s great. However, if you don’t, it doesn’t mean you’re doomed to pig out in your mum and dad’s house forever. It just means you’re going to have to test the waters in a few different interviews first. Trial and error is key – you won’t know unless you try. As long as you stay motivated, driven and ambitious you won’t have to find a career, a career will find you.
“Not being able to adjust to the ‘9-5’”
I know this may seem like a silly one if you’re in full time work currently but from the eyes of a student the basic hours of your standard 9-5 looks like a prison sentence to some. On a lot of university courses the actual teaching hours can vary, but some can be as light as having students in about 20-30 hours a week. On top of that it’s a bit of a stereotype that students don’t turn up to every lecture and that’s because they really don’t. That gives your average student a lot of free time to see friends, relax and sleep. So unsurprisingly, many students feel they won’t be able to adjust easily to working at least 8 hours a day 5 days a week, fearing they won’t have time to relax, see friends, sleep, etc.
Why not to worry…
The fact is you need to work to earn money and survive. No matter how much of a mess your sleeping pattern is currently at university, it will not be this way forever. Most people in our office in recruitment are doing much longer hours than your standard 9-5 and all were students once upon a time. The evidence is all around you… everyone adjusts quickly and if you do your job hunt right, you’ll get a role you enjoy so you won’t mind getting up early. And if you don’t like your job, well you won’t be complaining when pay day comes. The difficult part is getting a role! That brings us to the third and final most common graduation fear…
“What if I can’t get a job?”
So even if you feel you’re the type of person who can handle the long hours and even if you’ve got a grasp on what career you want, there is still one common fear among all graduates and that is being able to get through an interview process and actually land a role. This fear is in my opinion the most valid because it can look daunting for a graduate to be thrown into the real world and find a career that not only they love, but that also pays the bills. The reason we know this only too well is because as mentioned before, Prime are a market leader in graduate recruitment, so we deal with hundreds of worried grads every week looking for a career.
Why not to worry…
Every university has grad fairs, career councillors and networking events, all designed to ensure as many students as possible get a job after graduating. All you need to do is work hard and ask for help when needed, whether that be guidance on a career path, interview preparation, or help to make a CV/cover letter. While at university there is support all around you. Outside of university, there are also other ways to receive help on the hunt for a career and the good news is you’ve now found one, us at Prime.
Our team specialise in placing graduates into sales and recruitment careers. This includes finding them a job role that suits their wants and needs, giving them training at one of our free Prime training days, as well as giving them interview training and support throughout the process. We even give additional support when successful in securing a role. Additionally, with the links Prime have with universities like Manchester Metropolitan, we can be trusted to ensure that if you’re passionate about getting a career in sales and recruitment you won’t just get a job from our process, you’ll get a career.
Interested in our process? Are there any common graduate fears that we missed? Make sure to let us know on social media and visit our website for more information.
A warm welcome to all the new freshers from the team at Prime. We hope you all settle in well to your new life at university. Final top tip… don’t overdo it on the alcohol (we know you probably will anyway).
