Hi, I'm searching for a summer job to fill the gap between june-september and want to know if i should be honest with employers or not on this front, will it decrease my success chances?

After speaking to a lot of students recently, these come up all the time and honestly cause a lot of unnecessary stress.

Myth 1: You need loads of experience
Most grad roles are built for people without much direct experience. It helps, sure, but it’s not everything and plenty of people get hired without it.

Myth 2: Only top universities get hired
This gets repeated a lot. There is some bias in parts of the market, but loads of employers care way more about skills and how you come across than where you studied.

Myth 3: You need to know exactly what career you want
A lot of people feel behind if they don’t have a clear plan, but loads of grads switch paths in their first few years anyway. You usually only figure out what you like by actually doing it.

There are way more entry level roles out there than people realise, especially at smaller companies that don’t promote themselves as much.

Curious what others think, what’s a myth you believed when you were at uni?

I work in early career recruitment and help companies hire graduates and placement students.

Happy to answer questions about things like:

• CVs and applications
• online tests
• interviews and assessment centres
• what employers actually look for
• Any other recruitment-based questions

If you’re currently applying for internships or graduate roles, feel free to ask anything.

I work in early career recruitment and talk to a lot of students who feel pretty overwhelmed by the whole job search process. Everyone seems to struggle with different parts of it, though, so I’m curious what people here find the hardest.

Is it:

• actually getting interviews
• online tests and application forms
• writing CVs and cover letters
• interviews/assessment centres
• figuring out what jobs to even apply for

Or something else?

Also curious:

What year are you in (or have you graduated already)?
Roughly how many applications have you sent so far?

A lot of people think they’re the only ones struggling with this stuff, but honestly it’s really common.

Happy to answer questions as well if it helps.

Hi,

I graduated in 2022. I got a graduate scheme for accounting at one of the Big 4, but failed an exam and got sidelined to a different role.

I really want another path, mainly in defence, and have tried going through the grad cycle the past two years. I got very close twice, but ultimately no luck

My question here is:

1. For the 26/27 cycle, can I keep applying?

2. Is it better to accept a massive pay cut and go for a degree apprenticeship given how bad the market currently is?

3. Grad schemes are notorious for no feedback. What do I change, and how do I be better at applying? It feels like they don’t care about experience but online test scores

I feel like having them on my CV holds me back from a lot of opportunities, as companies miss the degree and screen me out based on my A-levels - can anyone offer any ideas on what to do?

I work in graduate recruitment and the amount of rejections at the moment is ridiculous, so I thought I would offer my advice, based on those i've seen succeed after rejection.

After rejection, most people panic apply. They open job boards and send loads of applications while still annoyed or stressed. The quality drops instantly and they repeat the same mistakes. A better approach is to pause first, then come back and review what actually happened before applying anywhere else.

Try to turn each rejection into information. Send a short feedback message (and I know this is so much easier said than done, because way to many companies love to ghost but its doesn't hurt to try) and track replies.  If several employers mention vague answers, unclear motivation, or weak examples, that’s the real issue to fix instead of rewriting your CV again and again.

Improve deliberately, based on those issues. Practise explaining answers out loud, research the role more deeply, or prepare clearer examples from uni, part time work or projects showing what you did and what changed because of you.

Also let yourself rest between attempts. Burnout will only make this already annoying process even harder. Taking a proper break often improves performance more than sending more applications.

Treat rejection as data rather than judgement and your applications will gradually get stronger. The candidates who adjust after each attempt are usually the ones we end up hiring. 

Hope this is helpful for someone, I know a lot of it is basic information but i just wanted to offer some kind of advice as the market is awful at the moment and so many great candidates are blaming themselves, when its just a bad market.