An academic writes…
It’s summer, and you’re graduating. Congradulations! (Geddit??) You worked hard* for three years, you learned all the things, and now your head is full of knowledge and your heart is full of hope. The big wide world opens before you, laden with glittering possibilities.
But being a new graduate is hard, especially as each new year seems to be a record-breaker for number of graduates made. You have skills, you have knowledge, but you have no experience. How do you distinguish yourself from the pack? How will you make sure you get that graduate job?
The first few years of graduate job-hunting is hard. You can make it easier on yourself by developing other skills – skills that are good for your CV, certainly – but particularly skills that will make you money. Pretty much any degree can be turned into tutoring work. If you feel confident to teach, this is a great way of stopping the gap between graduation and employment, and if you’re on the bottom rung of the corporate (or any other) ladder, it’s a great way to top up your earnings. You can expect to charge from £15–40 an hour depending on the subject and the level, and especially if you live in a big city you might find you’re turning work away – especially if your specialty is Maths or English.
Your other option, if your grammar is sound and your knowledge of English is good, is to do proofreading work. Proofreading is (unfortunately) not just a case of natural talent. It is a skill that needs to be honed (just like teaching; see above). A proofreading course (like this one, for instance) can help with your confidence and expertise, and it gives you that stamp-of-approval that clients choosing a proofreader look to see. Proofreading is great because, unlike tutoring, you can do it in your pyjamas, and you don’t have to interact with other humans except by email if you don’t wish to (the two cornerstones of my postgraduate life-choices). You can take it at your own pace, and it’s freelance so you can fit it around part-time (or full-time) work to suit you. Need some extra money for a holiday? Stick up a Gumtree ad. Need to top up your earnings? Get a Twitter account, follow some authors, academics and journalists, and get tweeting about your proofreading services.
Unfortunately, we are in a time when it is harder to get traditional work, but more and more young people now are turning to freelance careers either part- or full-time. This might be the answer for you if you have the right skills and are self-motivated. There are a lot of perks to working freelance. You’re your own boss, so you never get shouted at. You can take days off as and when you need them. You can wear what you like, work where you like, make your work fit around you. You do also have to do your own taxes, which is less fun, but if you’re looking for work that will give you freedom, look good on a CV and improve your skills, consider self-employed tutoring and proofreading.
*quite hard
So very much so. Two degrees both with the top grades are just not enough. I need experience but I can’t get it and practically every graduate job wants 2-3 years of experience in the same industry. It’s constantly Catch-22.