Because bills need to be paid?

In the eighties it was worse. More than half of all graduates were on the dole for a while and then many could not get a job in their chosen career.

You both missed my point, and the forums seems to have cut off half of my previous post.

Fin seemed to think it was beneath him to take a graduate job at McDonalds that pays £45,000 after three years, because Geography and Media students should be flipping burgers, not him.

I don't think you get paid £45,000 for flipping burgers? If you do then I'm going to drop out of uni and flip burgers part time!!

We weren't talking about flipping burgers because there was nothing else available, we were talking about a graduate position.

TBH with the economic situation as it is, I'd be grateful for a job flipping burgers as I'd rather keep my accommodation etc than end up homeless/bankrupt (or both).

Ah right, gotcha

Have you applied?

Lol nope, sticking with my current job for the mean time.

this is what happens when you send too many kids to uni. it used to be "education, education, education". now it's "unemployment, unemployment, unemployment"!

But they say 75% will be employed. That's not bad odds, considering there are triple the number of graduates than there were in my day... and I was unemployed or in part time work for three years in the early 90s when I finished uni.

If people actually talk to their parents and grand parents, they'll find that they never had such fantastic opportunities. You've never had it so good, you spoiled young whipper snappers!

Queue "cardboard box" sketch...

I said I expect students with degrees not in demand to be flipping burgers

Graduates go into the regular level jobs too, they don't all go into being managers just like that, given 40-280 applicants per job there any company can cherry pick the applicants as they see fit.

I never said it was beneath me , just that it wouldnt be a job I would do considering I CAN get skilled work in my field, friend of mine was a store manager with KFC (IIRC he didn't go to uni, shows how that 9-12k+ education is required) and didn't enjoy it at all, pay was good, hours were terrible and so was the job satisfaction.

I'd much rather get enough to live on with all my needs and some of my wants that I thoroughly enjoy and actually WANT to go to work in the morning than to get paid an excessive amount for a job I would hate.

Just because an employee CAN be earning £45k means, quite frankly, jack sh*t. Someone that graduated from my course 2 years ago has a pile of cash with his own startup business. Someone else I know who graduated 5 years ago with a computer science degree pulls in over 100k as a contracted software developer (who has no employment issues for the next 18 months at least) due to the specialised nature of his skills. Otherwise the rest of the people were earning 16-18k as game developers for those that managed to get work.

Does that mean all developers can earn over £100k, no and anyone is stupid to think that is true for all applicants. Some, and usually very few can and do.

Saying you CAN be earning anything is akin to saying you can get married, own a house, own a car etc. in x years. It's completely meaningless given the unpredictable state of the economic climate and employment market, and given the current state there is not even any guarantee of employment. 1 in 100 (say) get the job at McDonalds, 1 in 10 get promoted to the next level, 1 in 10 again get promoted to the level you mentioned.... say they have 300 jobs, thats 30,000 applying and 3 getting £45k. Hardly something to harp on about IMO.



Only when you reach the higher brackets
I doubt that £3k barely covers the increased cost of living in London TBH over the year as it'll work out around £2k after tax.


JJ: Employed also means doing part time work at Tescos, newsagents etc, in fact government figures are skewed in a way that ONLY those claiming the dole are classed as unemployed, and they also only count for a certain period of time before no longer being classed as unemployed.

What a shock.

Graduates want the moon on a stick. How about working for a job??

I don't have a degree. I worked my ass off to get where I am. What's the point wasting my time getting a degree when everyone else has one?!

I wish people wouldn't bring in "facts" to spoil my illusions

I used to get a lot of CVs across my desk at my last job.
Nearly all were graduates, and a lot of the ones I interviewed were of the opinion that as they had a degree, they were qualified to be in charge.

A friend was lecturing a class of students recently, most of whom had failed to grasp the fact that they weren't going to walk of the course with a certificate and go straight in at even the middle; all it was going to show was that they had an interest and spent some time studying showing commitment to a project. That's all. We'll teach you what you need to know on the job.

I was lucky.
I left uni in June 2000. I started my ideal job on October the first the same year.
Thankfully the oil industry was just picking up again after a two year down turn. Luck of the draw I guess.
Started on about £17k, was on about £30k after five years. Now after 10 year I'm on about £38k (was on £41k until I got laid off last year), with the potential to be on £50k ish in another five years.
Graduates can't expect mega bucks from the word "go".
They have to work their way up.

I have worked since I was 16 in part time (exception of this year) or full time even during uni. However to get into the software dev industry it's near on impossible in this day to do so without a degree. I think doing so has made me more employable for each job I have applied for.

Oh, Nick, your figures are quite off too btw

National Regional Rate
2nd Asst. Manager: £18.5k - £23.5k
1st Asst. Manager: £20k - £26k
Business Manager: £25k - £40k
Operations Consultant: £35k - £55k

I'm not seeing 45k as a Manager (with exception of VERY top pay of one in London, it is entirely region dependent to WHERE in London for the additional pay.... given the increas in cost of living I imagine disposable works out similar)

Oh look, a grad job as a developer that pays higher than that to start with
http://www.graduate-jobs.com/job/29005


l3v: I'd like to say I was too walking into the job I start soon, and I was offered the job before I got my results, and I haven't even graduated yet.... well a couple of weeks