Stats that reassure

I'm still engaged in a frustrating, time-consuming job-hunt where it seems that I'm rethinking my ideas all the time as possible career corridors open up or disappear (quite commonly the latter after the former not long before!).

Anyway, there's a bunch of stats that I'm keeping at the back of my mind, just to remind me that it's perfectly normal and sensible to be searching for that first job for so long. I thought I'd jot a few of them down here:

• Only 30% of graduates are in jobs 6 months after graduating (in the UK)

• Only 50% of graduates are in jobs a year after graduating (in the UK)
(With these kind of facts I'm guessing that by "in jobs" what is meant is in jobs in the graduate's desired sector or something like this [i.e. excluding temping and so on]. I find this stat particularly reassuring)

• For every aspirational graduate job, UK universities produce about 20 graduates
(This is reassuring in the sense that it indicates that it's normal to struggle to find a job ... although it's less reassuring in the long-run. Clearly the definition of 'aspirational' is quite subjective though. And it's far from essential to only look at jobs that someone else is labelling as 'aspirational' - it's what you think that's more important.)

• Your working life is made up of 16,000 days
(So it's not such a bad thing to take some time to get a good first job cos you're gonna work for a long time!)

• The average person graduating now is going have 25 jobs in the course of their career
(Actually this kinda suggests that it's best to just get on with any old job cos you're going to change anyway. Although perhaps by figuring the kind of work that you prefer before you start you can minimise this number of job changes.)

• HR departments say that only 10% of graduates are ready for the working world, whilst 90% of graduates think that they're ready
(Not sure that this one reassures me much actually! I just thought it was interesting. Do I feel ready for the working world? Reasonably so, yes. Maybe others would disagree!)

• 90% of people don't work for big organisations
(I guess this implies that even if you don't land a 'big-time' job there's still plenty of hope left)

• The top 3 things that graduates lack:
- The ability to sell
- The ability to speak on the phone
- The ability to portray the company's corporate image
(Again, this one's more interesting than reassuring but perhaps it's possible to set yourself apart by demonstrating that you have these skills which seem to be in short supply)

A good piece of advice that I was given: "Be prepared to look for up to a year for a job. If, after a year you still don't have your ideal job then take the best on offer." I think at the moment this is the kind of thing that I'm looking to do, but I shall see.

Anyway, whenever I'm feeling a bit down about my job situation (not having one, not being sure that I'm looking in the right areas [for a job that I'd enjoy and would suit me]), which is quite often at the moment, I recall some of the above. When I do that I realise that I'm not alone in my situation and that as your working life is extenisve, it's worth taking a bit of time to make sure that you start off in the most suitable job possible.