Surprising Insights About Graduate Programs

by Jonathan Verrall

Going to community college, transferring to university and graduating with an associates degree in addition to your bachelors degree is quite an accomplishment. However, as with most successful people, it is best to have an enduring passion for learning and perhaps considering pursuing a online degree programs accredited universities like suny online graduate degrees. You might even want to consider the cheapest masters degree after reading this post.

Advantages of Graduate Programmes

A recent survey shows that 25 percent of 21-22 year-olds who left a 4 year university with a bachelor degree last year has not found employment compared with just 26 percent of 16-year-olds with lesser qualifications. This shocking figure reflects the recent job markets where a mass of highly educated, skilled people are contending against less skilled individuals for jobs for which they are overqualified and do not fit their given area of specialism.

Once graduated to University, Graduate students don’t only have to face the cut-throat job market, they also have to face the age old ‘no experience problem’ which has troubled students for years. Employers would rather take on members of staff who’ve had previous experience in the field rather than take on and thoroughly train graduate students who’ve only got a rough understanding of the industry but no ‘real-time’ experience. This is a problem which has been facing students for centuries. How can they gain experience if nobody will employee them, but how can they find employment with no experience, it's a vicious cycle.

Graduate Programmes & Schemes

A fantastic way for graduate students to gain experience in a given industry is to sign up to a graduate programme. Graduate programmes or schemes are set up by companies, big and small, who take on graduates students for a set amount of time. In this time they will be taught the ins and outs of the role they will eventually fulfil at the end of their training. By operating these schemes companies avoid the risks of wasting valuable resources in training new members of staff which may turn out to be unsuitable for the role.

Some graduate programmes are paid and some are not but this doesn’t matter as the much needed experience is priceless!

How do students go about finding a graduate programme?

No matter what industry sector you are you in, always start by asking at the company’s who are right at the top of their game to see if they run such a schemes. These are generally the best to apply for as there will be a multitude of trainees following the same path as you, so it’s a great way to meet young professionals in the same industry. The training has generally been refined from previous programmes for better understanding and effectiveness. The good news is that on completion you may find yourself working for a well respected job at a prestigious company in your given area of profession.

Most companies will list their graduate schemes on their websites while others will get third party websites to handle the promotion of their Graduate programmes such as Milkround.com who specialise in recruiting graduate students for these types of programmes.
Some industry sectors are extremely competitive such as media or journalism where it is nearly impossible to get your foot in the door unless you “know someone in the know” or have access to a person of authority. In these industries it’s about who you know, what not you know, but being skilled, creative and driven is also a vital. The best way to branch your network of contacts is to approach seasoned professionals, I suggest you use the professional social network of http://www.Linkedin.com to do so.

The majority of working professionals are on linkedin. Utilise this platform to take a professional approach to make contact.

Suggested Advice:

Avoid asking for a job instantly as you will only be turned down as you've shown little or no value, instead you should be asking what you can do for them, this will not only get help the individual out, but may also give you industry recognition.

This post was written by Jonathan Verrall

Jonathan is a digital marketing analyst for FDM Groups Graduate Programme

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Carole Bumbalo June 17, 2012 at 10:20 am

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