The Insider: I finally got a job - now what?
After many long months job hunting, you finally get a break and you find yourself in a full-time position in a Big Four bank after graduating with a Master's degree. So now what?
The first thing this European graduate discovered about the Australian job market is that education is not regarded as highly as a few years of experience in the workforce. You notice this quickly as you start searching for jobs, and again when you enter your new office on the first day of work. In comparison, achieving a Master's degree in Europe will earn you enough credit to slide into higher positions without the same level of work experience.
Upon graduating you feel you have gained an impressive skill set which you are ready to apply and show off, yet most likely you will have to do a fair bit of grunt work before anyone even begins to glance your way in the office. In fact, it can be a bit of struggle to be allowed to show that you even have any skills at all. This of course is all relative to the size of your organisation and the type of role you hold.
To grunt or not to grunt
Being the new guy in the office, and most likely one of the youngest, there is also a lot to learn about the office politics. You can be sure to be the prime candidate for any unwanted, repetitive admin jobs that everyone else avoids. However, most Australian graduates start out in this position and the only way to get past it is simply to work through it.
Some grunt work is of course fine to get you settled into a position, but companies should also be careful of not wasting growing talent on admin work, when what they really need is an admin temp. This could also potentially lead to retention issues, if talented graduates leave after being forced to "do their time" for too long. Yes, graduates need experience, but they also need to be challenged and be seen as potential stars. It is not efficient to hold them back just because they are new.
Facing the real world of work can be slightly disappointing after breaking out of the protective university bubble that has surrounded you for years. There is a dangerous mentality among many graduates that when you get your degree, you are set - which is clearly not in line with the reality most people are facing.
A few lucky and hardworking ones will get into a graduate program and be fast tracked, yet many will struggle to apply their degree unless they have been focussed enough and spent their summers doing internships, jumping at any opportunity for experience. I just hope the GFC has made graduates, particularly in finance, more aware of the current situation and struggles in the job market.
However, if you are proactive about the grunt work, do it well and work hard, your efforts will be noticed as you slowly begin to climb the ladder. As long as you are not permanently perceived as the "go-to-guy" for scanning and filing, I guess it is worth it because it gives you a simple chance to prove your perseverance.
And if not, just getting that first job will give you something to talk about at your next networking event, where you will now have a much easier time of landing a job using your old "experience" as leverage. And hopefully it will be in that next position that you are truly able to apply your hard earned skills a bit more. I guess that's just how things work.
