Sunday, November 28, 2010

Cliches of 2010 #3

"There are jobs out there if you really want one"

You really think so? Go on then. You give it a go.

But at least have the decency to do so and stand on your own two feet instead of relying on mummy and daddy's handouts, free-rent and free grub as you tell them about application form no.35 being rejected.

You find that most people who come up with the blind belief that "if you really *but really* want to work, you can find a job at McDonalds or Tesco" are generally those who've never had the pleasure of trying.

Or if they have - and luck was on their side - they assume that the same fate would automatically await everybody else. "It happened to MEEE? Then it must be a universal law".

Except that these people forget two crucial factors.

1) Simple figures. According to the latest from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), "[t]he number of vacancies for the three months to October 2010 was 453,000, down 27,000 over the quarter". And guess what? There are 1.47m registered "jobseekers", meaning that for every vacancy there are three people applying.

For the record, "the number of employees and self-employed people who were working part-time because they could not find a full-time job increased by 67,000 on the quarter, to reach a record high of 1.15 million". Which is great, but you can only do that if you've got other ways of supplementing your income.

2) As for the "you-can-get-something-at-McDonalds-or-Tesco-then" remark, it is already a fact that there are tons of people in jobs for which they're overqualified.

More than that, in fact. Many are so desperate that they are working for free [see the Rights for interns campaign] hoping to grab hold of a bone if it lands their way.

The only people who think a graduate can simply stroll into a Starbucks and land a job on the spot are obviously those who've never tried. Because if they did, they'd know that rejection is the order of the day. There are hundreds of thousands of graduates who are routinely turned down for low-skilled jobs, the assumption being that they "will not stick with it", that they're "overqualified" or "not humble enough" to put up with "less ambitious" tasks.

PREVIOUS CLICHES:
#2 "The Royal Family brings in tourism revenue".
#1 "Iain Duncan Smith is a kind and honourable man".

1 comment:

Acidfairyy said...

This is very true; I know a couple of graduates who were told they were too overqualified for jobs at McDonald's.