To finish off my blog series on Life After Graduation this is a post for those of you who are still at uni and are starting to realise that one day soon, you too will graduate and join The Real World. It's also for those of you who have just graduated and don't realise that the job you worked at uni could well be the springboard to launch your future career from.

As I've mentioned in my previous posts I worked throughout my time at uni, but I actually got my first job at 16 waitressing. I didn't do it for very long and I wasn't that great at it, but it was a valuable start to the world of work.

When I first went to uni I spent my holidays working at a local riding stables which did carriage rides at Center Parcs. I got the job because of my experience with carriage driving and it suited me pretty well. The hours were long, the weather was rubbish (anyone who has ever set foot in Center Parcs at Longleat in the winter will tell you that it is extremely cold there) and like all jobs working with horses, it was hard work. Their busiest season was Christmas where I spent most of my time dressed as an elf. Yep an actual elf, or occasionally making a brief appearance as Santa. The kids absolutely loved it and they ALL always called me 'Mrs Elf' unprompted by anyone. Where do they learn to do this? I felt like the Trunchball from Matilda and wanted to scream, why is this elf married?!! My family like to remind me of it a lot.

But do you know what? Although the pay wasn't amazing (not to mention the extremely glamorous outfit), the long hours meant I wracked up enough money to make it worth my while. The hours were flexible and they mostly needed me during the weekends and holidays which suited me perfectly. So although it wasn't the dream job it paid enough to get by.

I used the experience to gain my next job which I worked at for the final two years of my degree (which included my masters year). The hours were still flexible, the pay was better but the job was harder work.

Holding down my job and doing my degree at the same time taught me some valuable lessons and gave me FAR MORE experience than anything I ever did during my four years at uni.

So if you're at uni now, my advise would be to seriously consider getting a job. If you've left uni and you had a job while you were there then these are the reasons you can use to work it to your advantage to find your first role after you graduate.

1.  You have to learn to balance your priorities

I usually worked 16 hours a week for my final two years at uni, which consisted of two 8 hours shifts on the weekend. I switched between working early and late shifts. Some months I did more hours, some months less depending on what was going on.

I can already hear the chorus of students claiming they don't have time for that. Now fair enough if you're studying a contact heavy subject at a hardcore uni (I'm talking medicine at Oxbridge) then maybe you don't have time. But if like the rest of us you have a chunk of free time in your week (yes that includes weekends) then you do have time.

Before anyone comments that I did a doss subject at a crap uni let me fill you in on my degree. I did an integrated masters at the University of Southampton in Geology and graduated with a 2:1. Jared did the same in Marine Biology and worked roughly the same amount of hours as me and got a first. Southampton's Ocean and Earth Science department is one of the very best in the UK (not to mention the entire world) and is a leading research institution that sets very high standards for its students. I had around 25 hours of contact time per week throughout my degree but as standard my friends and I were at uni from 9-5. Plus an hour each way commute as our campus is the other side of the city. I'm not trying to make myself sound like the most accomplished person ever (I'm very far from it), but I just want to prove that it is possible for a lot of students at uni to work and study at the same time.

But you do have to be organised and prepared to work hard, play hard. If you've got a deadline coming up on Monday and you're working this weekend then you'll have to get the essay done by Friday. If you've got a social event coming up and you're working then you'll have to get your deadlines done AND arrange your shifts so that you can do all of it. 

Why is this important? Because it's preparing you for the real world where work is non negotiable and has to be prioritised else you will no longer have a job. You can't decide you're not working because there's a party you want to go to, or because you're too tired today. You have to roll up your sleeves and get it done.

If you can manage doing this at uni, then you'll find a 'grown up job' a walk in the park.

2. Working isn't so hard after all

Is it just me or when you were a kid and you saw adults on TV working you just thought that they magically knew how to be a secretary or an accountant? You saw the adults around you doing their adult jobs and thought quietly to yourself 'but I don't know how to do that', it must be something you learn when you grow up'.

Well you're at uni, you are a grown up. The secret truth is that for a lot of people, working is not as hard as being at uni. At uni you are expected to direct your own learning with minimal support. Sure you have a tutor who you either haven't seen since your first semester as a fresher or doesn't even know who you are. Your lecturers throw around complex terms and if you don't understand a concept you have to figure it out on your own or you'll fall behind. 

Work is different. For a lot of roles you will receive on the job training and will likely be mentored to someone who will teach you. At first it will seem complex and scary but few entry level jobs are. That's why they're entry level. Once you've been doing it a little while you will soon get to grips with it. I find is so strange that so many people my age are desperate to 'stay in education forever because the real world is scary'. Of course it is, all change is scary. But it'll be scary for a few weeks tops and then you'll be ok. It really isn't so bad after all. If you can get over that and realise that you can learn a job just like every other grown up in the world while you're still at uni, you won't be paralysed with the fear of the unknown that grips so many graduates. You'll be the one grabbing a new opportunity because you're fairly certain you'll figure it out.

3. Keeping your finances healthy

Being a student is basically another way of saying you're poor. Even if your parents help you out chances are you still have just enough to get by. I'm from a low income background so I qualified for the maximum grant/loan but even that is only around £7,000 a year. When your rent plus bills (in a small, very reasonably priced but nice-ish for student standards shared house in Southampton) is £4,800 a year it doesn't leave you much to live on. My parents could not in anyway afford to support me so having a job was essential if I wanted to have enough money to live on, let alone do fun things, like everyone else.

I wasn't as financially disciplined then as I am now and anything I earnt that was extra to what I needed to live off I spent on fun things. Mostly holidays, but also compulsory field trips as our living costs weren't covered by the uni or sometimes the trip itself was only partially paid for and we had to cough up the rest. For example, my six week mapping trip to the Isle of Skye which we only had a £500 contribution towards. Our accommodation alone cost £600 and we had to cover all the additional kit, travel and living costs ourselves. I bought a £200 pair of walking boots for this trip on the advice of my mapping supervisor and it was some of the best money I've ever spent. Everyone else had wet feet for the whole six weeks and mine were warm and dry. I could never have afforded that without my job. I had to work some extra shifts to earn them but it was worth the small amount of effort for six weeks of comfort. Plus I still have them now.

Even though I spent most of the money I earned, having a job crucially stopped me having to rely on an overdraft. My friends mocked me because they told me an overdraft was 'free money' which you don't have to pay back until after you graduate. I'm so glad I ignored them and refused to ask my bank for one. A year after graduating I know so many graduates who are no closer to paying off their overdrafts than when they wracked up the debt in the first place.

Even for those that have a job, their pay cheque often only takes them to £0 each month and then all the money they spend waiting for their next pay day just sinks them back into the depths of their overdraft. In short, overdrafts are really hard to climb out of. And the bank don't let you have that overdraft for free forever. As soon as you graduate the clock is ticking for when you have to pay it back, and overdraft charges can soon start to mount up making it even harder to claw your way out.

Having a job at uni kept me debt free (besides my student loans of course, but they're not the same kind of debt) for four years. When I graduated I actually had some savings (as I had been too busy with work and uni to spend as much money) which I spent on this year's trip to Norway.

On top of that, earning your own money makes you really think about how much things cost. When I wanted those walking boots all I could think about was how many shifts I would need to do to earn them and whether or not it was worth it. In that case it absolutely was, but I shudder to think now at how much money I've wasted on crap clothes I don't wear anymore over the years.

When you start looking at a top in terms of 'I'll have to work this many hours to afford it' it gets a lot easier to put it back on the rail. Learning to do that is the secret to financial success for the rest of your life. 

4. Gaining new skills

This is probably the most important one of all. For one thing if you've already held down a job before you REALLY need one in the big wide world, you're already a better bet to an employer with a shed load of CV's from graduates that are hard to separate by their academic ability alone.

You've already proved you're reliable by holding down the job for whatever period of time. You've also proved that you're hard working. I've never had an interviewer fail to be impressed that I held down a job and studied for my masters degree at the same time. But mostly you've proved that you're determined enough to do what it takes to get the job done.

As I mentioned above, working alongside studying does not come without a certain amount of sacrifice. You can't go on every single night out. You can't always see your friends at the weekend because you're working. But employers don't care about your social life (much). They will be impressed you were strong enough to prioritise working over partying and lazing about watching Netflix marathons with your mates.  It shows a certain amount of resourcefulness that you were able to juggle all the balls without dropping them, because you found a way.

On top of that are the skills you gained within your actual role. Perhaps you worked in a customer service role and have handled irate customers and solved their complaints. Maybe you answered the phone and can talk to people calmly and professionally (essential for almost all roles and a skill a lot of people our age lack thanks to our love of texting). Perhaps your work involved helping others and your empathy shines through when you talk about it. One friend of mine worked at McDonalds. A job many people would consider to be shameful to put on your CV. She didn't think so though, she always talked about how she was in a leadership position and her job was to train new members of staff. She emphasized the importance of food safety and ensuring that all of her staff adhered to this. Funnily enough she found a job straight out of uni. 

5. Confidence in yourself

There is something to be said for knowing you can do something well. Once you've been working somewhere a while and you know the ropes it can be an enormous boost for your confidence. A problem comes up and you know how to solve it because you've handled it before. Or you know who to ask to help you sort it out. You handle a tricky client's complaint and get it fixed for them. You go home at the end of your shift knowing your hard work made a small, but positive difference to someone's life.

This confidence that you know how to handle a real life job starts to bleed into other areas of your life. Handling new software at uni? Ok it'll be difficult to start with but you'll get to grips with it. Doing group work with someone who is notoriously lazy? No problem, they can't be any more challenging than so-and-so that you work with. 

But when this all really comes into its own is when you graduate. Your pals are all running around like headless chickens at the mere thought of getting a job, while you are calmly browsing Indeed for something you reckon you can do. If your friends were honest they would tell you the thought of getting a job scares them because the unknown is frightening. If they were brave enough to tell you that, you could reassure them that you know it's scary, but they will soon adapt and you know this because you've done it before. 

In summary, some of us have to work while we're at uni just to make ends meet. I was definitely in that category but I wanted some money to spend on fun things (mostly trips abroad) so I worked harder than I needed to just to get by. But for those of you who don't need the cash, you should still seriously consider getting a job while you're at uni. Even if it's only in the holidays (temping is great for this). There's a lot more to be gained than money. 

Did you work while you were at uni? Or are you thinking perhaps you should? Let me know your experience!

Life After Graduation Blog Series

Post 1: My job hunting experience

Post 2: Starting your job search

Post 3: Why it's ok if you don't want to work in your degree field

Post 4: Coping with life after leaving uni 

Shout out to my fabulous Geology Girls who made my years at uni so much fun. #TeamSirens

Life After Graduation - Why it's ok if you don't want to work in your degree field

So if you're coming to the end of five years of training to be a doctor because it has been your single dream and ambition since you were eight years old this might not be the post for you. But for those of us who either don't want to work in our degree field (whether you enjoyed your degree or not)  or those who can't find work in our degree field then read on. Not only are you far from alone but it's ok to make your peace with it. 

18 is so young to decide what you want to do with your life and what direction you want to take. 18 year old me didn't have a clue about anything and least of all about myself. If I had known about the hidden skills I have now I would have possibly chosen a different path. However there is no point focusing on this, you can't change the past. I do suspect though, that those skills that have come to the fore since I've been working have in fact been developed through my degree without me even knowing about it. So it doesn't mean your degree was pointless.

On that note learning is never a waste of time and I try to be grateful for all the opportunities my degree has given me. It has shaped me and challenged me in ways I never knew it would and has forged me into a person I would never have believed I was capable of becoming. The skills you have gained may not be immediately obvious such as the ability to cope under pressure (remember that dissertation deadline) or to handle difficult questions from superiors (such your viva). You also never know when the knowledge you've gained might come in useful in the future. 

Learning how to learn is a skill in itself and if there is only one skill you gain from uni its this. Uni is sink or swim and if you can't keep up you get left behind. You pick up new skills quickly once you get to grips with that. One of my modules at uni during my masters year had us learning new, industry standard software each week with an assessment the following week on how well we had used it to present our data and analysis. Each piece of software was complex, with each being less intuitive and user friendly than the last. We would have a short session with PhD students demonstrating how to use the software, then we either collected the data (depending on the task) or were given the data to clean, plot and analyze. If you didn't pick up how to use it during that session you were screwed. When I started my first job I picked up their computer systems really easily. During my training I repeatedly asked my boss to let me learn quicker and to move on to new stuff. I was confident on what I had already learnt and I was consistently getting it right without help. She repeatedly told me no, that learning new software would confuse me. When I finally did come to learn it I found I was right, I could have learnt it months previously and my boss was projecting her own struggles to learn new things onto me. It was one of the reasons why I ultimately looked for another job. The lesson was valuable though, I knew I wasn't being pushed hard enough and the skills I had gained at uni made me confident enough to say so.  

Uni teaches you that learning new things and being challenged is part of life. It teaches us the value of hard work and that if you aren't brave enough to admit you don't understand something then people will assume you do. Doing that will always come back to bite you. The nature of researching subjects in depth teaches you to not accept something as true just because things rarely have a straightforward answer. You learn to weigh up the pros and cons of peoples arguments and to analyze which one you think has the more convincing evidence. You learn that group work is a nightmare of clashing egos and personalities. You realise that field work and being away from home for long periods of time is not all the fun and games its cracked up to be. You learn things about yourself but you also slowly figure out how to work with other people. All skills that are essential to hold down any job. 

On top of all of this, knowledge is power. You never know when the stuff you actually learnt about during your degree is going to come in useful. You might end up working in the industry in a way you hadn't previously considered, but your base knowledge underpins all of the stuff you learn in your role. You might win your team a crucial round at a pub quiz. You might correct someone who is talking about something they don't really understand and help them to understand it better. Knowing about things will always help you in some way, even if it isn't right now.

As you graduate and start to gain real work experience each role you have will help shape you in its own way. You will gain more experience and more knowledge with time. You may sit some industry qualifications or you might prove yourself to be a good leader. I bet you developed the skills that helped you pass those exams or to manage projects at uni. Each role will help you move forwards as you look to build upon what you already have. If you're trying to find a role within the industry you studied at uni, then each position you have will give you more experience that should make you a stronger candidate, over graduates with no experience. Everyone needs basic skills such as customer service, answering the phone, responding to emails etc. The more you develop the basic stuff, the better chance you have of breaking into the industry you want to work in.

It's also ok to change your mind. We live in a culture where we are all supposed to just magically figure out our calling and know what we want to do forever and ever. In reality as we grow up we change and so do our passions. A career is meant to be a journey, not a fixed path that you are set upon. It's normal to dart in a direction for a while and then either continue if you're enjoying it or find a different opportunity if you're not. 

I struggled throughout uni with peoples expectations of the field of work I would go into when I was finished and I still get comments about it now. I sometimes feel like people might think I'm a failure and sometimes they make those feelings known. People are often incredulous that someone with a masters degree in something doesn't want to work in it. Well four years is a long time to study something and by the end of it I had made my peace with the fact although I loved the subject and found it hugely interesting it wasn't where I wanted to work. Realising that I have the power to take my life in the direction I chose is empowering. I don't have to obey these people, they're only voicing their opinion, it doesn't mean I have to listen to it. 

Overall I chose to work in something that I find interesting and not because I think it will impress someone else or have made my degree 'worthwhile'. I  think you should do the same and make what you want out of your degree, whatever subject it was in.

Life after Graduation - Starting your Job Search

Few things strike fear into the hearts of recent graduates more than the words JOB HUNTING. So scarily adult. You've just turned your whole life upside down and you're got no idea where to even start because they don't teach you this stuff at school. For a lot of people this will be the first time they've ever actually applied for a job. This was true even for me and I had worked thoughout my degree by finding work through people I knew. I'd never written a CV, looked at a job advert or been to an interview and yet I actually found a job pretty easily. More about my job hunting story here.

While I can't promise you'll find a job straight away here are some easy things you can do right now which will help get you started. As everyone who has ever embarked on a difficult task will know, starting is often the hardest part and once you have accomplished that it is easier to continue with the next steps.

1. Consider what your expectations are.

Are you prepared to be flexible in the area you want to work in? Or are you prepared to be flexible on location? If you can answer yes to either of those questions then you will find it a lot easier to get a job, simply because there are more options open to you. If you can answer yes to BOTH (which a lot of new graduates can) then job hunting suddenly doesn't seem so daunting, because they're are a myriad of jobs out there.  The world is not the same as it was in 2008 and graduate unemployment is not the dire picture it was a few years ago. Yes there will always be fierce competition for the top jobs, but they are not the only ones out there.

I was not prepared to move away from home (because of trying to save for a house deposit) but I was open minded when it came to what type of job I was looking for.

It's also worth baring in mind that your first job is unlikely to be your forever job and it's ok to find something that suits you for now.  If you've never had a job before, any position at all will help you gain valuable skills like talking to people on the phone, or helping customers face to face. Then you can build on those skills to find your next role. In my experience it is far easier to find employment if you are already employed (bit of a catch 22 for recent grads I know) so if an opportunity comes your way, take it. Even it it's not the dream grad job you had in mind, you will be better placed for the next grad scheme cycle if you've gained more real life working experience.It's unlikely to be the best job in the world, but its better to be out there earning money and skills while you look for your next role. Once you know what you're prepared to compromise on and you accept your first role might not be the best you ever have you'll be better positioned to take the next steps.

2. Update your LinkedIn profile.

If you don't have one, then make one! Add all of your old connections from uni and any colleagues from previous jobs. Update your qualifications and add that you are looking for work in the relevant sector. This is important for three reasons:

1. A lot of recruitment agencies find people through LinkedIn. A solid profile means that they are more likely to be able to find you in the first place as well as suss out the necessary info about you to figure out if you would be a good march for the job they have in mind.

2. You can apply for jobs through LinkedIn and you are able to get a feel for the company by looking at who already works there and what sort of experience they have.

3. When you have an interview lined up you can check out the person interviewing you and find out more about them (you can do this in private mode if you want).

This is such a simple one and can really help you feel like you've made a positive step forward.  

3. Write your CV

If you've never written one before or your current one needs sprucing up then head over to Monster. I've found they have the best info to help you and the most professional looking templates. Using one can really help you get started if you're currently staring at a blank screen on Microsoft Word or it can help you polish up your existing version. You can always adapt it at a later stage but it always helps to have something to get you going in the first place.

4. Post your CV online.

This is absolutely crucial. When you are browsing websites for jobs, make an account and post your CV online. The big three to absolutely make sure you have a presence on are Indeed, Reed and Monster. Also don't forget to look at more local sources such as your local newspapers or radio shows website. Not only do they often post adverts from smaller companies but you can often upload your CV too and its a cert that all the jobs on there will be local. 

If you do this then (and your CV is well written) you will often find that the job offers start coming to you! A call from a recruitment agency is always welcome as they sometimes have positions that haven't been widely advertised and if the one they have contacted you about doesn't float your boat you can always ask about other roles they are recruiting for. Always cultivate your contacts with them as you may find they contact you again at a later date if they find another position and your name comes to mind.

5. Consider Temping 

If you've just graduated and have no clue what you want to do, signing up to a local temping agency can be a great way to get going. The plus side is you get to try lots of different roles and get a feel for what area of work might suit you. You will also build loads of skills from each role and companies often take on temps for full time positions if you prove yourself to be capable.Temping agencies are always on the look out for people due to the fact people come and go all the time so chances are they might have something suitable for you. Obviously the downside is the work can be for varying lengths of time and it can be unpredictable but if you can be flexible then it can be a great way to sample lots of different positions and find out more about yourself. It also beats lurking about the house all day doing nothing and listening to your parents complain about you not having a job yet! Other options if you're struggling include looking for part time roles or volunteering. Although unlikely to pay what you were hoping it can be a fantastic way of gaining more skills which will help you move onto your next role. 

Life After Graduation Blog Series:

Post 1: My job hunting experience