Aoife Hanrahan did get a job in her field straight out of college, but says it was nothing like what she was expecting and was \u201cmore suited to a secretarial role\u201d than for someone with a science degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got a job in a pharmaceutical company when I graduated two years ago,\u201d she says. \u201cAt first, I was delighted as I felt it was in keeping with what I had studied, but the job was not at all what I thought it would be. I understand that the newest person has to do the most mundane jobs, but really it was a joke. I spent most of my day going through spreadsheets and checking things off against other forms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also seemed to be the office gofer, and my direct manager seemed to do everything in her power to give me the most demeaning and irrelevant jobs of all. I don\u2019t know if it was just a personality clash or if this is standard practice in the sector, but I realised that if this was what it was going to be like for the foreseeable future, then there was no way I was sticking around. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, the salary wasn\u2019t enough to live a good quality of life, so after six months, I handed in my notice and decided to take some time out to figure out if I wanted to work in that field or even in Ireland at all. I have two friends who went to Australia straight from college, so I went over there for almost a year, doing bar work and stuff. Then, because I knew that I couldn\u2019t stay there, and things didn\u2019t seem to have improved much at home, I went travelling with a friend and we ended up in the Netherlands. <\/p>\n
[\u00a0AI use creating recruitment \u2018doom loop\u2019 for job seekers and employers, hiring platform saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cI applied for a couple of positions here as most places speak English, so I am hopeful that I will get something soon. And in the meantime, I\u2019m just enjoying life.\u201d<\/p>\n Eoin O\u2019Brien has also made the move abroad after gaining a first-class honours degree in psychology and finding it \u201cimpossible to get the experience needed\u201d to progress with his career, despite successfully securing a position on the HSE<\/a> panel for assistant psychology (AP) roles.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that I have done very well academically, but I can\u2019t get a job without experience and it is impossible to get experience without a job,\u201d he says. \u201cI went for an interview with the HSE and was told that I was successful and would be placed on the panel for AP positions. But that was last November [2024], and while a few jobs have come up, the people who are still on the panel from the year before get placed before anyone in my round, so it has been a year of waiting and it looks like it could be the same time again before something suitable comes up.<\/p>\n \u2018If they want Ireland to succeed into the future, there needs to be a concerted effort to encourage graduates to stay here\u2019<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0Eoin O\u2019Brien, psychology graduate<\/p>\n \u201cI stayed at home in the beginning thinking that there would be an opening soon enough, but while I was doing part-time work, it was really hard, as I wanted to get started on my career. I applied to other private AP jobs around Ireland initially, and then other lesser roles, even jobs like healthcare assistants, and I would either not hear back or be told that I was too qualified for the job. Week after week, I would get an email or a letter starting with \u2018unfortunately\u2019, and it was so depressing. So, in the end, I started applying to jobs in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n The Dublin man says he was \u201cinundated with offers\u201d from various companies around England and, eventually, settled on a position in Bristol, which he took up during the summer.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to move as I love living in Ireland, but I had no choice,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how there aren\u2019t any positions available, particularly within the HSE, as we are always hearing about the need for more psychologists and yet, there are probably hundreds of successful applicants on a list just waiting for a position to open up.<\/p>\n \u201cSomething needs to be done about this, as pretty much everyone I know is either thinking of moving abroad or has gone already. If they want Ireland to succeed into the future, there needs to be a concerted effort to encourage graduates to stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n The issue, according to the HSE, is already being addressed and steps are being taken to get graduates, in the health sector at least, into jobs a soon as possible after graduating.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Cancer services being hit by HSE\u2019s failure to recruit qualified graduates, conference hearsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cThe overall health workforce has increased by 24 per cent in the past five years,\u201d says a spokesperson. \u201cThe Health and Social Care Professionals (HSCP) workforce has increased by 30.3 per cent from January 1st, 2020, to the end of June 2025, from 16,769 whole-time equivalent [WTE jobs] to 21,850 WTE, and our nursing workforce has grown by 24.8 per cent in the same time period. This increase is largely due to the significant initiatives to attract and retain graduates from Irish colleges, with these initiatives commencing in the final year of college. <\/p>\n \u201cThis includes direct targeting of HSCP final-year students through the colleges and supported by webinars to encourage and support the students to apply for high-profile national campaigns, which will give them access to a broad spectrum of opportunities to obtain their licence to practice.\u201d<\/p>\n The spokesperson said that occasionally in previous years, \u201csome graduates did experience some delays between graduation and CORU [Regulating Health & Social Care Professionals] registration\u201d, but this is changing. \u201cOver the last 18 months, the HSE has worked in close collaboration with the regulator to reduce the registration times from the student getting their results to being registered,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is now circa 16 days from completing their registration application to being on the register. Once they have their professional registration, they have access to a broad spectrum of opportunities across the country and care settings.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, it should be noted that the funded vacancies are not always in the first choice of location or care setting for the graduate. The HSE, for the last number of years, has issued a directive to all services to offer permanent positions to graduates from Irish colleges.<\/p>\n \u201cThis initiative has been in place for Nursing and Midwifery graduates since 2021, and in 2023 commenced for HSCPs. Whilst this initiative will accommodate most graduates, the HSE encourages graduates and all healthcare professionals to register with the HSE Career Hub<\/a>, which will provide weekly notifications on roles that meet their criteria in the HSE, but also across the voluntary services.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each year more than 85,000 students graduate from Irish third-level institutions. While the vast majority are eager to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,19433,2120,61,60,10970,2055,17159,42415],"class_list":{"0":"post-168873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-graduates","10":"tag-hse","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-irish-abroad","14":"tag-students","15":"tag-third-level","16":"tag-your-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/UAXGU6IUEBD6PD7PTQOHNMOCR4.jpg\")
The HSE says steps are being taken to get college graduates in the health sector into jobs as soon as possible. <\/p>\n