{"id":618160,"date":"2026-10-02T05:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618160\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T05:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:50:10","slug":"graduate-job-seeker-applies-for-more-than-600-jobs-in-tough-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618160\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate job seeker applies for more than 600 jobs in tough market"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s very tough; applying for roles at times felt like it was a full-time role in itself, ironically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tollison found work in the public sector after graduating from her undergraduate degree, but within one month her role was disestablished as part of government cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard because your identity as a person is not reflected in the number of rejections you get.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour determination and drive are a better demonstration of the potential you have in the role than the very skills you\u2019ve ironically studied and learned about during your degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tollison said to keep herself going whenever she received a rejection she would say to herself, \u201cThey were looking for a sunset and I\u2019m a bright, blue sky\u201d.<\/p>\n

One of the toughest parts of the application process was it didn\u2019t let applicants be known as a person, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy roles that I\u2019ve interviewed for really got to know me as a person … [that] can\u2019t really be seen during an application process. In person, you can build a rapport with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many jobseekers were, Tollison said she wasn\u2019t using artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a> to help write her applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cI use the skills that I learned during my degree, I did all of these applications with my own mind and my own hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Tollison got her Bachelor of Communications degree in 2023 and recently graduated with her master’s. Photo \/ Hannah Tollison<\/p>\n

High unemployment, AI and a highly competitive job market mean many recent graduates were picking up jobs unrelated to their degrees \u2013 if they were lucky enough to find work at all.<\/p>\n

According to employment website Seek, advertisements for graduate jobs made up just over 2% of the overall share of jobs on the site last month.<\/p>\n

It said the unemployment rate in New Zealand was high by historical standards, so grads were competing with other grads as well as those with work experience.<\/p>\n

Student Job Search chief executive Louise Saviker said New Zealand\u2019s labour market remained challenging, particularly for young people.<\/p>\n

However, there were tentative signs of improvement in employer demand, with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment\u2019s Jobs Online measure showing online job advertisements increasing 7% over the year to June 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s very tough; applying for roles at times felt like it was a full-time role in itself, ironically.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[70481,68198,138,1651,2082,17625,78,3112,232,225,130,1304,111,139,69,1560,154770,302171,131,13983],"class_list":["post-618160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-70481","tag-applies","tag-business","tag-digital","tag-for","tag-graduate","tag-in","tag-job","tag-jobs","tag-market","tag-more","tag-morning","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-report","tag-reporters","tag-seeker","tag-than","tag-tough"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}