{"id":872979,"date":"2026-10-06T16:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T16:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/872979\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T16:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T16:50:10","slug":"the-graduate-employment-games-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/872979\/","title":{"rendered":"The (graduate employment) game’s gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 24th August, the BBC reported<\/a> that the number of graduate jobs advertised has fallen by nearly 50% since last year. The pipeline between degree and corporate job is experiencing something of a blockage.<\/p>\n

Andrew Hunter, from the job advertising site Adzuna that reported these numbers, thinks that employers are yet to see a reason to hire new graduates. It\u2019s the lowest number of advertised graduate jobs since 2016. The graduate employment game is at best, in a trough, or at worst, in a grave.<\/p>\n

People have been playing this game for ages. You go to uni. You try for an internship. Make the odd vacuous statement on LinkedIn, if you like. Find a grad scheme. Game complete! Financial security awaits. (And tens of thousands in debt, but of course that\u2019s not important!)<\/p>\n

A degree was the be-all and end-all, a ticket to employment, and the universities realised that. There are record numbers of people starting at university this year. Again. A cynic may wonder whether the financial value of students to our institutions has been trumping the academic value.<\/p>\n

So, record numbers are starting university and there are record lows in graduate jobs. It doesn\u2019t take fifty grand of debt and a mathematics degree to do that calculation. It\u2019s tempting to just forget it all and apply for a job at the local purveyor of vapes. Some endeavours are curiously recession-proof \u2013 the high streets can attest to that.<\/p>\n

Ah, but wait! You have forgotten one thing, sir. My LinkedIn. Surely my LinkedIn profile will help me stand out from the crowd? Just this week, I wrote a nuanced post about the necessity for adequate AI training in the corporate world. And I have loads of connections. They wouldn\u2019t abandon me. Would they?<\/p>\n

Perhaps not. AI and the changing job market appear to have only intensified the conveyor belt of boring shit on LinkedIn. It\u2019s the ultimate example of The Emperor\u2019s New Clothes. Surely we can\u2019t mean all of this utter self-congratulatory nonsense? \u201cI have been taking the time to reflect on blah blah blah\u2026 Pleased to announce that blah blah blah\u2026 Anyone got any jobs?\u201d<\/p>\n

I think a lot of people are starting to see through this. Corporate speak is on the way out, and the age of the tech bro is upon us, and yet it\u2019s not even clear how long that will last. There\u2019s talk of an AI \u2018bubble\u2019 stalking the world economy, threatening to burst its soapy financial chaos all over us, and even concern that our new artificial friends are powerful enough to destroy the bloody species.<\/p>\n

Whilst I may experience a smattering of schadenfreude if the LinkedIn mafia falls, the impact of a collapse in grad jobs on the job market (and, selfishly, my own life) would be catastrophic. There\u2019d be a whole generation of graduates who are extremely well-qualified to play an employment game that\u2019s changed its rules.<\/p>\n

Imagine spending years training to be a cricketer, but on your first professional match, you\u2019re told you have to now play with a bat made of cereal. Also, the ball\u2019s a grenade. And the wicket keeper\u2019s an AI chatbot. You\u2019d certainly feel a bit hard done by.<\/p>\n

Many companies have decided they\u2019re not that interested in graduates, talented or not. Some pretend to be, but then give you an AI screening interview. To use an old man\u2019s favourite football phrase, \u201cthe game\u2019s gone\u201d. The long summer of languid leisure (and having affairs with your girlfriend\u2019s mother) experienced by Dustin Hoffman\u2019s perpetually unemployed character in The Graduate, could become more real than we\u2019d all like. Gulp.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to say that it doesn\u2019t matter, and that the inherent good of education is enough to make it all worth it. I almost do think that, but for the massive debt most students find themselves in. For many, university has become a rather expensive stepping stone to an employment paradise that is disappearing. Companies should be wary, however. Taking on able graduates is a long-term investment. Maybe for the first year or two, adequate AI implementation can cover their workload, but what about after that?<\/p>\n

In classic impartial BBC fashion, their reporting also provided an alternative view. The head of labour market intelligence at\u00a0Jisc suggested that the figures could indicate a change in how roles are advertised, rather than a drastic change in the number of roles. Man, I don\u2019t know what to think anymore. It does go to show how important it is to read things in full, so you can give yourself a pat on the back for making it this far. Now go and work on your CV. You\u2019re going to need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On 24th August, the BBC reported that the number of graduate jobs advertised has fallen by nearly 50%…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[28,134],"class_list":["post-872979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","tag-business","tag-jobs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}