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| How true is this? |
When you read about graduate unemployment rates being so
high or stories of people sending out 100 or 300 application forms and still
not getting anything back it is easy to push it at the back of your head and
say “I am at university, college it won’t happen to me.” But when you do
graduate and you start sending out those CV and cover letters and even worse
you spend all day completing that dreaded and long application form only to
receive a rejection email. That is if you are lucky enough to get anything back
it hits you.
Rejection is deflating.
Then for me I went through a phrase where after I graduated
I felt free. I had gone to school, college and university and completed it. I
could do anything that I have always wanted to do (previous posts will show
some of those thoughts). I tried some of those ideas, I thought extensively
about other ideas and nothing ever came from that. I looked at other career
options such as recruitment since on every job site they are so many jobs
advertised. I applied to around 30 recruitment jobs and got 4 telephone calls
that ended there.
Still, it is more than the response I got from actual jobs
in accounting and finance. I even sent out speculative CV and cover letter’s to
accounting firms and I received 3 emails back saying they do not have anything.
Luckily, I had my CV checked by a professional and they
enlightened me on a lot of things I could improve.
And this got me
thinking about my career in accounting. If
I am being honest with myself I haven’t been 100% with this process. I know my
CV needs improving and I haven’t improved it. I know that I need to fully
research a company that includes fully utilising my LinkedIn account and
creating a twitter account so that I can get updates about companies that I am
interested in applying to.
In addition, just the application forms and the processes I
have not practiced on anything. Is my grammar and punctuation good enough when
completing the forms and if I ever get far enough to an assessment centre I
have seen that some companies ask for you to write a report. Will I be
confident enough to do that? Again, online assessments are my weak point and so
far I have not done much to improve on that.
On a positive note I have just googled myself and only my
linkedin picture comes up.
So this year, my gap year I am going to work on myself. To
increase my knowledge on accounting practices, on the application processes and
also I am going to carry on learning French. I did it for 5 years in high school
and I feel as though to get in or to be successful in the business world you
need to be global and having a knowledge of other languages will help with
that.
I have my first AAT exam on September 1 and I have gone
through the first chapters and it looked like the stuff I did in my first year
of college. So, I need to revise that and pass the exams first time because
this is money coming out of my pockets.
But one thing I am learning is patience. It takes some
people 1 year or even more to get the job they are qualified for. I have to
fight for that job. It’s me and 1000 people fighting for that one job. It is a
sad reality but I need to make sure that that employer notices me and thinks “I
need this person, no matter what.”
Bonus:
