Your response to The Lost Generation has been phenomenal, thanks to all of you who shared your experience and frustrations with the current jobs market.  What is absolutely clear is you’re not alone in the big hole between education and your career

Key Themes

The messages are coming from your experiences in industry and education are:

• Industry wants Graduates to have a stronger grounding in experience and relevant skills
• Students are disappointed by following conventional wisdom for starting a career
• Graduates are struggling to find paid work, that they enjoy and where they feel useful

When you consider that working class children are less likely the climb the social ladder than any other developed nation.  It makes you wonder, what can we do?

Developing your Network

Going to a careers adviser is both scary, and very official.  Who can you tell that you actually don’t have a clue what to do, or what you’re good at?

• You might tell your friends, but they’re in the same boat as you.
• You might tell your parents, but they understand how the old economy worked.
• You might tell your tutor, but how much time can they dedicate to you?

You are much more valuable than the words on a CV.  Yet how often do we share what we really care about with people we already know?

We already have a strong social network, but often don’t use it to help our career.  What if we reached out and used the Social Networking tools themselves?  This means using existing networks and finding the people who can help you develop; Helpful Networks.

Creating: Helpful Networks

You want a job you enjoy, so do your friends.  The problem is you don’t yet have to tools to find what you’re looking for.

Some of the offers of help, and suggestions from experienced experts in their field have shown that the desire exists within the business community to reach out and help you.  Would you be willing to meet attend an event, if it meant you were learning skills that could lead to your dream career?

Can you Help?

We have a communication breakdown between our Academic career and the rest of the world.  My Goal over the next few weeks is to develop a series of events, putting students, graduates and industry in the same room together.  Will you bring your network?  Please contact me if you can help.  @sytaylor via email, or via facebook.