Graduate jobs / Speculative Emails

[Luckystrike123]

Barring any disasters I'll be graduating with a 1st MEng (Hons) Chemical Engineering and as such I need to find a job. I've applied for loads of jobs with blue chip companies but have yet to get past the first interview stage, with "new" graduate jobs often being listed from companies I've already been rejected by, applying for these jobs will likely be a waste of time.

I've been thinking of sending speculative CVs off to some of the smaller local engineering firms (I'm lucky that there are a lot within a commutable distance). I'm somewhat worried that my emails would just be ignored or that this tactic is otherwise futile / a waste of time.

Can anyone give any advice on how best to approach this task? If you are involved in recruiting what would you look for?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Luckystrike123]

Thanks for the feedback, you've raised some interesting points.

I've mainly been applying for chemical engineering jobs although I have applied for some different sectors/positions that sounds interesting. I choose to do a chem eng degree as it has a broad application and is generally seen as valuable to alternate sectors.

I think I know where I have gone wrong with some of my applications / interviews:

1. I have had poor health recently which has meant that I've been incredibly tired most of the time, resulting in subpar performance in online testing / interviews. I have a hospital appointment next month and I'll likely need an operation. The situation has been slightly improved with some medicine I've been prescribed but it's still hit / miss each day.
2. Employers seem to have an extreme bias towards industrial experience, of which I have none. This occurred for various reasons (birth of first child, had spinal surgery etc), not a great deal I can do about this now.
3. Having had some psychrometric testing results back it would appear that I have some autistic traits, specifically that I require social context to determine the emotions of others. Interestingly I had not realised that this was the case until I had this feedback, but I would imagine that this type of result would prejudice my applications. Also, I've found it difficult doing web interviews where I can see my own face (distracting), not sure if this is related?
4. When returning to education I did an access course rather than A-Levels. I know this has been a problem as I have been rejected on "qualifications" so I now make sure to include the A-level equivalent of AAA.

I have previously worked as a junior manager within the civil service and have some really good examples of great work that I have done. In each of the interviews I've done there has been very few questions where I could talk about these achievements. One of my supervisors thinks that they likely don't care about my work history as its not at a high enough level and that my age (36) may disadvantage me as I do not fit the typical graduate profile. He also thinks it will be easier when I have the degree rather than being someone predicted a first.

I haven't taken part in any uni clubs, and neither has anyone else who hasn't failed/dropped out. The degree is incredibly time consuming and coupled with commuting and family commitments I have very little time for myself.

The application process is typically:
1) CV & covering letter
2) Online testing
3) Web interview
4) Secondary interview
5) Assessment centre

I tailor each covering letter to the job / company so it’s not an issue with quantity > quality. I've seen a careers advisor at the uni, so I think I've got this part sorted. I have some great extra points for the CV (academic prizes, extracurricular research projects) so I am able to differentiate myself from generic students. I'm aiming to be best graduating chem eng student and obviously this will be another feather in the cap.

I think the calling the businesses directly is a good idea (better than my initial thought of CV & letter) and I will use this approach. I have ~16 weeks left at uni so the networking opportunities will be limited but I'll keep a look out. For my dissertation there are 3 industrial based projects, but all are based control engineering, and this is a weak area for me. I'll select this as options, but I may not be selected.

 

[Luckystrike123]

Thought I'd give a quick update as I've finally bagged myself a job.

I graduated last month with a 1st MEng (Hons) but with the covid situation the job market has been utterly terrible, having 2 interviews for graduate roles and an agreed temp job cancelled.

I took onboard the suggestion to do a dissertation with industrial links and through this avenue I was approached by an affiliated company who have hired me as a graduate process control engineer.

Looking back on the graduate recruitment cycle I seem to have had much more success with applications that required the submission of a CV rather than those using web forms, although my job offer was obtained essentially through recommendation rather than interview etc (who you know rather than what you know?).

If this thread appears in any graduate's google searches I would heavily recommend getting relevant experience through summer jobs and by doing a sandwich year in industry. I also feel that going to a Russell group university would be useful, although having said that I have no complaints with the quality of my education from a so-called "lesser" institution.

 

[Luckystrike123]

Yep, utterly horrendous at the moment.

I’ve had mates that have had their entire graduate job cancelled

I’ve had 2 interviews so far, but struggling to get in front of anyone.


I’ve had 2 years of working experience, pre university and during, graduated with 2nd class from a top 5 uni in an engineering degree and recently shelled out for some career coaching (CV development, interview training etc) to put myself in the best possible position. Also have 2 years of voluntary work experience mentoring, running a mentoring scheme for my department and sitting on the committee for the mentoring scheme.

There are simply so many people applying for jobs at the moment that HR can’t be getting through enough CVs!

I'm sorry to hear about your struggles, these really are exceptionally bad times and I feel that I got lucky in many respects.

Over the years I've worked with several people who graduated with good degrees, ended up in the same dead end job as me, then later landing really good graduate jobs (banking, consultancy etc.). The only advice I can offer is to just keep applying and that eventually you'll get were you need to be.

 

[Luckystrike123]

Yeah it's gotta be a rough time.

If as you say graduate jobs/schemes are being cancelled, then there just becomes a huge pool of graduates with very few graduate jobs. To make things worse, even if you apply for normal/junior type roles, you'll likely be also competing for those roles from non-grads.

I'd read in our local news recently that a GP practice had a job advert out for a receptionist, and had nearly 1k applications for it. Obviously to trawl through 1k job applications would be incredibly time consuming, so it's likely they would have just picked the top 20 or so to look through until coming across a satisfactory candidate.

I feel that this ties into my observation about having more success with CV applications versus web forms. With a CV/covering letter you are able to differentiate yourself easily and point out your best qualities/achievements, whereas a web form is perhaps a "box ticking" process that eliminates large numbers of candidates.