Qualified as a radiographer and there are no jobs, need some advice :/

[Fus Ro Dah]

Hey guys, I'm a mature student (27) and I've just finished my BSc degree in Radiotherapy & Oncology.

Background information and my current situation
I chose this degree/career path as when I was looking 4 years ago they were in desperate need for radiographers and according to uni-stats 95% of students on this course secured a job in this field within 3 months.

3/4 years later and there are now no jobs. The first job I applied for they shortlisted me out of 65 and interviewed 30 of us for 4-5 jobs, many of which were given to experienced radiographers. I recently went for another interview where they interviewed 22 of us for 1 job, again, this job was given to someone who was already had experience. My local hospital now only recruits experienced staff, so as a newly qualified radiographer it's really difficult to get jobs. From what I've seen, I'm not only just competing with people from my uni, but also experienced radiographers and people from other universities, some as far as Scotland!

There is a chance that if I further expand how far I'm willing to travel (I'm already looking at hospitals with a 4 hour return journey) then I may be able to secure a job. However I have a mortgage and I don't want to move house. So if I look further a field I would need to rent a place as well as pay my mortgage, after factoring in these costs I'd be much better off working my part my job at my local Co-op!!!


What now?
Given the huge lack of radiotherapy jobs, I feel the best decision would be to end my radiotherapy career before it's even properly started and look at graduate jobs, the problem is, is that I've trained very specifically to be a radiographer (the cancer kind) and I don't really have any skill sets outside of this. So I don't even know what kind of jobs I should be looking at!?!? I guess my training involved the operation of complex equipment/machinery but I doubt this would pay anywhere near what I was hoping to earn as a newly qualified radiographer (£22K).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Fus Ro Dah]

So wait, how long have you been looking?

In radiotherapy? We started applying for jobs around March, so only about 3 months. However with radiotherapy it's not as though there are loads of jobs that I just haven't found yet through lack of searching. There are literally only a handful of hospitals within a 2 hour radius of me, most of which recruit between February and June. So far I'd say only 15-20% of my year have secured jobs. However a few years ago around 90% of the course had secured a job by this time.

I actually have an interview on Monday but if it goes anything like my last few interviews I'll be up against a ton of candidates fighting over 1 job and they're just end up hiring experienced staff again so I'm not going to get my hopes up. Even if I do get the job i'll be better of renting accommodation down there (in addition to paying my mortgage) as opposed to travelling 4 hours a day. With the cost of renting accommodation just secure a job away from home, I'd earn more working at the Co-op!

Outside of radiotherapy I haven't started looking for jobs yet because I'm not sure what I can even apply for with my degree, it's kind of useless outside of radiotherapy

PS, there* not their

Ha ha, cheers, there's no excuses for that

 

[Fus Ro Dah]

Why dont you sell house/move?

I really like it here. I live next door to my older brother and my little nephew, and my younger brother lives a few doors down from us. There is also a good community here, anywhere else wouldn't be "home" for me.

You'll just need to sell transferable graduate skills for other jobs, any ideas of what youd like??

Radiotherapy is basically people skills, technical skills (operating the equipment) and then the human biology side of it (knowledge of anatomy, cancer and symptoms and side effects etc). Outside of radiotherapy only the first 2 are really transferable. So that leaves me looking at customer focused kind of jobs (store manager/assistant manager) or technical jobs (machine operator). Neither of which are paid particularly well at the entry level. I'm tempted to go back into retail but after 3 years of uni and radiotherapy training it would just be super embarrassing.

 

[Fus Ro Dah]

Thanks for all the replies guys, It was really quite helpful

So just a quick update - I now have a new job... but it's not in Radiotherapy.

I now work doing PR and admin for my local MEP... however this means I'll be officially employed by the European Parliament, so I'll have this job until we officially leave the EU. It pays almost the same as a radiographer but I now get to live in my own house, meaning that I wont have to pay to rent on top of my mortgage like I was planning to before with the potential radiotherapy jobs. It's a win/win for me as I absolutely love politics

Just goes to show that it's useful to just simply have a degree (sometimes) and it doesn't necessarily need to be in that specific field.

 

[Fus Ro Dah]

thats not the same job as the thread starter, he would have to start again training wise. the op skill set is treating cancers not diagnostic

This ^

Plus I'm not allowed in the Army anyway. About 5 years ago I took anti-depressants for a couple of months and because of that I'm never allowed to join any of the services.

 

[Fus Ro Dah]

Surely not? Aren't half the troops coming back from war zones practically broken anyway?

Aye, I was in the waiting list to join the Navy; 2 years in I had passed my fitness and BARB exams etc and then it flagged up that I had taken anti-depressants and they made me "permanently medically unfit".

I then tried to join the Army about 6 months later and they told me that the Navy had put a bar on me trying to join any of the services.

Unfortunately it wasn't even a case of "wait a year and try again", the bar was for good. Simply for taking anti-depressants for a couple of months.