Life after university: how to get a job in the

   
   

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HAMILTON (CUP) — Dan Leibner, a 2007 McMaster University graduate with an
honours in political science and communication studies, does not have encouraging
stories about his transition from university to the workplace.

“Personally, I’ve had trouble getting the job that I want and I’m not sure
exactly what to do about it,” he said.

For students in an ever-changing society, graduation presents a new lifestyle,
new challenges, and new responsibilities as they leave the safety-net school and
enter the big, bad world.

Jacqueline Hampshire, events and marketing co-ordinator for Career Services
at McMaster in Hamilton, Ont., feels that in some ways, the student lifestyle cuts
students off from the society they will have to engage with after graduation.

“[Students] tend to live in a little bit of a campus bubble,” said Hampshire.

Students study, attend lectures, hang out, and sometimes work and live

 

rea I wo rl d By Lindsay Jolivet, The Silhouette (McMaster)

on campus; Hampshire notes this ties many of their experiences directly to the
university.

Patrick Burek, career counselling leader at McMaster’s Career Services, says
students have difficulty transferring their lessons from campus to real life.

“T think one of the challenges for many students is that those who are thinking
completely that this is the stage in their life where they are going to focus on
education, and when they leave here they’re going to focus exclusively on work . . .
aren’t engaging as much in the world outside of McMaster,” said Burek.

“As a result, they might not be learning in parallel how to apply the skills
they are developing here, or even how to identify the skills that they’re developing
here... as to what is valuable to employers.”

However, Burek says a campus-centered lifestyle has benefits.

“Having your life centered around a university campus, where in some ways
they are a little bit buffered from some of the immediate pressures and demands
of [society]... so that they have the opportunity to delve into studies in a deeper,
uninterrupted way,” he said.

Burek says the most important trick to connecting student lives with the work
force is recognizing the skills university provides.

“The people here that are graduating are very skilled, and employers recognize
the skills within them. I think the students might not fully recognize the skills that
they’ve gained while they were here because all their peers have the same skills and
they’re sort of taking it for granted,” he said.

Furthermore, he says many students misinterpret the assets that employers
value. Since students spend their time studying, learning, and understanding the
content of courses, Burek says they often feel the mastery of their programs’
content makes them most employable.

“T think, probably, for the majority of employers that we work with, they’ re
most concerned with the skills that students develop in the process of mastering the
content,” he said.

But, Burek says an entirely different set of skills makes post-secondary
graduates employable.

“Advanced communication skills both in verbal and writing, critical thinking,
and creative problem-solving skills,” he said.

“The ability to think has always been in high market demand, and I can’t
foresee that ever going out of style. At the essence of the university experience, it
teaches people how to think.”

Hampshire adds a number of skills to this list, adapted from the Conference
Board of Canada’s employability skills checklist.

“No matter which program you’re from, no matter which faculty you’ ve
studied in, [it outlines] those skills that the employers seek, that they want the
candidate to have when they’re coming into the work force—and it’s simple things
like responsibility, adaptability, time management, communication.”

She says students develop some of these skills by being in a post-secondary
environment, where immediacy reins daily activities. Assignments, job
applications, planning a night out—things tend to be right here, right now. By
the fourth year of studies, organizational and time-management skills become
imperative to success.

“Those types of skills are sometimes missed by students because they’ re things
you don’t think about, you just do,” Hampshire said.

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