Thanks for the advice. I’ve not given up by a long shot, just biding my time and building up skills.

I guess the thing that cheesed me off about uni was the way it was sold to us in sixth form. We were told we’d easily walk into £20k pa jobs etc and we believed it. Hopefully the next bunch of students to go to uni will be less naive and realistic about their options.

Anyone could state that they went to uni and have not got their ideal job. I have been in the industry for ten years and still haven’t got mine .

Doing work experience is obviously a very good tactic, but saying you’ve got great references from work experience you did in the middle of last year sounds a little like you have given up already. PR is one of the fastest growing career choices for those going to uni, so naturally there are only a select number of jobs to go round. This puts recruiters in a very strong position as they have the pick of the bunch.

The point of my post is that, in a competitive market, you have to make yourself stand out.

And on a negative point about the industry, if your expecting to earn more than a school leaver in your first PR role then I would suggest you look at a different career.

The main thing the remember is not to get disheartened. One of the biggest selling points you have is you clearly have a very good understanding of SEO and social media. Make this a key point on your CV, agencies are crying out for people who ‘get online’ and have their own online profile, which you do with your site

Thing is, A-Level students are promised well-paid work as soon as soon as they finish uni just to get bums on seats and it not fair on them at all because it’s not true! It’s particularly bad when they’ve gone to a lot of effort and expense to get their qualifications they find that the only work they can get is stuff a school leaver can do and pays £12k a year!

Obviously your online presence is a really healthy position, and this is something that agencies are crying out for staff to have. Employee’s networks and profile’s are equally as important, if not more so, as the agency they work for.

I’m sure you will be snapped up when you finish. If not give us a call.

Good luck.

Some sage advice there. Although I expect this years graduates will be noticeably less complacent due to apocalyptic headlines regarding unemployment and falling grad recruitment. I guess the climate will motivate some to go that extra mile but deflate others to the point of giving up.

I must admit when I graduated first time round (I’m now doing an MA) in 2004, I did exactly what you warn against: I sent CVs and used recruitment consultants, without success. So I decided to go travelling instead.

My advice to other graduates after going through it once before is that recruitment consultancies should be the last place you look for your first job, especially in public relations. Generally, a decent employer will want to know that you have searched them out and really want to work for them.

My aim now is to work for free, get my face about and make some contacts, but I’ll definately consider some more cheeky tactics after reading this.