For months, Theresa Blair sent off hundreds of job applications and rarely heard back. The 24-year-old pharmacy graduate from Birmingham had completed a project management placement and knew that was the career she wanted, but her applications were going nowhere.
“I realised I was sending very generic CVs to recruiters and that was making it harder to stand out from other applicants,” she says. So she began tailoring her CV for every role, researching each company’s values and referencing them in her applications. She started applying for fewer jobs but spending more time on each one. “The less generic the better,” she says.
“Two graduates who sent hundreds of job applications share how tailoring CVs and networking helped them secure roles.”
The strategy worked. Theresa got a job working full-time in a bank customer service call centre. Now she works as a project manager, commuting three days a week to London. “It’s two to three hour commute which can be difficult but I’m gaining valuable experience at a reputable company, so I’m incredibly happy,” she says.
Across the country in Somerset, 24-year-old Callum Stevens faced a different challenge. The computer science graduate from the University of the West of England had developed an interest in transport but had no experience in transport planning. He reached out on LinkedIn to someone doing a transport planning internship at Bristol City Council. When the internship came up again, he applied and was successful.
Callum believes he got the role because he demonstrated he “was interested and passionate to learn”. The internship is full-time, pays minimum wage and ends in August, though there may be an opportunity to extend it. For now, he is beginning the search for a full-time job. “While it’s not permanent, the experience has been invaluable,” he says. “It’s as powerful as my university degree.”
His advice for others hoping to land an internship: don’t “underestimate how useful it is to do an internship just because it’s temporary”.
For Theresa, the key is persistence. “As hard as it is, keep applying,” she says. “The job market isn’t easy right now but believe the work you’ve put in will be seen by employers.”