dime a dozen graduates

Jenny is 27 and highly educated but her job is pretty basic. She cuts costs by sharing an apartment with two girls and a guy and a common topic of conversation between them is the gaping chasm between education and jobs.

"I was once a job snob, full of delusions of grandeur," sighs Jenny, "but I finally came to my senses."

"Because the ratio between the number of jobs requiring a qualification and those with qualifications applying for them is getting wider each year, the competition for a position requiring qualifications had become a farce."

"I saw more and more highly educated young people being forced to take on jobs that were beneath their dignity or woefully beneath their educational qualifications," adds Jenny, "and I was forced to get real."

"To put it bluntly," says Jenny, "educated women like me are a dime a dozen."

Jenny points out that going back to school to gain another degree or diploma does not necessarily improve your chances either.

"It’s very rare to see a position advertised requiring more than one qualification," Jenny explains. "And although a double degree or a post-graduate degree may give you the edge in the selection process, this nebulous advantage is really not worth the time, expense and effort of going back to school."

Jenny, like many ambitious young women, wanted to advance herself with the highest educational qualifications possible in order to gain a good position.

"I wanted to avoid the fate of many of my graduate friends who had been forced to accept jobs that were woefully beneath their educational qualifications," explains Jenny. "I thought that a graduate degree just wasn’t good enough any more, and that I needed to get post-graduate qualifications to get a good job. I was totally deluded!"

Jenny came to her senses half way through her third post-graduate qualification. She decided that enough was enough. She was already over-qualified for 99.9% of available positions and her chances of gaining an entry-level job in any of the disciplines for which she had qualifications was not going to be much enhanced by her monumental endeavors.

"Whichever way I looked at it," says Jenny, "I would be at the bottom of any field's employment heap. And I no longer had youth to my advantage. At 27, I was not going to be as employable as a 21-year old graduate."

Her decision to quit the course was hastened by three facts of life. She was having relationship difficulties -- someone studying and working just cannot give family and friends their usual attention; she was not earning enough to pay the bills doing casual work; and she was amassing an education debt that might take her the rest of her life to repay if she continued.

"When you're desperate for cash -- as I was when I quit that course -- you cannot afford to be a job snob," says Jenny. "You take what you can, and keep looking for something better. Which is exactly what I'm doing right now."

"It’s work experience that employers really want," says Jenny, "and I have a lot of catching up to do. I’ve shut the door on education and I’ve made work, any work, my new direction in life."

"There are still many unemployed grads, though, who would rather starve or take unemployment benefits than apply for a job that is beneath their dignity," adds Jenny.

"Young people, particularly, are quite indignant that they have spent anything up to five years of their youth studying hard to achieve a degree just to learn that it does not automatically give them the key to a job in their chosen profession and a six-figure income."

Jenny is angry and frustrated, but philosophical nevertheless.

"My parents tell me that it was a lot easier in the 1970s and 1980s to walk out of school or university into a plum position," says Jenny, "and, it’s likely that those people who walked into those jobs way back then are still in those plum positions and intend to stay there until they croak!"

"When people scoff at me, calling me a pessimist," says Jenny, "I tell them to get out their calculators and do some sums. In 30 years the world's population has probably doubled and due to automation the number of worldwide jobs has probably halved. Those who had permanent employment in the 1970s and 1980s are likely to still have permanent employment. And, because people are living longer -- thanks to better nutrition and medical attention -- people are also staying longer in jobs. Throw globalization into this equation and you have millions rather than hundreds of competitors for jobs. Consequently, the job situation is bleak and getting bleaker for all people, but especially graduates."

Except for the lucky few young graduates who are able to score one of the highly prized entry-level positions in the field of their choice, Jenny accepts that the only jobs that are available out there, for young and not-so-young graduates, are positions that do not require qualifications.

"I’ve gotten real about the 21st century job-market," says Jenny. "An education no longer confers upon you the prestige it once did, and being a job snob gets you nowhere. My advice to all young people is to study for fun, not in expectation of gaining a prestigious and highly paid job."

Jenny has come across taxi drivers with a Ph.D. and receptionists with a Masters degree. They were quite happy.

"Basically," says Jenny, "if a job is supportive of your happiness, wellbeing and human rights then I feel there’s nothing degrading about accepting a position for which your educational qualifications are irrelevant. But it's really sad that so many young people have studied hard hoping to get a good job, and end up in dead end jobs like the one I've got."

"The worst possible scenario for the future," says Jenny, "and one that isn’t so farfetched, would be people having to buy jobs."

"If companies like McDonalds start selecting staff on the basis of their educational qualifications, then one day we’re going to need a Ph.D. to serve fries." laughs Jenny, "and failing a Ph.D. we’ll be buying a job like that!"

when opportunity knocks, be pro-active

Serena, 24, grew up watching her parents and their friends being hired and fired at whim and, as a result, her memory bank was etched with the simple fact that when a manager or boss wants to get rid of you then he or she will do so, no matter how good your work and behavior – so, when an opportunity to move up in her company arose she went for it, knowing that survival depends upon being pro-active.

“Despite being told at the interview stage that promotions are normal after you’ve been with the company for twelve months,” explains Serena, “I just went for it and got the new position.”

"The mistake many girls make when they've found their perfect job," says Serena, "is to relax and enjoy it - even to the extent of committing to financial obligations on the strength that the job is going to be lasting.”

"Becoming comfortable in a job leads to becoming emotionally attached to what you're doing and becoming vulnerable to change," says Serena. "I aim on being versatile, learning new skills, keeping up to date, embracing change and growing as fast as I can!"

"I know that I’d probably have a lot more job security if I stayed at the bottom of the food chain," says Serena, "but not necessarily so. No job is secure. I didn’t want to stay too long anywhere. I didn’t want to be a sitting duck. I wanted to move so fast that nobody could shoot me down.”

“I wanted to move so fast that nobody would become tired of my face,” says Serena, “I don't just want to survive at work, I want to thrive!”

Read more by Serena:

Find a ladder to climb!

don't be a sitting duck

deal with workplace change

pay secrecy

Jessie is in her first job and while she would never refuse a good job with prospects because it was low paying, she is very upset to learn that she is being paid lower than team members doing similar work and she is especially upset because some of these people lack her educational qualifications.

"Sometimes," says Jessie, "you can be in a job for months if not years before you discover that a team member is earning more than you are and when all things are equal - which they mostly are - you wonder why management allows this unfairness to happen."

How Jessie discovered she was earning less pay than a team member is one of those grey areas that we all wonder about. She didn’t go looking for evidence. She had no idea she was receiving less pay until Fate stepped in her path.

"I accessed the other guy's personal folder on the network to get a document I needed and saw a sub-folder called 'pay slips', explains Jessie. "Okay, it was probably not the right thing to do but it was on a team network, the personal folder was not locked and it contained many documents that needed to be shared."

Jessie felt that something as personal as pay slips shouldn't be on a network shared by all, so she felt that it had fallen into her hands for a reason and sure enough it had!

The other guy was earning $5K more than she was and she was understandably furious because he had no educational qualifications and had started about the same time as she had.

Jessie is aware that when people start jobs there is sometimes a weird clause in their contract stating words to the effect that you are not to discuss your salary with team members.

This is obviously a situation where team members are going to be earning more, or less, than their colleagues doing similar work, and in Jessie’s book of ethics it is a nasty practice.

"I would not have accepted the job had this sort of thing been in my contract," says Jessie.

"I am aware, too, that at interviews some employers will sometimes ask outright: 'What are your salary expectations?' They are perfectly aware of the going rate for your skills, and so are you, and when this happened to me when I was job hunting I refused to play their game."

"I told them that I expect to be paid a salary commensurate with that paid to other members of the team," says Jessie. "In doing so, I made it plain to them that I expect no more or no less than others doing similar work. Also, I am encouraging the employer to be ethical."

To Jessie, companies that enforce 'salary secrecy' clauses in contracts are dividing and conquering the team. Such clauses drive a wedge between team members, negating the whole purpose of putting people in teams.

"I believe in equal pay for equal work, and I do not believe it is ethical for companies to pay workers more, or less, than their colleagues doing equal work depending upon how assertive they are at interviews."

"I believe that people who have spent four year at university gaining qualifications deserve more pay than people who haven't," says Jessie. "But when the work is equal - as in my case - it didn't matter. I was simply angry and humiliated that I was getting less."

At her present workplace, Jessie did not go through that "What are your salary expectations?" question at the interview. The salary for the job was included in the advertisement. It was fixed, and Jessie accepted it as a fair salary.

The guy who was earning more than she was had started on the team a few months earlier, so either he had asked for a higher salary at the interview or it was offered to him.

"No job gets downgraded $5K in three months," says Jessie. "Something very wrong was going on here."

As Jessie points out, workplaces are where you make lifelong friends. You often spend more time with your team than you do your family, and good relations with them are thus imperative.

"If you discover you are earning more than a team member doing equal work," says Jessie, "you may be pleased but you will also feel uneasy wondering whether someone else in the team gets more than you do!"

It is not a good situation to be in. And a far worse situation would be discovering, as Jessie did, that you are earning less than a team member.

Jessie has now been placed in a tricky situation.

If she complains about receiving $5K less than her team member, she will have to admit that she looked at his private file. She does not feel happy about making this admission - but by the same token she feels that she was given the opportunity to look at his personal file for a reason.

That reason, Jessie feels, is to assess whether she wants to stay in her present job knowing that her employer is guilty of treating her unfairly.

Jessie can ask for a $5K raise without mentioning her team member’s salary, or she can look for another job.

"Funny thing," sighs Jessie, "I was perfectly happy with my salary before I discovered I was being paid less than someone else."

working with educated clods

The first thing Magda noticed when she started university - and then went on to higher education before starting work with an international financial organization - is that the ability to gain a university education does not necessarily mean you've got a high IQ.

"Let's face it," laughs Magda, "the majority of people have an average IQ of about 100, and that's just about the norm for university students, too."

"A popular misconception is that if you gain a place at university - and graduate with some sort of degree - you must be pretty smart, smarter than the average guy," says Magda, "but this isn't true at all. Nothing could be further from the truth!"

"It's probably true of rocket science courses that students will be endowed with high IQ," laughs Magda, "but for the majority of courses, an average IQ is all that's required."

"IQ tests incorporate with basic language, memory and arithmetical skills some pretty high level skills in reasoning," explains Madga, "and it is this type of reasoning skill that differentiates a Darwinist from a Creationist, a pacifist from a warmonger and a genius from a clod."

"People with high IQ are able to see things that ordinary people cannot see," explains Magda. "They don't have closed minds. They see all angles. They see all possibilities. They are open to new ideas, new paradigms and new ways of doing things."

"This was the sort of company I expected to be keeping at university," laughs Madga, "but instead I found myself with a bunch of clods - and now that I've started work I'm with a bigger bunch of clods. All educated, just like me, but clods nevertheless."

"Don't get me wrong," adds Magda. "These guys don't look like or act like what you'd expect clods to look or act like."

"They're good looking, athletic and street smart."

"They're clods because they have closed minds. They are one-eyed. They don't see all angles. They don't see all possibilities. They aren't open to new ideas, new paradigms and new ways of doing things."

"In effect, they're good looking, athletic and street smart clods - they know how to pass exams and how to hustle, but they don't know how to think for themselves."

"I'd say that the highest IQ of the students in my class - and the graduates where I work - is about 104," sighs Magda. "My own IQ is about 130, but I keep quiet about that because my employer isn't interested in hiring innovative and thinking people."

"Why?" laughs Magda. "Well, people like me are likely to rock the boat, ask questions and refuse to do work that compromises integrity. Employers want sheep around them, yes men and women motivated by personal greed. They don't want people capable of pointing out the Emperor's clothes."

"I'm working in the finance industry - no brains required - and it's a given in the world of money that the people in it are only interested in personal gain and personal shows of wealth."

"Well, that sort of thinking doesn't define me and I'm looking at my present job as a stepping stone to working for the United Nations where I can make a difference in the world."

"I believe that people with a high IQ are more likely to be poor than wealthy," laughs Magda, "and that fact in itself shows just how smart these people really are!"

"When I see someone dripping with diamonds I think IQ of about 80," says Magda, "and when I see someone building a mud brick home I think IQ of about 140. Anyone can acquire diamonds but only a genius is capable of building a mud brick home. And only someone with a high IQ is capable of discerning the difference."

"All of which brings me back to my initial point," laughs Magda. "A degree is no more an indication of IQ than a driving license is."

"I think it's a shame that our universities are dumbing down because people with education usually end up in positions of power - affecting huge number of people," says Madga. "If these people don't have the ability to see all angles and reason things out logically then God help us all."