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!"

good communication skills?

One would think that a hearing impaired person would have little difficulty finding appropriate employment, but Kaye, 23, is having a lot of trouble finding a job where her disability won't be a barrier.

"Hearing loss is an invisible disability and nobody but a perfectionist would pick up a difference in speech or communicative ability," explains Kaye, "yet when 99.9% of job advertisements insist upon good communication skills, a hearing impaired person is being unfairly discriminated against."

"Very often the jobs do not require anything more than the ability to say good-morning and goodnight," adds Kaye, "yet communication skills remain one of the top desired skills required by employers. Isn’t that crazy?"

"I wear a hearing aid and I can hear as well as a hearing person," says Kaye, "but apparently I can't speak as well as a hearing person because I wasn't taught to speak early enough."

"I think I sound OK and so do my family and friends," says Kaye, "but to everyone else I sound strange when I speak and this really upsets me."

According to Kaye, the most frequently used phrase in job ads is good communication skills.

"If it's not in the current job advertisement you are looking at, then they've forgotten to put it in," says Kaye.

“Either that, or you've hit upon a gem of a job that does not require you to answer telephones!”

What does the phrase mean?

Kaye was once told in confidence by a recruitment specialist that it is deliberately used in job advertisements because too many applications come from people who cannot speak English very well. In other words, it is designed to discriminate against foreigners.

However, Kaye believes that good communication skills simply means an ability to answer telephones, and because of her disability she feels that she is not the ideal applicant for this type of job.

"You don't expect a visually impaired person to be the ideal person to do proof-reading or editing," says Kaye, "and similarly a deaf person isn't the ideal person to do telephone work."

"Of course, an ability to speak clear English - or whatever language - is paramount in this type of job," says Kaye, "but if a job advertisement has good communication skills right up there with qualifications and experience, then no matter what they put for the title of the job the actual job is nothing more than a receptionist or a customer service representative."

”Also,” adds Kaye, “just about every job requires you to communicate with others but not everyone is a good communicator in that they can speak clearly, properly and intelligently."

"I have a communication disorder," says Kaye, "but being deaf doesn't make me stupid. I can communicate clearly, properly and intelligently. Once people get used to hearing my voice, they don't notice that I speak differently."

“I feel rotten when I see just about every job advertised as requiring good communication skills," says Kaye.

"I feel that as long as you can communicate - be it with spoken words, written words or hand gestures - and do it well, then you are a good communicator."

"The art of communication is to get your message across. If you can do that, then you have every right to apply for a job requiring good communication skills," says Kaye.

However, after several bad experiences Kaye prefers to avoid jobs that specify good communication skills.

"Sometimes when I telephone to enquire about a job the person at the end of the line is downright rude to me," says Kaye, "and sometimes when I make it to an interview I am treated very badly."

"I see no reason to state upfront that I am deaf," says Kaye.

"Why should I? Does a person with herpes feel that he or she should mention that fact at an interview? I don't think so!"

"What happens when people first hear me speak is that their eyebrows go up and they look at me quizzically, like I'm stupid or something," explains Kaye.

"My hair covers my hearing aid so they don't know I'm deaf."

"I want people to accept me as I am, not to pity me or drop me in a box to be treated differently to everyone else," adds Kaye. "So I deliberately hide my hearing aid."

"I don't hide it out of shame. I hide it to give people a chance to treat me normally."

"Unfortunately," says Kaye, "I've yet to meet anyone in my job hunting efforts who treats me like a normal person."

"Sometimes I feel that deaf children born into families who accept deafness and don't try to teach their children to speak are better off than those of us who went through the hoops in order to make us 'normal'."

"Sure, I appreciate that my parents were doing what they thought was best for me," adds Kaye, "and I love them to bits and I'm grateful for a loving home - but I'm not happy."

"I never learned how to sign," says Kaye, "so I can't communicate with deaf people who sign and they don't accept me either."

"I'm neither accepted in the hearing world nor in the signing world," sighs Kaye, "but I know which world I would prefer to be in had I been given a chance to be in it when I was young."