Just fiinished degree in English and History, good places to look for full time work

WoollyRedHat

Want to start applying for jobs for september full time, but don't know what companies I should be looking at.

What are some good sectors/ companies that I could apply for. Don't know where to start. Have applied to aldi, lidl and some banks so far. Don't care what it is really, except maybe not clothes retail.

Mrs OBumble

What do you want to work at? Knowing that will help us suggest companies.

cloudatlas

www.prospects.ac.uk/options_history.htm

www.prospects.ac.uk/options_english.htm

WoollyRedHat

Dont care where really, so long as its not fashion retail, doesn't have to be related to my degree per se, but kinda helps I guess having it on resume.

Just want to work full time for a couple of months, till around end of May maybe, as I am hoping to do diploma in Event Management after next summer. So something full time but temporary, not really looking for a long term thing unless I could get an opportunity to progress in he company.

So supermarkets, shop retail, hotels, banks, insurance, anything like that at all. Even cinemas, not extremely picky, but would like it to not be too monotomous considering I'll be aiming to do 40 hours a week in it. Admin/Customer service I'd be open to, presuming thats the type of role I could get it was to work in a bank or other office job.

Places like Lidl and Aldi appeal because there is room to progress in it. It's just finding places that will hire me off the back of my degree and with retail and customer experience also.

If it had to be something closely related to what I've studied, skills I've learnt, I'd be interested in getting involved in the travel/tourism industry. I like to be creative and contribute new ideas as well.

So really anything and everything except retail clothes shops. Don't care if it's public sector or private.

Cheers.

Mr. Loverman

Teach English in China. Easy money, you'll have fun, you'll come home with some money.

Ray Palmer

You spent years working for your degree and you want to work minimum wage jobs? The mind boggles.

If you want to do event management why not get something doing that or at least related? Organise a night in a nightclub or day time concert. Maybe contact wedding planners etc...

Personally the idea of working in event management would be hell from my experience working in venues and knowing people who did such work. Very erratic work and pay.

Aglomerado

Civil Service CO jobs
Closes tomorrow though!

Tarzana

Would you consider a masters or pg dip in a field you are interested in, OP? Most arts graduate do tend to need to do some further study to secure employment.

Occono

I'm also an English and History graduate. I can't afford Postgrad though....I was entirely dependant on grants for Undergrad, which doesn't give maintenance for Postgrad. Believe me I knew I picked a bad degree for getting a career years ago but I couldn't change it and I don't think I'm cut out for Engineering, which is apparently 90% of the jobs in Limerick. So I'm graduating with a 2.2 four-year BA degree and looking for minimum wage jobs, yes.

The_Conductor

Aglomerado wrote: »

Civil Service CO jobs
Closes tomorrow though!

+1

Get your skates on and get an application in.......

Aglomerado

The_Conductor wrote: »

+1

Get your skates on and get an application in.......

Register on the site at least. There are rumours afoot of an EO competition in the not too distant future.

InReality

I thought you could get a grant for a 1 post grad course - if you had a grant for 1st degree ..

Occono

InReality wrote: »

I thought you could get a grant for a 1 post grad course - if you had a grant for 1st degree ..

You can, but you don't get maintenance funding like you do in Undergrad. I may eventually go for it but I can't afford to pay for my expenses by myself yet.

playedalive

I'm an Arts Graduate myself in languages and I've just finished a small part of a year post-graduation in Retail (Dunnes) and the rest unemployed. With Retail, you'd be lucky to get a 3-6 month flexi-time contract with good hours here in Ireland. I am finishing my 3 months. Good hours being 18-20 hours at a push a week. As a poster mentioned, it is a shame to be looking for this work especially having done a college degree (and I've been told that a million times in work and outside work). Particularly my field (languages) which, in theory, should get me into a multilingual job. Yet I'm consistently told I don't have a business/ marketing/ I.T. qualification to compliment it, or that my language degree doesn't prove fluency (which is kinda true considering I mostly studied old literature with little contact hours with the communicative aspect of my languages- obviously didn't know that before starting). All this transferable skills BS they tell you is BS, imo.

If you're looking to stay in Ireland. I would have a look at the banks. BOI is known for having Temp Banking Assistant jobs that come up around August/September. Retail can be good too and I did notice in Dunnes that people who started say September were usually kept on from then until after Christmas and called back. So you could be lucky. But, Retail can be brutally demoralising.

After this year of Unemployment/Retail, I'm moving to France at the end of September to be a Language Assistant in the French school system. After realising the hard way that it's either Emigration or Education (and I don't want to do a postgrad for the sake of keeping occupied for a year in something not well thought out for a small fortune with no idea what to do with it).

Another poster mentioned TEFL. This is the classic Arts grad first career option. I did a TEFL course, the accredited ones by the Department of Education. You really do hear people make it out to be quite an easy job. Of course, if you have a great personality and are good with people, it does help. But things like teaching grammar and explaining how your language works takes a long time to master. And it's the struggle that no TEFL course can thoroughly prepare you for. I was a teacher in some of the schools here in Dublin and I was under a lot of pressure from not having a lot of experience to being rusty on how grammar works and presenting it to students. And when students are paying good money to have you teach them English, you're going to be met with a lot of hostility, people questioning your methods, your knowledge of grammar and they don't care if you really are trying, particularly if you're dealing with mixed ability classes. I'm currently teaching myself English grammar (using an actual student learner book ) to be on my game once I head for France.
Also it's worth mentioning that TEFL generally in Europe is not well paid and working conditions/contracts don't really exist. It's all about demand. I found that for the hassle I was getting in TEFL in Dublin between preparing lessons and, I was just better off working in Retail., But maybe TEFL can be better in Asia, where sometimes being a white native is enough. But I personally would try to learn how English works if you're gonna be teaching people.

I'm sorry if I'm very pessimistic/realistic. But I thought my insights might prove to be food for thought.

Ray Palmer

I kind of find it funny that people who do arts degrees seem to be completely unaware of the possibilities of jobs from their degrees. I studied an engineering and was fully aware of the potential employment afterwards and possible post grads to go another way.
I was fully aware form at least 16 that an arts degree was not much use. How somebody 25 years later didn't get this is a mystery to me. I am sure people love the studying and that is fine if you want to do that but most people need to work at some point.
What is even weirder was the air of superiority from people studying this at the time. I distinctly remember being looked down on by a group of trinity art students when I told them I was in DIT studying civil engineering.(Not saying the people here are like that). I have had the last laugh as I know one of them works in Ikea and another is working in McDonald's fulfilling the oldest cliché there is.

When I was in college I had 40 hours of lectures and at least 20 hours of college work every week so I was doing more work in college than you do in an arts degree. All degrees are not equal for the effort.

playedalive

Ray Palmer wrote: »

I was fully aware form at least 16 that an arts degree was not much use. How somebody 25 years later didn't get this is a mystery to me.

Well obviously you had a great head on your shoulders at a very young age :P. I was so naive when I was 17 and 18 and so directionless/low in confidence that studying an area I liked and was good at (languages) was supposedly a good idea. Though, as the course went on, it was just studying literature through English and it was boring. I don't regret my college experience as I think it taught me a lot about life and helped me to grow up a lot. But sometimes I just wished I studied Business and a Language.

Ray Palmer wrote: »

What is even weirder was the air of superiority from people studying this at the time. I distinctly remember being looked down on by a group of trinity art students when I told them I was in DIT studying civil engineering..

As an ex Trinity student, I'm sorry you dealt with that crap. While it can be a weird social place at times, and there can be a lot of people that think they're better than everyone else and show it, some of us are just trying to enjoy life and get through this confusing world.

Occono

My parents have never worked. I didn't have much of a clue about anything when I was 16.

I couldn't afford to start from the beginning in a new course after starting, I did realize I wouldn't have good career prospects. Also I didn't have the points on my leaving certificate.

Also, you complain that arts students were condescending to you, than you end on saying Engineering students have it harder than mere Arts students and they should realize that?

jjnaas

I'm the oldest grandchild on both sides and the first person to go to college. Parents/anties/uncles are factory workers, cleaners, bricklayers etc.. and I had no career guidance at school so at 16 I had never heard of anything as fancy as civil engineers let alone know what they did! And had nobody to ask either.

I got 500+ points but picked arts because I recognised the subjects as ones we had in school and liked them. Wasn't till I got out in the world that I learned the range of jobs and started to understand how college courses can be applied in the real world.

Ah well. Still wouldn't change a thing though. I missed out on graduating into a reliable sector and getting a 'good job' out the gate. I've also gained a lot too. The lean times, the interviews, contract jobs, 12 'first days at work', 12 different managers, the emotional roller coaster ...have all made me a better man. I've learned so much about myself that I might have missed had I taken the motorway to a career. I'm taking the back roads- bends, potholes galore but I know I'll get there someday. Wherever that is.

Occono

jjnaas wrote: »

I'm the oldest grandchild on both sides and the first person to go to college. Parents/anties/uncles are factory workers, cleaners, bricklayers etc.. and I had no career guidance at school so at 16 I had never heard of anything as fancy as civil engineers let alone know what they did! And had nobody to ask either.

I got 500+ points but picked arts because I recognised the subjects as ones we had in school and liked them. Wasn't till I got out in the world that I learned the range of jobs and started to understand how college courses can be applied in the real world.

Ah well. Still wouldn't change a thing though. I missed out on graduating into a reliable sector and getting a 'good job' out the gate. I've also gained a lot too. The lean times, the interviews, contract jobs, 12 'first days at work', 12 different managers, the emotional roller coaster ...have all made me a better man. I've learned so much about myself that I might have missed had I taken the motorway to a career. I'm taking the back roads- bends, potholes galore but I know I'll get there someday. Wherever that is.

Same here, first in my family to attend third level education.

Thingwall104

Thread is a bit old now, but thought I'd add my experience anyway.

I also got 500+ points in the LC and went onto do a BA in languages which was 360 points at the time, and while I'm not the first person in my family to go to college, both my parents have worked as teachers all their lives and pushed me in that direction. I had really no idea what other job opportunities were out there.

As I got more experienced about the world, I learned that language skills on their own are not the door to success I had hoped they might be, given the predominance of English. I thought I was learning really useful skills that companies would need. Now that's true to an extent, but these days they tend to just hire French people, or Germans or Spaniards directly from those countries and bring them to Ireland. Businesses generally want some kind of business qualification in addition to languages.

Now I've actually done reasonably well since graduating. I did a bit of TEFL in Germany, where I found it to be a cowboy operation, worked in a call centre for a multinational for a while, then I did a masters in translation, which landed me an internship and job.

I still think I'm going to have to change jobs a couple more times. If you have no insight into the business world when you're in school or if you don't have the confidence to go for it at 17, then you're not always going to end up picking the best career option.

If I had my time again, I think I'd have done European Studies, as modules like "intercultural learning" and "modernity in 19th century French literature", while they may be useful if you want to have interesting conversations, are not necessarily going to get you a job.

playedalive

Thingwall104 wrote: »

Thread is a bit old now, but thought I'd add my experience anyway.

I also got 500+ points in the LC and went onto do a BA in languages which was 360 points at the time, and while I'm not the first person in my family to go to college, both my parents have worked as teachers all their lives and pushed me in that direction. I had really no idea what other job opportunities were out there.

As I got more experienced about the world, I learned that language skills on their own are not the door to success I had hoped they might be, given the predominance of English. I thought I was learning really useful skills that companies would need. Now that's true to an extent, but these days they tend to just hire French people, or Germans or Spaniards directly from those countries and bring them to Ireland. Businesses generally want some kind of business qualification in addition to languages.

Now I've actually done reasonably well since graduating. I did a bit of TEFL in Germany, where I found it to be a cowboy operation, worked in a call centre for a multinational for a while, then I did a masters in translation, which landed me an internship and job.

I still think I'm going to have to change jobs a couple more times. If you have no insight into the business world when you're in school or if you don't have the confidence to go for it at 17, then you're not always going to end up picking the best career option.

If I had my time again, I think I'd have done European Studies, as modules like "intercultural learning" and "modernity in 19th century French literature", while they may be useful if you want to have interesting conversations, are not necessarily going to get you a job.

On the money there.

I did a languages degree and, unfortunately, I haven't had much luck using my degree for the workplace. They are useful, personally speaking, but not on their own. Languages were all I liked and did well in in school, so I always went that way and ended up with a degree in them.Since graduation, The only work I have been getting is retail work. I have tried TEFL here in Dublin, but it really is, imo, a job with little security and bad conditions. I think it's a slightly better job if you go abroad and want to travel . I'm moving to France in a week to teach English, but I'm thinking of doing a postgrad conversion into Tourism when I get back. Need that something extra.

Thingwall104

I think having a post-graduate qualification is a great asset if you do have languages.

I should say, by no means are language skills useless, and I do think there are businesses that recruit solely on that basis. While the predominance of English has meant that monolingual English speakers don't necessarily need to invest in interpreters or translators or make the effort to gain competence in another language, conversely, English speakers who do spend time acquiring such skills are in shorter supply, so there is an upside to it as well.

The one good thing about Irish/British/American/Anglo-Saxon/whatever you want to call it/ business is that they are often open to taking a chance on people who don't necessarily tick all the boxes in terms of formal qualifications. This contrasts sharply to my experience in Germany where if you do not have the specific qualifications they're looking for, they're often reluctant to take a chance on you.

That's why I ended up doing TEFL when I went there after my BA. I was hoping to get maybe an office job where I could use the advantage of being an English speaker who spoke okay German, with a view to speaking better German over time. I went to the jobs centre there and was advised to look for work in bars and restaurants, which was a bit disheartening - nothing against bar or restaurant workers, I was simply hoping that I might be able to do something with the degree I had worked for for four years.

I suppose at the end of the day, things aren't all that bad, even if, in retrospect, I can think of a few things which I could have done differently and which would have opened up a few more doors, but there's no point in crying over spilled milk.

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

Thingwall104

Draiochtanois' post has just reminded me that I'd gone off on a bit of a tangent on the languages thing whereas the OP had done English and History.

I would also echoe what draiochtanois says. From my own experience working in the call centre of a multinational, a lot of the people there had done generalist arts degrees, or totally unrelated degrees and diplomas such as tourism or communication or whatever. The companies recruit them en masse, train them in and then promote/move them round as their skills/requirements demand. A lot of people I know who started, some of them who didn't have degrees, are now in junior management or in better paid more senior roles.

A lot of the multinationals will just look at your degree and say, this is a guy who can clearly work hard and has a brain, let's give him a chance and see what he can do for us.