Stop-gap jobS 25
well-being, and these results told the same
story; you’re happier, healthier and more
positive if you’re in a job related to your
Should I
career plans.
stay or
“So what”, you might say, “isn’t this just a
statement of the obvious?” For Professor
Cassidy however, his survey contains an
should I
important message for new graduates:
“Everyone knows it can be tough getting
the job you want after leaving university,”
go now?
he says, “but this research shows for the
first time how tough it actually is and what
the risks are. Stop-gap jobs sap your self-
belief. Graduates who are forced into this
position can easily lose their motivation. As
a result they stop sending out application
forms and end up settling for the negative
situation they find themselves in.
“Staying in an
unrewarding
stop-gap job
A stop-gap job may help bring in some
can have a huge
much-needed cash after your course
detrimental
has finished, but what are the downfalls
effect on
to staying in such a role? David Williams
motivational
levels”
assesses the impact of the filler job
“But if you know it’s going to happen,
Get a job, any job. That’s always been The research was lead by Professor Tony you can take steps to avoid it. Final year
the conventional wisdom. “You’ll impress Cassidy of the School of Psychology at students should develop contacts with
employers,” say some; “It’s much easier to the University of Ulster. He found that both tutors so that they have someone to help
get a job when you’re in a job,” say others. unemployment and stop-gap jobs have guide them; new graduates should realise
But what the advice givers won’t have “deleterious effects on both psychological that they can still use their university
taken into account is that staying in an and physical health.” careers service.
unrewarding stop-gap job can have a huge
detrimental effect on motivational levels as The study followed 248 recent graduates “And, perhaps more than anything, those
well as on general well being. So much so from their final year to up to twelve of you who have to take a stop-gap job
that, unless you watch yourself, that stop- months after graduation. It showed that should understand that it can take a
gap job could easily turn into a permanent seven out of ten unemployed graduates number of steps to reach your career
one because you may begin to lose the and three out of ten stop-gap graduates goal, so try to guard yourself against
energy to move on. experienced ‘clinical levels of distress’ – becoming downhearted if you seem to be
that is distress that was severe enough for going backwards.”
The trouble with much careers advice is medication or counselling. In comparison,
that a lot of it is based on unresearched among those graduates fortunate The biggest danger of all, is simply settling
assumptions about what the best thing to enough to be in a job related to their for what you’ve got too soon.
do is. Now however, a leading psychologist career ambitions (about twenty per cent
has looked into the effects of taking a of the sample), only one in twenty was
stop-gap job as compared to remaining experiencing this level of distress.
David Williams is a journalist involved in
unemployed or getting a job that is related
the student and graduate industries.
to your career plans. Hold on to your hat
For more information visit
Apart from psychological distress, the
www.dwill.co.uk
though – it makes pretty grim reading. survey measured several other aspects of
GradJobs Magazine | Winter 08-09
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