Making a start - can we afford to do it?

libertino

My girlfriend's got experience waitressing, I've got experience at media/website type things and good references, so we should both be able to find SOMETHING, so might be a good idea to move to Manchester and hope we'll be able to find jobs, temporary or otherwise. Maybe it's worth getting to know the area, the industries, getting some experience, and earning enough to pay the bills, then we'll be able to apply for next year's graduate jobs, with our degree classification in hand rather than a predicted grade.

It would be a bit of a gamble and we might make a short term loss, but hopefully in the long term it would be worth it.

Thanks for all of your advice. If anyone can recommend where to look for graduate schemes, internships, jobs etc. that would be appreciated!

Sarahpuggy

Hi,

I just graduated from Lincoln uni last June, and I'm from Grimsby originally (not too far from Hull).

Anyway, a week after finishing uni i moved straight to London!

Dont always believe that you cant apply for jobs before you've finished. I applied for the job i have now last April, and told them i couldn't start work til June 5th, and they gave me the job! They waited 8 weeks for me to finish uni, so it can be done. Im now working as a fashion buyer, its great!

I would definately recommend moving to a big city, just take the leap forward. Especially after living somewhere like Lincoln for so long, it is really exciting.

Graduate schemes can be great, but they are extremely competitive, as practically every graduate in the country with a decent degree will be applying to some for of graduate scheme, so dont put all your eggs in one basket so to speak. I got a 1st class degree, applies for quite a few grad scheme, but didn;t hear back from alot of them, and the ones that did want to interview me got in touch after i had already become employed.

Just to give you an idea of the costs involved. I am earning a typical graduate salary (16.5k) and pay about £300 in tax and national insurance a month, and £11 a month student loan. So take home pay £1070 a month. My boyfriend and I share a one bed flat in SW London for £700 a month (we've furnished it ourselves), and the council tax is £128 a month. So it does all add up, but we pay everything and still manage to have a great social life, treats and stuff..

I say go for it! I;ve had lots of friends go back home, doing awful jobs that they really hate but they are kind of stuck there now, because once you get out of the cycle of being really enthusiastic about your subject/finding employment etc, it can become really depressing.

Oh, good site for graduate jobs:

http://www.arts.ac.uk/student/careers/1759.htm

(mixture of design, media sort of jobs, but its good for making contacts)

Good Luck!

sandieb

Are you within commuting distance of Manchester - you may have said? In which case you wouldn't need to move there immediately.

The moving in with parents does seem a backward step - however if you set yourself a time limit - say 3 months then you can save and still have a definite forward plan in mind.

I've only visited Manchester a couple of times but just love it!

Follow your heart and your dreams. Have faith and they will work out (although not always as quickly as you might like)

Good luck!

ftbworried

The BBC's move to Salford Quays might be just up your street! Also you have Granada TV (they make Corrie) here too so plenty of media scope I think.

libertino wrote:

I know what you mean about wasting rent on something you will never own, but can't it work out less financially effective to be paying more interest on a mortgage? (I'm sure Martin MSE's got guides for me to read about this!)

Well the total interest payable over 25 years on our mortgage is £125,000. If you consider that it would cost £8400 to rent this house per year (£700 a month) then the rent = 15 years interest, of course- saving an equivalent of 10 years rent (and then we wont pay rent for the rest of our lives either once the 25 years is up). This is not even taking into any rise in rent due to inflation over the 15 years. Of course, there were other reasons to buy such as security (not being chucked out every 6 months) and independance (we can have a pet dog if we so wish). There is no point in buying until you are certain about a) each other or b) the location anyway.

libertino

We're not within commuting distance of Manchester. The worry would be moving there without financial security, or only managing to get dead end jobs we don't enjoy (how many temping jobs can you do before you wonder where it's all going?). I think we need to find jobs we want to do, so we're going to the careers service next week to get help. Problem with most of the graduate jobs we've found so far is that they don't specify where they're based, or you don't get to choose where.

sarahpuggy: We're just as desperate to get out of Lincoln as I'm sure you were! It's perfect for first years, moving away from home for the first time, but after that you want something more. So yeah, we're really excited about moving to a bigger city, if we can afford to. How 'typical' is £16.5k for a graduate salary? Is that just for graduate schemes, or just how much people earn on average after graduating no matter what route of employment?

ftb: The BBC move, and all the other media companies that will follow, will be great if we're to follow our degree into the media industry. Not certain if we are. But it will be good to be already based in Manchester when everything starts opening up in coming years.

LondonDiva

It is very unusual to leave uni and walk into your dream job. As you have no debtys etc at the moment, I'd reccommend you up sticks and take temp jobs while applying for jobs or better still try to temp with agencies that supply companies you're interested in.

Almost all my mates & I got our first jobs through temping. If you can hadle windows software and even better have the bonus of other software and can type, you'll have a steady stream of work.

1, you'll get experience
2, you'll see if you do want to work in that environment
3, if you're good you'll be asked back / for or they'll keep finding things for you to do or they can give you pointers on how to get on.

libertino

Interesting that you got permanent jobs as a result of temping jobs. Was the permanent job you got 'more of the same'? eg. you did filing while temping, then got a permanent office job? Or you did filing while temping for, say a radio station, then when a more broadcast-orientated job opened up the station gave you a chance because they got to know you from when you temped filing for them? (I used radio as an example because that's what we like, apply it to whatever profession you're in! eg. office work for a clothes company led on to being a fashion buyer?)

libertino

We went to the careers service today. Came out very positive. We seem to have been doing everything the nice lady suggested, but it's good to have been told that we're doing it right and that we should keep it up. Got some other bits of advice and ideas too so we're happy about how we're going about things. It seemed like we're a lot more clued up on what websites we should be visiting etc. than most helpless folk that go to use the service.

skintas_2

good luck with the job hunt, i was looking for work for 4 months before i got a job. people i work with are just outta uni or got loads of qualifications and cant get a job themselves. the work is only temping too, i live in london

libertino

We hope that work, even just temping or low paid stuff, will be fairly easy to come by as soon as we get there (while we continue to look for jobs in the industries we're more interested in). That's why we're not keen on moving to London, at least not for a few years, as we'd only go if we're able to secure well paid jobs there.