Young people in line for good degrees from good Russell Group universities, who have for years obediently jumped through every hoop provided, are working in bars, going travelling, or despondently applying to companies that they know use AI not only to sift their CVs, but sometimes to conduct first interviews.Meanwhile LinkedIn – and yes, students have all been on LinkedIn for years – only feeds the gnawing fear that other people seemingly have their futures much more sorted, just as Instagram used to feed their teenage anxieties about who was going to all the parties.
Oh, weep! Weep for the students!
Last year’s Institute of Student Employers recruitment survey recorded a ratio of 140 applications for every graduate job. Part of the reason for that deluge of applicants is perhaps because kids who suspect their forms won’t be read by humans anyway are using ChatGPT to fill in and fire them off en masse, to the point where AI is in effect talking to AI.
Well, the way things are going that’s a good grounding for the future work they will be taking up!
It’s the betrayal that hurts. We drilled it into them that if they worked hard at school and made it into university then the world could be their oyster, but our stagnant economy just hasn’t generated enough graduate-level jobs to match – especially outside London, where we have simultaneously managed to ensure most of them can’t actually afford to live.
Well, the ones that saw this coming and took up a trade instead of a useless degree in grievance studies are earning a good living now. They were smart enough not to believe the hype.
We can’t keep doing this to young people and then be surprised when they’re angry. If we keep whipping them through the education system on the promise their efforts will be rewarded, and then fail to deliver, sooner or later, the consequences will boomerang back on us.
What consequences will those be? More overqualified baristas in Starbucks?