I am a fresh grad, but similar to most of my friends, I am unable to secure a job in this COVID situation. What can I do? Should I take up an internship or are there better ways?

Hi Anon,

What a difficult time to be in as a fresh grad amidst all these uncertainty.

If you’ve been actively applying for full-time roles but still unsuccessful, there are a few routes to go about:

1. Apply for apprenticeships or traineeships

Following the latest Fortitude Budget, the Government has a new $2 billion package to create 40,000 jobs, 25,000 traineeships and 30,000 skills training opportunities. The monetary support given by the Government will be able to provide some financial support for companies or businesses looking to employ fresh graduates through traineeships or apprenticeships.

2. Take up internships

Understand that your family’s income is struggling and you were hoping to help chip in after graduation. Fresh graduates taking up internship roles after graduation isn’t something new. And unfortunately it seems highly likely that more fresh grads will be forced to do so during a trying time like COVID-19 with a lack of employment opportunities. If you are really struggling to find a full-time job or apprenticeship/traineeship, consider internships. While the pay will not be as much as you would have with a full-time job or apprenticeship/traineeship, having a monthly income from an internship is better than having none. Plus, if you are a good fit and your employer likes your performance, there is also the possibility of getting converted into full-time afterwards.

3. Part-time jobs for now

This is not a long-term solution but consider earning some cash from part-time gigs now while you’re still looking for a job. This goes back to your need to help the family finances out.

All the best!

Hey Anon!

If there are internships available, I would say that there is no harm taking it up! Even before COVID-19 happened, I have a few friends who managed to secure their full time jobs after taking up internships because the company valued their contributions and in turn offered a full time job to them. Even if it is in a new sector that you are unfamiliar with or something that may not be your interest as of now, take the internship as a learning opportunity and find out more about the industry/workplace that you are in - perhaps you could even be interested after you find out more!

Besides internships, there are also graduate apprenticeships or training programmes offered by companies. Although the pay may not be high, these programmes will be able to provide you with several soft skills and hard skills that could benefit you in your career.

Lastly, THE FORTITUDE BUDGET! The government recently announced the opening of 40,000 jobs, as well as 25,000 traineeships for individuals to learn new skills and embark on new careers. With more salary subsidies for employers, the government has helped to ease the situation for the country and make it easier for individuals to reskill and upgrade themselves.

Equip yourself with more skills and show that you can make valuable contributions to a company. Or you could see it as - make employers want you! Hope this helps and never give up!!

Hi ,

would be best to get into internship instead of wait ..since you just graduated... its impt to know abt the prospect of the company and understand things from the very bottom in order to outperform your peers later on .. press on and wish u luck

Hi there,

My advice is to understand truthfully where your real value lies and what are the risks you can afford to take to show that value.

Coming fresh out of school in your 20s, your resume may look pretty clean unless you've already been focused on working on the right projects during internships or through case competitions, measuring results, and having that on your portfolio.

If you're the latter, good news, keep applying and refining your portfolio. It's now a numbers game and there will be a company out there who is looking for contract employees or freelancers in the worst case. If those opportunities come, my advice is to grab them and use them to keep your portfolio nice and warm with new projects that you can continually use to experiment and hone the way you think.

If you are starting fresh with no relevant projects or experiences, you need to dig deep into your own personal projects you've done for FUN outside of work. It doesn't have to be something crazy, but it should be something you're passionate about, that you can reflect on and distill what you've learned. These should be realistic lessons that can be applied to the job you're applying for and I recommend against big "stretches" in imagination of how what you've learned can be applied. Most hiring managers can tell when fresh graduates are stretching the truth if not from the CV, at least from the interview process.

If you haven't done this before or have nothing relevant, you may wish to seek mentorship during this time from someone with the right experience in what you hope to do in a full-time role. If you're someone with the right attitude, mentors can link you up projects that may be pro-bono/non-profit within a community that needs volunteers, or with contract or freelance work.

Personally, my approach when I graduated from poly, the job market was bad and I had a really unimpressive GPA. I just took any role I could find even in a small company and I tried to show even in an administrative role how I could also do marketing, operations, customer service, etc. To be fair, this was a risk I could afford as:

(a) I was not supporting my family financially apart from small allowances to my parents

(b) I did not have student loans (as I did not take one to pursue a private degree)

(c) I was living on my own and needed to focus on supporting myself instead

This helped me gain some knowledge in a real work environment, get paid a low salary that covered basic needs, and kept my creative mind active. To this day, that 1.5 years set some foundations for me in terms of how to handle people, understand their concerns, and find solutions with very little resource or support. This adaptability is something that you get used to when putting yourself in less favorable situations.

Wishing you all the best and feel free to reach out personally on LinkedIn if you need more help and guidance.