STEM-graduates also need an unemployment insurance fund
The media regularly reports on the shortage of technical and scientific profiles. But STEM-graduates can also become unemployed, and figures from Akademikernes A-kasse show that you can actually have a period of unemployment, even if on paper you have one of the programmes that companies are hungry for.
26 weeks unemployment period
2020 figures from Akademikernes A-kasse show that 21 per cent of newly graduated members with a science/technical education are unemployed 26 weeks after graduation. This may come as a surprise, as we typically hear about companies’ shortage of these profiles.
Tina Lynge Hein is a career consultant at Akademikernes A-kasse. She explains that both engineers and science graduates can sometimes take a while to enter the job market. However, the length of unemployment varies within the different professional fields.
»There are two reasons. 1) Companies often prefer a minimum of 2-3 years of experience, and 2) Many recent graduates can find it difficult to target and translate their competences into value creation for companies,« she says.
The career consultant believes that many graduates would benefit from highlighting their professional and personal competencies and especially their motivation for the specific tasks more in the dialogue with companies.
»Another challenge may be that some of the new graduates, who can see themselves in several different types of jobs, may signal that they just want to start somewhere – and this makes the companies insecure in relation to whether they are used as a stepping stone,« she explains.
According to Tina Lynge Hein, some recent graduates are not flexible enough at first. They aim to land a job in a well-known company or close to the big cities. However, it’s not always these companies who are most desperate for graduates with a STEM education.
Expand your search in terms of industry and geography
On the other hand, smaller – and lesser-known – companies more than an hour’s drive from major cities often have a hard time recruiting. So, while the career consultant agrees that society is hungry for technical profiles, it’s generally candidates with at least 2-3 years of experience or candidates who are willing to relocate for a job.
But what are companies doing wrong when it comes to utilising recent graduates?
»They need to be better at recognising potential. Our recruitment team often helps companies realise that they might as well invest in a recent graduate, and then the company must have the belief and potential to retain young people long enough to make it worthwhile,« fortæller Tina Lynge Hein.
And what do you advise newly graduated scientific/technical profiles to do to secure a job?
»One thing they should definitely do is to call companies, both about unsolicited and for advertised positions. This way they can better show their motivation and match their professional and personal competences to what the company is looking for – in other words, target their material. In fact, we often see that recent graduates manage to overtake experienced graduates in this way if the candidates make a strong impression on companies with their motivation and personality. And it’s just easier verbally than on paper,« concludes the career consultant.
It is Akademikernes A-kasse’s job to help you move on. In addition to giving you financial security if you become unemployed, they are a sparring partner in the transitions in your student and working life.
