Young Aussie rejected from 100 jobs despite having degree: ‘Wasted my time at uni’

A young Aussie worker is struggling to find a job, despite spending three years studying at university and holding a bachelor’s degree.

Shakira Coldwell has been applying for jobs for the past month but says she is struggling to find work or even receive a response.

“I went to uni for three years and got a degree in the health profession but, as a new grad, it is so hard to get a job with no experience,” the Gold Coast jobseeker said in a video posted online.

“But how am I supposed to get experience if no one will employ me?”

Shakira Coldwell talking about finding a job
A Gold Coast university graduate says she is struggling to get a job and has applied for 100 positions. · Source: TikTok

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Shakira, who has a bachelor of paramedic science, said she couldn’t even get a job in hospitality and had recently been rejected for a position at a theme park on the Gold Coast.

“I’ve probably applied to over 100 jobs at this point. I’ve probably heard back from maybe three of them,” the 21-year-old said.

“It feels like I’ve wasted my time at uni if I can’t even get a job in what I studied in.”

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A number of Aussies shared they were also struggling to find a job right now, with one saying she had been applying for jobs in Cairns for the past three months and another saying she’d been looking for five months.

Other users commented that Shakira’s experience showed “degrees mean nothing” and that university was a “waste of time”.

Degrees ‘aren't valued as highly’

Superior People Recruitment founder and director Graham Wynn said university qualifications were not as valuable as they used to be.

“Realistically, it’s much easier to get into uni and get a qualification than it was 20 or 30 years ago,” Wynn told Yahoo Finance. “The entry levels are much lower, the pass marks are lower and there are far more uni places than there used to be.

“Consequently, qualifications aren’t valued as highly as they used to be because every Tom, Dick and Harry gets one these days.”

Employers ‘pickier’ with recruitment

With unemployment still quite low, Wynn said the job market was a “catch 22” for jobseekers right now across all seniority levels.

“I’ve run this business for 15 years and I’ve never known as [much of a] challenging time to find candidates for jobs. We’ve got far more jobs than jobseekers,” Wynn said.

“The problem is because it is so hard to find people, employers are being much pickier than they used to be, knowing they can’t afford to get this wrong. Because if they invest time and money and it doesn’t work out, it’s too hard to go find another person.”