Job hunting. Two words that are certain to send cold sweat running down your back, unless your family’s exceptionally well off, or you’ve got a rich spinster of an aunt whose favourite you’ve always been and for whom you only have to wait to kick the bucket. Or your darling’s a millionaire. Having none of the above and being only about a year away from final graduation, job hunting suddenly occupies much too large a part of my life. I think about it, I worry about it, I complain about it. It’s there when I’m browsing job ads and searching for prospective employers. But most of all it’s that nagging feeling that creeps up on me at 3 a.m. when I’m Facebook stalking complete strangers (if it was you, sorry!), walking home from a night out, reading the paper. I look at passers-by in their smart clothes and satchels, all going somewhere important to do important things. I want to be important too, please give me a desk of my own!
It’s not like I don’t have a job at the moment, I do. Only it’s not at all related to my degree and what I want to do in the future. And it’s not based in an office which, having to stand behind a till for hours or carrying around 20 kilos worth of jeans, looks nothing short of a paradise. (At this point it’s probably worth mentioning that I’ve never actually seen The Office.) So I read all these job ads as if they were potential dates: secretly hoping to find The One that will love me back forever, but very happy to just find a satisfying short term fling. The downer? Not a lot of companies seem to want us Humanities students. Marketing, technical skills, media production, accounting, business administration all get multiple mentions. Humanities, not so many. It doesn’t take long before I start doubting my chances of ever getting any work based on my degree. A quick look at Finnish internet forums, never recommended if you’re feeling a bit down, only manages to reinforce my worst fears. Perhaps I’ll end up living on benefits for the rest of my life, or worse still, with my parents!
Having spent some time living and studying in the UK, it’s interesting to compare the Finnish job market for us English Philology students and graduates to the British one. In the Isles, unpaid internships, sometimes lasting for months, are the norm as graduate level jobs are near impossible to get without relevant work experience. On the other hand, employers are much less interested in the subject the graduate’s degree is in because as many as 50% of openings that require a degree are open to graduates of any discipline1. It’s the work experience that matters. Although I dread the arrival of unpaid internships in Finland, I wish Finnish employers were more open-minded in their expectations for future employees. Why not emphasise transferable skills rather than narrow degrees? I don’t have a diploma in PR, for example, but an English Philology degree is very much about managing information and effective communication.
If all this doesn’t exactly cheer you up, I don’t blame you. Yet it’s not all misery. During my time at university, I’ve learned not just intriguing facts but so many amazing skills: creativity, research skills, communication skills, and above all, critical thinking, thanks to which I read even job ads with a mental red pen, correcting bad grammar or dodgy sentences. Armed with these skills that are not only advantageous in working life but that have also turned me into a more cultured and better- informed person, I find it hard to believe that no employer would be interested in hiring a Humanities, or more specifically, English Philology, graduate. Although future job prospects couldn’t have been further from my mind when I decided to study English Philology, I don’t think I’d choose differently today. Sure, I’d pay more attention to selecting my minors, but I still love English, literature, reading and writing. Even though I occasionally play with the idea of swapping English to Law, Business or Engineering, I have no interest in court cases, I’m not into making heaps of money and I’ve always hated Physics. I am, after all, studying something that truly interests me, and in my opinion this is crucial.
There are people who don’t mind having an uninteresting job just to make their living, but I believe in trying one’s utmost to get to a place where it’s possible to fulfill one’s interests and ambitions. If you’re going to spend 40+ years of your life working, you might as well do something worthwhile that in addition to money also gives you happiness, right? It might not be your first job, or the second or the third one, but if you persevere and keep looking, eventually you’ll find it. Some time ago I bumped into a fascinating column by Oliver Burkeman, in which he writes about the Helsinki Bus Station Theory. You’re all familiar with the buses leaving from the Railway Station Square, driving towards Hakaniemi in a long queue and then one by one parting to take on their unique routes. According to the inventor of the theory, the Finnish-American Arno Minkkinen, this reflects the life of a photographer, but I feel it fits anyone about to start their professional career. If you want to find that amazing job and build a rewarding career, don’t give up too quickly. Instead, “Stay on the bus. Stay on the fucking bus” and sooner or later you’ll notice you’ve left your competitors behind. Persistence and determination are the key.
I’m staying on the bus.
On her 6th year at the English Department (she still calls it that way because let’s face it, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks), Hanna is hanging out both in Helsinki and Cardiff and wishes the former had cheaper booze and the latter celebrated May Day. She’s currently into cultural theory, black cats called Romeo and Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and is trying to come up with a dandy topic for her gradu.
