During the Covid-19 pandemic uncertainty seems to be dictating all aspects of our lives, including our employment prospects. While some are struggling to make ends meet after being sacked, others are barely hanging onto their jobs. New graduates are learning to navigate through a job market that is said to be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
It has become important, nay, pertinent that we learn to adapt to our resources and be prepared for the worst. College graduates are coming out of their academic bubble with fear, hopelessness and frustration. Career services departments are facing new challenges, trying to direct new graduates into a world they are most likely seeing for the first time themselves. No one was prepared for such a crisis. However, we must think practically and ask: now what?
It is high time for universities to start paying attention to training their students on how they should approach the real world. While most of the time the job market behaves in a predictable manner, career departments should now incorporate resources for when it does not. Similarly, a series of workshops should be organised for future graduates on how to focus on the job market. With remote jobs becoming more popular today, it is inevitable for us to change our approach towards the job market.
Saima Bilquees
Islamabad
Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2020.
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