Help!!

Today I checked my Twitter to find that someone had tweeted me:

"Hi @JosCanavan I have just seen your blog on a website that a friend contributed to. I think you are my guardian angel, I've emailed you at your Gmail account for some advice on non-graduate aspiring marketing students making it into this industry! Help !! x"

As I read Amy's email I couldn't help thinking how much she sounded like me in my final year of university. Of course I was more than happy to try and offer what advice I could. I thought it would be great if I published Amy's message and my reply, in order to share our dialogue in the hope it might help one or two of you. I would also be really happy (and I'm sure Amy would appreciate it too!) if anyone had any comments to make about her position, and to add to the advice I have given.

Hi Jos,

My name is Amy Jackson and I recently found your blog whilst reading a friends contribution to the website TargetjobsBloggers.

Your About Me section really interested me and I thought I'd email you mainly for some advice, I hope this is ok.

I am in my last two months at University studying a Journalism and English Literature degree. My dream job is to be a Marketing and Advertisiting Co-ordinator. However, after a four year degree of something that isn't directly related, I am struggling. At 18 I was unsure as what I wanted to do at University, but as the years have gone on, I've realised I have found something I am passionate about and feel I could put my whole self into.

I have done many placements in the last four years, I have travelled to Vietnam and Africa with the BBC, worked in publishing houses working with events management and helped to arrange many charity events around the North East. However, no immediate connection to Marketing and Advertising.

I have an interview on Thursday for a 5 month placement with DiFFERENT Marketing and Advertising, in Newcastle. The email I got back regarding a graduate job invited me along for a chat about my options, and they said I would be more suited for a PR role. I am unsure as to how this meeting will go and what my options are, but if you could give me some tips on how impress at this sort of interview, then I'd really appreciate it.

Besides not actually doing a marketing degree, I regulary read books about it and speak to other people who are involved in this industry. My experience is limited but I want to show I can learn quickly.

Best Wishes,

Amy Jackson

 

Hi Amy,

Thanks so much for getting in touch! It’s great to know that people are reading Jos Can and taking something from it, as well as the fact we are able to connect and share advice and experiences. Your email struck a chord with me as I was in your exact position in my third year of university.

You seem really on the ball though, passionate and knowledgeable, which will definitely work in your favour. You mentioned you read marketing-related books and network with people in the industry – this is a brilliant demonstration of your commitment and enthusiasm, and you should definitely bring this up in the interview. These traits will probably be your greatest assets.

You mention that you have been invited to have a “chat about your options”, which seems to imply that the exact nature of the placement is not set in stone or that there is more than one available. So they might start off by explaining a bit more about what it is they’re expecting the hired candidate(s) to get up to, which will be a great chance for you to make connections to your own interests and past experiences in order to demonstrate your suitability.

Equally they might ask you what sort of career you’re looking for in order to scope out how right you are for what they have in mind. In this instance, I wouldn’t spend too long talking about the exact thing you’re looking for. For example, if you were interested in doing events for big sports brands but they were looking for someone to support the social media for a food and beverages client, you could focus instead on what you want to get out of the role – “I’m looking for something challenging, where I can take on responsibility and make a difference to a company”…”I’m a fast learner so this would be a great experience to work alongside and learn from industry experts”..., but obviously tailor it to what it is you think they’re looking for.  In a lot of interviews I’ve been to, they have been hesitant about revealing that a lot of the role will be admin/support–focused as they are aware it is not very appealing, but although it wasn’t what I was after, by showing that I wasn’t loath to get involved with that sort of stuff I found my way in, which then provided a chance for me to prove myself in other tasks that came along as part of the role.

When preparing for an interview I find it a good exercise to imagine yourself as the interviewer and that you have someone you have never met before coming in to talk to you. What would you want to know? Surely: why has this person decided to try for the job? So this is where you would talk about your passion for marketing. You can say where your interest came from - perhaps a particular campaign that first caught your eye, or the fact that you have always paid attention to brands and how they are interacting with their consumers. You said you've come to realise you have "found something you're passionate about and could put your whole self into", so make sure they see that and you'll be halfway there!

Try not to present your degree as anything but an asset (I know I have a terrible tendency to jump straight in and apologise for my lack of marketing degree!) You can point out how your degree has allowed you to develop important skills, in writing (an obvious one)/analysing (from deciphering news articles)/teamwork (from any group project work) etc.… You know that you want a job that allows you to use these skills, and marketing, coupled with your interest in the industry, fits this well.

Please forgive my majorly vague interpretation of your degree! It just goes to show how not everyone will have a really distinct idea of what it is you worked on as part of your degree, so it’s really important that you can clearly explain what skills you developed, and translate that to the job role you’re after.  Similarly, don’t view the fact that you haven’t had any experience directly related to marketing as a flaw. I’ll bet you’ll have picked up lots of useful skills in your past work experiences – they sound really interesting and unique and I think they would make you stand out.

It’s my (cynical) suspicion that they have suggested PR because of your writing and journalism-focused degree. Don’t let them pigeon-hole you if that’s not what you’re interested in! If it turns out in the interview that the placement you are going for is more focused towards PR, take the opportunity to find out all you can about what you’d be doing, as well as opportunities for the future - the placement is still likely to be worthwhile, and you certainly don't want to reject it then and there.

So! There's my humble advice - has anyone else got any comments to help Amy before her interview? Maybe you're in the same position as her and have struggled due to a lack of relevant experience. Are you from a similar course and able to pinpoint the key benefits/transferable skills of her degree? Or are you in the same boat and just want to complain! Even any words of encouragement that have come to mind whilst reading Amy's message. Personally, I think she sounds like she would be a great asset to any marketing team, and even if this opportunity isn't right or doesn't work out, that she'll no doubt go on to be successful in pursuing her dream. 

Guest blog post by language grad, Marie

Visit Marie's blog at
Grad and Looking

Today's post has been written by Marie, a French and Cultural Studies graduate whose career goal is to work in advertising. She writes spiritedly about the intense competition faced by those of us chasing our dreams in this popular industry, and highlights the main challenges and, even more helpfully, how we can face them.

Her story, of how she was inspired to carry out an internship in China in order to get that little bit closer to her dream job, emphasises just how much of a challenge today's job market can be. As she rightly points out, an internship abroad is not a viable option for all of us, but it just goes to show how important it is to make the most of the opportunities we are presented with. And, as I pointed out in my TARGETjobs blog post last week, the extra hurdles that we have to jump will just make us that much stronger candidates than if we had only to walk to the finish line.

Graduated and looking…

Hey everyone! My name’s Marie and like Jos (and many of you reading this) I am trying to break into the increasingly difficult marcoms industry – more specifically advertising.  A recent French and Cultural Studies graduate from the University of Sussex I know that there are two main things that advertising agencies think twice about when I apply:

1) I don’t come from a business/marketing/advertising background

2) My lack of agency experience (particularly because when I was first applying for grad schemes this time last year, I’d only had a couple of weeks of experience at an independent B2B agency in London)

So what to do you when any one of those two things are held against you? Well determination and pro-activeness play a huge part.  During my final year last year I applied for virtually nearly every advertising grad scheme that was out there that appealed to me, from AMV BBDO, to Iris, to Ogilvy, balancing uni deadlines with application deadlines, which always seemed to coincide. Unfortunately, despite all the hard work, out of the fifteen or so applications I sent I only received one invitation to interview (and as you can see from this blog entry, I didn’t get through to that agency’s assessment day that year). What had I done wrong? I had worked so hard and spent so much time on every single application. Couldn’t they see my extreme passion for the industry and eagerness to learn? I knew that my lack of experience was my main hindrance and that I needed to go out and get some, but I also knew that if I didn’t focus on the one important matter of gaining a good degree, my chances of working within the industry could be taken away from me completely. So for the last few months of my degree, I knuckled down and the hard work of a 4-year course finally paid off! But as graduation approached, reality dawned on me. Whenever bumping into relatives and family friends the same old questions and exclamations kept resurfacing, “What will you do now you’ve finished?”, “What, you haven’t got a job!?”, “There are lots of sales and recruitment roles out there, why don’t you pursue those options instead?”, “How about teaching? Lots of language students go into teaching…”.  The questions were never-ending, and whilst annoying, I knew that they all had my best interest at heart. But I didn’t want to go into sales, or recruitment, or teaching despite the constant competition and rejection I knew I was putting myself up for. There were simply industries that I wasn’t passionate about.  As the questions kept flooding in I started to do some research and finally found my solution: I was going to do an internship… in Shanghai.

Yes, that’s right Shanghai, China. I took the extreme option of moving halfway across the world for several months in order for me to get some of that integral work experience under my belt. And what an experience it was! It was undoubtedly worth every single penny that I had scrimped and saved up for during the summer at my part-time job. But why China of all places? Well three reasons really. Firstly, I’ve always had a soft spot for China, having grown up in Hong Kong until the age of 11, and I knew that I always wanted to go back. Secondly, being a language geek, I knew sometime after uni I wanted to start learning Mandarin, so what better excuse than to go and learn the language whilst being immersed by it! And finally, and maybe most importantly, the fact that China is an emerging market, that has not only become the second largest global ad market but that it is expected to surpass the UK and become the biggest consumer market in the next 10-15 years. As a result of this huge expansion, I know that employers, no matter what industry you want to go into, will start to look for potential employees who have had experience and understand the subtle differences between China and the West. It was easy for me. I didn’t need much persuading as I have never been one to be afraid of a challenge, particularly one that involved travelling and living abroad, having already spent a year living in France in my 3^rd year.

So last October, after 4 months of saving, I said goodbye to my family and friends, got on a plane and joined 30 other interns from around the world to take part in a two-month internship organised by CRCC Asia Ltd. I was working as a marketing and events intern for a small independent local advertising agency whose main channel is a website dedicated to helping expats moving to and living in Shanghai (I wont go into great detail about my internship but if you want to know more about what I did there feel free to visit my blog www.gradandlooking.blogspot.com). Whilst it wasn’t specifically an advertising internship that I had initially asked for when applying for the programme, I threw myself into it and as I was working for an SME, I learnt an extensive amount about event marketing, event management and social media marketing, and was given a huge amount of responsibility from negotiating with sponsors to devising and planning the agency’s biggest event of the year! I also learnt about Chinese business culture, including the importance of networking and guan’xi, and keeping ones face (mian’xi) and more importantly I learnt so much about myself as a person. Despite the never-ending cultural shocks that I faced in a city that is in a continuous state of change and growth, I never felt lost.  Even though frustration became a frequent sentiment in my day-to-day life as a graduate on my very own journey to the East, I learnt and improved upon many skills that were unbeknown to me! Whether it was my acting abilities during my first weekend when trying to look for coat hangers and struggling to find the word in my phrasebook (I am proud to say that I am pretty good at charades now!), or my ability in hiding my true feelings towards some unknown Chinese delicacy that I had to eat out of politeness (there were many dishes whose ingredients were unrecognisable, and perhaps to my relief will continue to remain unknown), or successfully holding my own on the metro and reaching my desired metro stop without being shoved and pushed off the stop before, Shanghai showed me that I can adapt to any unfamiliar situation.

Now I’m back in the UK, my life in Shanghai seems like a blur and I miss China terribly – I know it’s a place I would love to return to in the future to live and work. So what am I doing now? Well unfortunately I missed out on the majority of advertising grad schemes whilst away, but I have managed to apply for the few schemes whose deadlines were after Christmas and consequently been invited to interviews and an assessment day. I am also applying to entry-level advertising account executive job vacancies that I have seen, but surprisingly I have seen that even with me having several months of experience, for most vacancies this isn’t enough – they want at least a year’s worth! We just can’t win. For that reason I feel that grad schemes are so important to aspiring ad execs like myself, and that more companies should have them, or at least have a few trainee vacancies as many of us cannot afford to work for free for a year, especially with our student debt looming above us! Without a doubt my two-months of overseas experience have been integral to the success of my grad scheme applications this year, and I now have so much more to talk about during those important competency based questions that we are all so familiar with! However despite the fact that there is a high possibility that I may have to undertake some more work experience whilst working part time, I do not regret any part of my expensive decision to go abroad. I am not saying that you all have to go to the same extreme lengths that I have (after all going all the way to China might not appeal to everyone’s tastes and pockets), but that the key to getting noticed in the marcoms industry is to definitely get as much work experience as you can whether it’s an independent local agency or one in the big cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham etc. It really annoys me when I see headlines and reports stating how lazy our generation are. If they call people who are working for free for months on end just to get a foot on the career ladder in order to start paying off our scarily high debts lazy, I don’t know what more they expect from us. We all just have to keep at it and maintain our sense of humour. Be determined, be pro-active, be patient, and hopefully someone somewhere will see how much we want that ever-important first job. Good luck to you all J!

Marie xox

(If you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to contact me by following me on Twitter @mklw20 or connecting with me on LinkedIn).

Guest blog post for TARGETjobs

Yesterday, TARGETjobs Bloggers published a post I had written for them that documents my journey into marketing.

I talk about how the graduate job hunt can be frustrating and demoralising, but that we should see how, through dedication and self-motivation, the challenge of pursuing a job in your chosen sector can make you a much better candidate in interviews as well as when you actually start your job.

So don't shy away from a competitive sector if you are really interested in it - relish in the trials and tribulations of your job hunt and see it as a means of bettering yourself, because you can bet that all your hard work will make you far better in your job once you manage to obtain it.

Please go to TARGETjobs Bloggers to read my post. I hope you enjoy it!

Guest blog post by marketing graduate, Cassie

 This week's post has been written by Cassie, an American who studied Marketing Communication. She has been determined in her job hunt following graduation and has managed to bag herself a great job in the SEO sector. However, Cassie shows us in her post that even if you have a relevant degree, getting a job is not all plain sailing. She has some great insights into the marketing field and the job market, as well as some crucial tips for succeeding in your graduate job hunt. I hope you enjoy her thoughtful and engaging post.

How to Start Your Career in Marketing - 6 Tips

I remember being eager to graduate from college and pursue my career. Six months before I was set to graduate, I started perfecting my resume, portfolio, and interviewing skills. After graduation, I attended countless interviews and career fairs. I particularly remember attending a two day, intensive business career fair at Purdue West Lafayette. After going through the rounds, I hadn’t gained any solid job prospects—or at least any good ones. As I drove home, Katy Perry’s song, “Firework” came on the radio. As I belted out the lyrics, tears began flowing down my cheeks. I had gone through so much stress preparing for this career fair and for all of the interviews, I finally broke down because I felt as though I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, or worthy enough for my dream job. There didn’t seem to be many options out there and I started questioning my collegiate decisions. Katy’s song spoke to me, “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, ready to start again? Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin, like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?” I most certainly felt this way throughout my entire job hunt, which lasted about eleven months. However, there is hope. With much persistence and patience, you WILL succeed! “Cause baby you’re a firework. Come on show ‘em what you’re worth.”

A huge shift is occurring in how we apply for jobs. When my parents started in the work force, they looked for jobs in the local newspaper and mailed in a resume and cover letter. Now, there is an overabundance of online job application sites such as:  Career Builder, Monster, Indeed, and Simply Hired, just to name a few.  With this current recession and high competition for jobs, you must be very creative and relentless in your job hunt. That being said, here are my 6 tips in starting your career in marketing:

1. Take the right classes and internships

After I had received my bachelor’s degree in marketing communication, I realized many people working in marketing had master’s degrees—mostly because marketing is very broad and it’s easier to get a job if you are more specialized. I majored in marketing because I enjoyed business, writing, and I was creative. However, many employers are looking for more pin-pointed, technical degrees. In hindsight, I would’ve gotten a bachelor of science degree instead of a bachelor of arts degree because you can still attain a mathematical background and also take essential marketing electives. Then, I would’ve minored in marketing or advertising.

Think of what you want to do in marketing. Do you want to plan events and help companies get media coverage? Then maybe you want to specialize in public relations. Do you want to create graphics and logos? Then go into graphic design. If you want to complete budgets for marketing campaigns, having a finance or accounting background is very helpful. Tailor your internships to you degree and your interests. It’s always better to take a three month internship and learn you do or don’t enjoy doing something before you actually start your career. Internships definitely leverage you in your career hunt. If it wasn’t for my experience with SEO in my internship, I may not have my current job.

2. Network

Build your network! I can’t stress this enough. While in school, make many friends and keep their contact information. Join groups and organizations that tailor to your interests and career goals. This also will help you keep up with recent trends in marketing and advertising. Make an account on LinkedIn and start building your network before you graduate college. Perfect your LinkedIn page. If you are creative, build an online portfolio—sites like Coroflot.com let you do it for free. Make business cards with your contact information, LinkedIn, Twitter handle, portfolio, and/or website link to hand out to friends, professors, or anyone who may be interested in hiring you. Locate marketing companies, even if they aren’t hiring, see if you can meet up with an account manager or marketing representative for coffee and pick their brain on how they got into the business and maybe get some tips from them. Who knows? Maybe they will like you so much, they will eventually hire you or recommend you to someone they know. Companies like to hire people they know. So, help them get to know you. 

3. Perfect your resume and interviewing skills

I know this one seems like a no-brainer. I thought I had a perfect, colorful, and creative resume. When I had interviewed for my internship and previous jobs, everyone gloated how wonderful of an interviewee I was. I thought I didn’t need to practice anymore. Wrong! Have as many people go over your resume as possible. I suggest keeping your resume as concise as possible—keep it to one page. HR reps only glance at your resume since they review thousands a day, and most of the time they don’t even look at the second page. Also, stick to the basic fonts and little formatting. With larger companies, they put all submitted resumes through a computer filter. This filter doesn’t see your cool design on your resume, it only picks up formatting and vocabulary. Many colleges will help you with your resume and interview skills. I suggest making an appointment with them about three to six months before you graduate.

4. Research companies

In addition to extensively researching companies you interview with, research companies that you may like to work for. Follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and on LinkedIn. Sometimes companies post jobs on LinkedIn that they do not post on their website. If you are feeling really bold, contact the HR rep on LinkedIn. This is the person that actually posts the jobs on behalf of the company. This is precisely how I networked to get my current position. I did a lot of research online regarding SEO companies in Indiana. I found Slingshot SEO and began following their blog. I started following them on LinkedIn and contacted the HR rep after I had applied to a few jobs within their company and didn’t receive any feedback. From me reaching out to her in a respectful and enthusiastic manner, I was able to land an interview, which eventually led to me getting my dream job at a wonderful company!

5. Perfect your job hunt

There is an incredible number of career sites. You will have to decide for yourself which ones work best for you. For me, I used Indeed.com and Simplyhired.com. I stopped going to these sites every day, only to complete a lengthy, mundane search for jobs. Instead, I set email alerts. Then, Indeed or Simply Hired will send you a daily email digest of the job title you are looking for within your location parameters. Which, is much easier than searching manually every day. After you create your LinkedIn account, follow companies and search for jobs. You can also have a daily email digest from LinkedIn sent straight to your inbox every day. If your college has a career network, use that as well. You can also find career fairs at your school. Mark these career fairs on your calendar in advance and research the companies that are attending the fair.

6. Relax and have fun

Looking for a job and going through countless, dead-end interviews can really hurt your self-esteem and self-worth. Make sure you do fun activities to relieve your stress and distract your mind. You are obviously in marketing because you are a creative person—hone into that. Draw, paint, play an instrument—do anything that will get your mind off of trying to find a job. As long as you keep trying, your dream job will come. It is only a matter of time. You don’t want to keep getting down on yourself because you won’t be as enthusiastic and passionate in your interviews! And, an added project or hobby can always be something interesting to talk about during an interview. Don’t get discouraged; practice makes perfect. 

“À cœur vaillant rien d'impossible.”—Nothing is impossible for a willing heart.

Author Bio: Cassie is a Lead Generation Specialist at Slingshot SEO, located in Indianapolis, Indiana. She blogs about traveling at cassaleenietravels.blogspot.com. Apart from traveling and keeping up with SEO trends, she enjoys art, photography, and music. Follow her on Twitter @cassaleenie.

- Cassie

Human Sciences

Since leaving uni I feel like I've rather forgotten my old love for science. So when I recently re-discovered a book I had read whilst applying to study science at university, Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins, I found myself transported back to the 17 year old me who was so inspired by science and the challenge of its study.

Forget every preconception you have about Dawkins and his attitudes to religion. Whatever your religious beliefs, it is true that his heavy-handedness regarding his position on the absolute truth of science might make his character, and consequently any of his publications, unappealing to some. But if you have read any of his books (and you really should), you will know just how intensely passionate he is about science. It is a popular notion that scientific truths are far less wondrous than their religious or supernatural counterparts, and it is this belief that Dawkins aims to discredit in Unweaving The Rainbow. It is not a book that shoves atheism down your throat, but a handbook for those who think that there is no mystery to appreciate behind the wonder of science. Dawkins distinguishes features of our universe that demonstrate this wonder, delineating the mystique behind scientific triumphs such as evolutionary time, light and DNA fingerprinting. He carefully offers analogies and thorough examples in order to deepen the reader's understanding, with enjoyable wit and astounding intellect, which even extends to a peppering of poetic quotation that would make even the artsiest science-phobe feel at ease.

The opening lines of the book, which Dawkins has long earmarked to be read at his funeral, offer a taste of the scientific wonder that he presents to the reader:

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

Such an outlook is probably quite a radical one for most of us, and this same feeling is replicated throughout the book, as Dawkins unweaves the technicalities of the wonders of this world that can only be fully appreciated through a scientific examination.

Science versus The Arts

For some reason, it seems to be an unhappy trend for science to be viewed by the general public as scary and inaccessible, not to mention boring. The average person will know at least a little bit about literature, geography, history, and other 'arts' subjects, but the components of science, as numerous as they are, always seem to be lumped together, with outsiders knowing very little about sub divisions of science, and barely caring. This leads me to the purpose of this post, which is not, as it might have seemed up until now, to review a favourite popular science book of mine (although I definitely recommend you read it, whatever your background!), but to use it as a springboard to write a little about my degree.

"What is Human Sciences?"

Explaining my degree has been a formidable task ever since I applied for it. There is no easy way to explain it, since it is comprised of such vastly different topics; pretty much all of the modules I took as part of my degree were completely different. I can't even categorise it by saying that it is the study of humans from all different angles, because a small proportion of my modules were to do with animals! Bit of a nightmare (especially when incorrect assumptions regarding its content lead me places I don't expect, see previous blog post).

The responses I have met with over the years have consistently been ones of confusion.

"I do/did Human Sciences."

"*Pause. Look blank*
"Is that Human Biology?"
No it is not Human Biology, if it was Human Biology it would be called Human Biology.

"So you're training to be a doctor?"
No, little sister, I am not doing medicine. And please stop going around telling everyone I am, since I've been home for Christmas I've had two family friends come up to me in Tesco and congratulate me.

"Is that about sex and stuff?"
Yes, my degree is entirely about sex. Not. [Actually parts of it was to be fair. Interesting stuff ;)]

"Is that even a real degree?"
Of course it's a real degree! Oxford offer it! 

The actual answer is not a simple one.

For anyone who might actually be interested(!), here's a link to the UCL website where you can read some information about the degree. As is noted, there is incredible scope for flexibility and almost complete freedom in what you can choose to study. Your first year is a compulsory mix of what you might call the more hardcore sciences (Anatomy, Biochemistry, Genetics and Physiology), alongside social science modules (Geography, Anthropology and Psychology), as well as Statistics - an important lesson for any student of science. The aim is to provide you with a basic grounding in the social, medical, behavioural and biological study of humans so that you are well able to choose which direction you wish to pursue your studies according to your interests.

In second and third years you are able to choose literally any module you want from the whole university, which amounts to over 50 options across numerous departments. The range available reflects what I've already mentioned - that is, a mix of the life and behavioural/social sciences - but some options that you might not expect include Philosophy, History (of Art/Medicine/Science), Business, Archaeology, Economics and Earth Sciences to name a few. The only stipulation in choosing modules is that you must choose courses from at least three departments, so as to ensure that the degree is inter-disciplinary. This is also reflected in the research project (that dreaded 'dissertation') of your third year, which must be focused on two or three different disciplines, at least one social and one biological. Mine was an exploration of the study of how human altruism has evolved, from the perspectives of evolutionary biology, economics and neuroscience; but other examples of Human Sciences dissertations include topics such as: obesity, pain, cholera, and human mating preferences. This gives you some idea of just how drastically different the Human Sciences degree can be for each student.

What do employers think about Human Sciences?

So hopefully now you know a little more about what is involved in the Human Sciences degree! I believe it is a degree only offered by about five or six universities in England, and the course structure and content differs vastly between these unis too. So I recognise that I cannot expect a lot of people to be completely familiar with it. As I touched on before, I find it a shame that the vast subdivisions within science are generally less well understood than arts subjects. Everyone has a pretty clear impression of what an English degree involves; but how employers view my degree is a concern of mine. Does it spark their interest or even make me stand out as a candidate with a unique background? Or does the lack of clarity regarding its content leave them unsure about my suitability to a role? What with marketing employers seemingly tending to favour arts degrees such as English owing to their heavy focus on writing, I fear that employers will be misled by the degree name and type (Human Sciences BSc) and will discount me as lacking in this skill.

Do I regret studying Human Sciences?

Despite these concerns, rereading Unweaving The Rainbow following the completion of my degree has been a pleasant reminder of how, no matter how frustrating my job hunt gets, I have no regrets about my choice of degree course. Often I have found myself getting frustrated when my degree is overlooked (or maybe worse, looked at too intently - again see previous blog post). But the thrill of academic study, in particular the unique and varied course of study I undertook, is something that I would have always regretted not aiming for.

Doing an academic degree allowed me to satisfy my appetite for learning for its own sake, and also take some quite cool classes  (looking at human bones in archaeology, tutorials about the evolution of homosexuality, free trips to London Zoo) which I probably won't have the chance to do again. It also meant I was motivated to obtain as much knowledge and experience in my chosen field as possible in order to compete with marketing students, a challenge that I have really enjoyed. I want to, and will hopefully, work in marketing for the rest of my life, and so far I have not met with too much of a challenge having to 'learn on the job'. So, really, I am very glad to have spent my three years at uni as a 'Humsci' :)