Planning for working life in a world of uncertainty

In the current turbulent global political climate, a job or a career for life for those just starting out in the workplace is no longer guaranteed — or even desirable. Add in the climate crisis and wider anxiety about the future, and the feeling of worry and lack of control could potentially become overwhelming. How can students, new graduates and those who advise and recruit them find a meaningful way to plan for the decades ahead?

The traditional versions of sage and sometimes staid advice — go into the professions, train for something, get a job with a good pension and so on — that was given to older Boomers, Generation X and even Millennials now seems quaint and often redundant for Generation Z (born 1995-2010). One of the marked changes in response to uncertainty — one we have seen at Oxford university, where I head the careers service, and at other universities — is a clear increase in the numbers of students making an early start on their career planning.

Compared with 2018, twice the number of students visited the general, non-industry specific, careers fair at Oxford in autumn 2019 or attended employer presentations, while 65 per cent continued to open our weekly careers emails. We undertake an annual survey of all undergraduate and graduate students asking them their frame of mind and industry interests — if any.

This year, only 25 per cent of first year students at Oxford reported that they were postponing all their career plans, compared with a stable level of 35 per cent over the past few years. Brexit and climate change Brexit and the climate crisis are the two external uncertainties already having an impact on students’ lives. In late 2018, Anna Olerinyova, an Oxford doctoral student in Biophysics, considered quitting her research studies and drastically changing career path because of these twin worries. She decided to stay on, but says: “On reflection, Brexit will just make staying and finding research funding more difficult, but…