Opinion | Landing a grad job and finding a Bristol student house: a strangely similar experience

By Matilda Robinson, Third Year, Politics and International Relations

Rejection, rejection, rejection. What’s harder, finding an overpriced, mouldy student house or landing yourself an underpaid, overworked grad job? These are even bigger challenges than the Bristol dating scene, at least there someone might pretend to like you a bit before ghosting you. They don’t even want to hire the fake version of me. I try Chat GPT me, authentic me, creative me - they don’t care they don’t want me.

Strangely, the experience of looking for a grad job brings up the similar trauma of looking for a student house in Bristol. You start with high hopes of a Georgian townhouse, maybe like one of those on the edge of the Downs. Fast forward a few weeks and you come to the humbling realisation that you are now begging for a mould-infested £200 a week Digs property to take you in. 

The job search has been strangely similar. I started in a power position - what companies do I want to work for, what companies’ values speak to me? But now I’m begging any unethical, bankrupt company to take me on. We all repeat in unison: ‘it’s just a first job, just a stepping stone’.

And then there are the rejections, God. 

I remember standing in some poor, hungover stranger’s bedroom during a house viewing, only to be told midway that the property had already been let. The letting agent had as much sympathy as a bouncer at 4 AM. The same feeling of rejection now haunts my inbox - a ‘try again next year’ email before I’ve even attached my CV.

Then there are the virtual interview questions. The ones where you stare at yourself on screen, crafting your most friendly but professional smile. You have 30 seconds to coherently answer questions before the AI interviewer cuts you off mid-sentence. The humbling silence after you are cut off leaves you wondering where it all went wrong. It’s the same adrenaline as when you meet a private landlord. A firm but friendly handshake, forced enthusiasm and gushing compliments about the damp and cramped bedrooms - anything to woo them.

At some point, survival instincts kick in. You abandon traditional routes and turn into an investigator. You are there every morning on Right Move, ringing up letting agents and even turning up on their doorstep to beg in person. The job search follows the same trajectory - using the free month of LinkedIn Premium to message anyone and everyone, politely asking them for industry advice before dropping the bomb: ‘please, please, please can you get me work experience?’

Then comes the delusional phase. Maybe I don’t need a job, maybe I don’t want a job. Maybe I’ll just go travelling to Southeast Asia or better yet, Australia. I’ll become a yogi, or a TikTok influencer, anything to keep me away from the corporate rat race of London. Likewise, who even needs a proper house anyway? Van life is trending. Couchsurfing is giving Marxist vibes; sharing is caring after all. Maybe a camper on the Downs will be available? Deep down, you know you’ll end up exactly where you didn’t want to be– stuck in your parents’ house, applying for jobs you really don’t want, while your dad asks you why you haven’t unloaded the dishwasher.