Graduating is no longer enough to get a graduate job. You need to arrive with experience. Applying for graduate jobs in 2026 starts before university does. By the time you arrive, you are already being told to think about the job you will get when you leave.
You can feel behind before you’ve even worked out what you are studying. My peers have the added complication of being the cohort that went through sixth form during the pandemic, when work experience weeks, part-time jobs and the ordinary opportunities teenagers used to have were disrupted or disappeared. Nowadays, even applying for a part-time job can come with the expectation of previous experience, whilst graduate employers expect students to arrive with an impressive CV already in place. You need experience to get an internship, an internship to get a graduate job and a graduate job to finally start the career you have spent years preparing for. The Institute of Student Employers found that employers received an average of 140 applications for every graduate vacancy in 2025.
I applied for many internships. Some processes took months, involving HireVue interviews, assessment centres, group exercises and multiple rounds of interviews. I somehow reached the final stages of extremely competitive internships yet came away without an offer, often with no explanation. Rejections came with no feedback, and nothing more than an AI-written: “We regret to inform you that you have been unsuccessful at this stage. We had a record high number of applicants…”
There doesn’t seem to be a formula to any of it. You can have the highest grades in your year, fill your CV with societies and work experience, make it through several rounds of interviews and still not get the internship. Someone else can miss out on every spring week [of work experience] and internship they apply for and still walk into a graduate job. You can secure a spring week, turn that into a summer internship and then find yourself back applying for graduate roles the following year. Universities can offer careers support, but there is no handbook that tells you exactly how to get from being a first-year student to having a job waiting for you at the end of your degree. We are all being encouraged to run the same race, while largely working out the route as we go.
I wanted to gain experience, and I knew that having something on my CV would be useful but didn’t want to spend the last long summer before graduating repeating the same process I had already spent so much of university going through. I wanted to do something that would give me useful skills while allowing me to explore a little more widely. A couple of friends had taken part in the Forum for Jewish Leadership’s (FJL) New York programme and had spoken very highly of it, so I decided to apply and was lucky enough to be offered a place.
My three-week internship ended up being at a law firm in New York. Law has never been an obvious career choice for me, although it was an area I was interested in exploring, and I had always been told that I would make a good lawyer because I’m good at arguing!
The experience has given me a much better understanding of professional life more generally. University doesn’t teach you how a working day feels. From my internship, I learnt how to conduct myself professionally, communicate in a workplace and manage the routine of a working day. The firm also works in some particularly interesting areas, including fashion, art and franchise law, and my love of all things restaurants and food made the franchise side especially captivating.
A beautiful added bonus of FJL was the hospitality of the Jewish communities we met. We were welcomed into people’s homes for Shabbat, and there was a real willingness from people to give up their time, share their experiences and introduce us to parts of their lives.
FJL certainly didn’t neglect the other thing students are constantly told we need to do: network. We were brought into conversations with entrepreneurs, lawyers and business leaders. There is already so much pressure on students to be doing the next thing, so I’m grateful that opportunities like FJL exist specifically for Jewish students. They have given me experiences I might never have found otherwise, and I think we’re incredibly lucky to have that alongside everything else university throws at us.
Student life should be about more than getting a graduate job. This summer, I have been able to do both: gain CV points while also opening myself up to a few more possibilities. We spend enough of university worrying about the next step. I’m glad I spent this summer finding a few more directions I could take.
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