Tom Craven: If I can't get a job, what's the point of having a degree?

Fast forward to today and the situation has changed radically as it is young professionals who now find employment hard to come by in post-credit crunch Britain.

Back in 2008, the economy was in the last throes of a prolonged boom and graduates could look forward to a prosperous career in their chosen field. However, in the background, news bulletins became increasingly obsessed with the strange phenomenon of sub-prime mortgages that threatened the very fabric of the world economy.

These doomsday predictions seemed excessive, but two years on it appears they were spot-on as the legacy of budget deficits and austerity can testify.

As Britain now emerges from recession and takes the first tentative steps of recovery, businesses have decided to freeze recruitment until the situation is healthier. The result is that there are simply no jobs for graduates – meaning that there is the real prospect of a generation's career plans being turned to dust.

At present, the statistics facing graduates are extremely

daunting as there are approximately 70 applicants for each graduate position. This raises the question about what the merits of obtaining a degree actually are.

In my case, I obtained a good degree before embarking on a career in a legal profession swamped with young wannabe lawyers all chasing the

financial rewards that come with working in the law. The sheer number of people wanting to qualify as lawyers became apparent when applying for the necessary two year training contract needed to become

a solicitor.

After time though, I was offered a position at a respected commercial law firm with whom I completed my training and the golden egg of a job as a qualified solicitor got ever closer. Little did I know that the global economy had other ideas and my assumption of a job waiting for me upon qualification was now not so certain. Unlike many others, I did manage to find employment a year ago.

The recession, though, had one last surprise for me as the firm that employed me was forced to make redundancies in the spring and since then I have been banging my head against a brick-wall in my attempts to find a new position.

In my job hunt, I have used recruitment agents who are your best friend when they have a position for which they consider you suitable, but who have an amazing habit of vanishing if the application

is unsuccessful.

I have therefore also written directly to firms with my CV

and a suitably drafted covering letter. In the time that I have been out of work, I have written numerous such letters and my CV has probably been round more firms than is healthy.

While this allows me the satisfaction of feeling proactive as well as giving hope that there may well be a response along the lines of "When can you start?", in practice it has become a soul- destroying experience.

On reflection, I would say that I have received a response from one in 10 of the firms that I have written to. The upshot being that I am still awaiting the dream letter, although I do have a good collection of "We have read your CV with interest and will keep your details on record" responses, but in the majority

of cases I have nothing to evidence that anyone has even read my CV.

In some ways, I can't blame firms for not replying as they must be inundated with such letters. This goes back to the fundamental point that there are too many well-qualified young people looking for professional jobs that simply aren't there and with the current jobs market unlikely to change in the near future, the question of whether it is worth obtaining academic qualifications at all has to be asked. As previously stated, I consider myself reasonably well qualified, yet I seem to be unemployable.

I am conscious that this paints a depressing picture for the career prospects of young well-educated employees.

Unfortunately, in my experience, it is accurate and leaves the real prospect of a lost generation who will be left to take any job that is going regardless of their qualifications.

In the end, this will be the only option, as unlike the miners in the 1980s, solicitors, accountants and stockbrokers are unlikely to march on the capital and instigate a series of strikes – although you never know, the Houses of Parliament may be besieged by a throng of braces and pin stripe suits if prospects do not improve.