simple question so that lets do a raise
what’s so funny guys so so those you
erase your hands I was actually meaning
I was not saying who would want to marry
me actually who wants to marry me
right now right here still any hands
right that’s what okay well let me let
me then tell you instead of asking you
you don’t want to marry me and I’ll give
you the reason because you don’t know me
I just came up walking on stage you
don’t know me you don’t know what kind
of person I’m like and you of course
then want to marry someone that you
don’t know that makes perfect sense
right my name is Vinson I’m the founder
of mega me and which the careers Network
for students and graduate employers and
I started out with that in university
but let me just ask you a different
question then who have you have a boot a
no-tell room or Airbnb without seeing
the photos first well neither have I and
that is because we want to get to know
we want to know what we’re getting into
before we do something even if it is for
one night however every year tens of
thousands of students get into
relationships without knowing what
they’re getting into and I’m talking
about jobs here and guess what happens
when you rush into relationships that’s
one in four graduates leave their first
job within 12 months and if you’ve been
through a breakup before you may know
that breakups are painful in this case
they’re painful for companies because
they invest millions in attracting and
training graduates and trenching 25% of
that investment basically walks out of
the door within the year but it is
perhaps even more painful for students
because being stuck in a job you don’t
love isn’t only just not fun it may also
lead to stress to a lower self-esteem
and basically to unhappiness but there’s
the second reason why it is perhaps even
more painful for students and that is
because the choice for your first job is
perhaps the most important choice that
you’ll make throughout your career it is
a first step in a professional direction
it shapes the rest of your career so if
a wrong first step may not only have
short-term consequences it can also have
long-term effects now the question is of
course why is this happening why do
students just rush into jobs without
knowing what they’re getting into well
first of all the majority of students
spend less than five hours on
researching their future employer you
know I understand that career
exploration is not fun it’s not cool
it’s certainly not sexy
and besides Sooners have way more
important things to do at university
like finding out what kind of Harry
Potter character they are on BuzzFeed
spending money they don’t have
and of course Netflix and chill
but with all breakups you know what they
tell you right it’s not you and in this
case that’s partially true it’s not all
the fault of students to a large extent
it is also default if I may say so of
graduate employers because for the last
20 to 30 years they’ve been sending our
generic stetic and one-way communication
when it comes to job advertising instead
of engaging with prospects with students
in a meaningful conversation and this
leads to students getting a wrong or bad
perception of a company not knowing what
the company culture is like not knowing
what a day-to-day work looks like and
not knowing what’s expected of you now
on top of that research has shown that
you are only aware of about 27 percent
of your career opportunities of your
potential employers that means that you
miss out on the majority of the
companies that you could potentially
work for and there has a very simple
reason that is because smaller companies
as a meze startups don’t have the
capacity budget or time to go to careers
fairs to pay a lot of money to be on
traditional recruitment channels and
hence you miss out on them so you miss
out on a majority of your of the of your
potential employers and of the ones that
you do happen to know you get a bad
perception of and this may lead to a
false start of your career and that is
of course if you spend more time on that
Bible then on career exploration and if
you make yourself dependent of
traditional recruitment channels and
this is called an information problem
you don’t have all the available
information and and that therefore you
make the wrong choice or to put in
economic terms the sub optimal choice
and in a perfect world this problem of
course wouldn’t exist there won’t be
there would be a great algorithm that
would just present to you that dream job
at that perfect company on a silver
platter and the only thing you would
have to do is grab it and I can tell you
in the jobs market
we are rapidly moving towards this
algorithms are getting better and better
by today but still even with the best
algorithms you would still have to
create your own perception create your
own opinion and make your own choice and
that ladies and gentlemen requires an
investment that costs time throughout
our lives we spent more time with our
colleagues than with our spouses yet
we spent way less time on career
exploration then on love exploration we
go on many dates all the time but when
do we ever reached out to someone who
works at a company to ask what’s it like
to work for that company so if you don’t
want to end up in constant bad breakups
like Bridget Jones know what you’re
getting into before you apply to your
first job your second job your third job
your 25th job for that matter and you
can turn your career into a love story
and you will work happily ever after thank you very much