When that dream job eludes you, take the path less travelled

Fresh graduates should consider less conventional industries, part-time gigs and even stints overseas.

- Kang Wan Chern

It's never been easy landing that first job, but today's fresh graduates face a particularly tough market, with some employers putting hiring on hold and others replacing entry-level workers with artificial intelligence.

Competition for a shrinking pool of jobs, particularly in choice industries like banking and technology, is rife. It's no longer uncommon for fresh graduates to apply for more than 100 jobs without ever hearing back, or facing multiple rounds of interviews without success. Now, they're urged to lower their pay expectations and labelled "entitled" if they turn down jobs that don't fit their career goals or life plans.

Looking for work in this environment can be overwhelming, even demeaning, for young and eager graduates.

Yet, data shows that jobs are still available for fresh graduates in many industries, while the long-term unemployment rate for Singapore residents is just 0.9 per cent, a healthy figure that is also lower than that in neighbouring Malaysia and the US.