In my experience, the actual level of a degree doesn't count for anything at all. Someone can struggle like hell and get a 3rd, or they can lay back and drink their way through university and get a 1st - like all things, it depends on the candidate. I would very much doubt that it's the 2:2 that's holding you back, unless you're applying for really top-notch places. More likely, your application forms just don't look as good, sound as good, you can't hold yourself as well in an interview etc.
I have a Maths & Computing degree - people look down on it because it's not a good grade and not from a renowned Computing university (apparantly, if I'd done Astrophysics there instead, I'd be set for life...). But I have never had a problem with anything I've applied for. I don't even have any formal training in my chosen career (IT Manager) but I am changing jobs every year to bigger and better things and nobody bats an eyelid at the fact that I don't have such qualifications. I'm taking positions that are being applied for by people with four or five times my experience, in much broader areas in more depth, and they are being offered to *me* first.
Because - I can carry myself well in interviews and have only had one job application which went completely ignored (i.e. every other job I've ever applied for, I got an interview - including one for webmaster of the BBC website, and their digital TV services which are also HTML. My web design at the time was a bit of HTML enough to make a website and a couple of small business sites. I got through to interviews, passed all their tests, was in the final 3 and then I decided it was too management-y and stop trying mid-flow). I've even turned down another two jobs *inside* the interview, despite the fact that they were offering them to me there and then. The time I spent in the interview was enough for me to realise that I would actually hate doing that job for those people in that particular place.
I also fill in my wife's pupillage applications for her law training - in that case there are 1000 applicants for every post that becomes available in the UK and it all has to go through a central online application process (i.e. no "jobs for the boys"). When she fills them in, despite being eminently qualified and able to argue anything in court, she gets no responses. The one time I wrote the spiel for her, with the same information she used but with myself having less actual knowledge of the law, she got much further through the process than she had even done before (to the interview/testing stage, which I couldn't help her with, but she still did damn well).
This also carries over into the other side of my life too... you can have all the qualifications in the world but if your attitude stinks, or I don't get as impressed by your wording as I would by an identical but better-written application, then you won't get anywhere with me.
Credit crunch be damned - I just got a better position for a lot more money in the height of the credit crunch by being bloody good at my job and applying for things. I actually decided slap bang in the middle of the crunch, straight after the birth of my first daughter, to change jobs. I applied for one, got the interview, got the job, over several more experienced candidates. Just because there's a credit crunch, or a job shortage, or you don't think you'll get the job, never let it stop you applying.
It's a matter of choosing the position, and writing an application form to show (seemingly accidentally) that you're the best possible candidate for the job. Don't suck up, don't preach to them, don't try and nail every detail, just present the image that you could do the job lying down but without being cocky. If there are awkward questions, or gaps in your knowledge - learn to waffle really well on the spur of the moment. Even though you might know *nothing* about whatever skill they just asked you, some people can run off an answer that sounds like they've been doing it for twenty years and actually consider it beneath them to do such a lowly task.
My wife tries this with her applications - she researches the firm involved, pulls quotes from their website/mission statement/whatever, ties it all in, finds out the firms allegiences, methods, political connections and contacts etc. It all goes to waste, because a form filled out by me, with absolutely zero research into the position/firm involved gets further through the application process every time. It's all about how well you can waffle and how well you write the information down in such a way that it looks like you're merely mentioning some previous history that you did years ago that they might find vaguely relevant, rather than (in reality) the sum-total of your experience in that area.
Oh, one point... some people do this but you've got to be *really* good or *really* lucky to get away with it - never, ever, ever lie on an application form or CV. The exaggeration of the truth, no matter how large an exaggeration of how small a petty little thing, is always better because you *can* justify it. But even the simplest, smallest of lies - if discovered - will mark you for life.
Basically, some people can talk the talk - these people will get jobs, while better qualified people will languish behind. I (apparently) can do this on paper *really* well but I have more problems face-to-face, however I still manage to do this under pressure and when weird questions are asked without warning (don't ask me how, because I'd make a rubbish salesman and can barely string a coherent sentence together normally).
(Horrible interview questions I've had (and my answers, which got me the jobs) were:
"Could you tell me your largest weakness?"
"Yes, I personalise my work. If I've been responsible for something, and it gets criticised unfairly, I will call the person on it. I throw myself into my work and there's a great deal of my professional pride in the quality of it and I don't appreciate people taking a shot at my hard work. Sometimes there are problems, sometimes there are parts of my work that other people percieve as problematic but it's usually because they haven't done the research and hard work that I have into discovering all the alternatives and making sure that the final product is the best overall solution to the problem. As such, I take on any projects assigned to me and they become "my" problems, "my" solutions, "my" hard work, "my" responsibility and, ultimately, "my" projects.
Even working as part of a team, parts of that project would still be "mine". Because I have taken responsibilty for them, I am less able to tolerate criticism unless someone else has been involved on that project with me, where I expect the same sort of dedication from them and it would become "our" project and we would not take un-researched criticism of it well."
and:
"Could you tell me how you would motivate your co-workers?"
"No."
"I'm sorry?"
"I couldn't motivate my co-workers. They are my peers and it isn't my responsibility to motivate, in the same way that it should not be possible for me to "de-motivate" them. They are independent professionals and I would hope that they would be self-motivated, like I am. Failing that, it would be their manager's responsibility to ensure they are provided with enough motivation. However, I would have serious concerns about somebody who needed constant motivation from above in order to carry out their job. To me, that would indicate a failure in the company as a whole, or with that particular person.
If I found it necessary to motivate my peers, superiors or (especially) my own staff, I would have to find out why such an action is necessary in the first place. Geeing them up, congratulating them, or sending them on a team-building exercise, which I assume are the type of answer you were after, are the sorts of things that treat the symptoms, not the disease, and sometimes not even that. You can't "motivate" someone. You can only find out why they are not motivating themselves."
)
Stop blaming the 2:2, or the employers, or the other applicants, or the lack of positions that "take graduates with 2:2's", etc. 99% of getting a job is being able to get the employer to call you in for an interview, the rest is being able to get through the interview without saying anything too stupid (I swear 75% of the people I've seen in interview say something that contradicts their CV, or reveals their weaknesses/lies, or shows me that they would never get on in that workplace).
Blanket-apply for anything vaguely interesting, with a damn good application/CV. My CV is about eight pages long, full of some fantastic phrases, but I cut it down to two pages depending on the particular job (some phrases are relevant to some types of job etc.), the things they are looking for, the size limits of the application form, the particular questions asked on the forms etc. I haven't done much that really warrants eight A4 pages, but I have them and could easily write a few more - every time I apply for a job, I come up with a new paragraph or two more to tailor my application to that particular job.
Take a serious look at your application forms / CV from the point of view of an employer. More importantly, get *someone else* to look at it too and don't tell them it's yours (i.e. change your name, address, phone number, change the name of the university, modify a couple of grades etc.). Get them to look at it critically - "That last job I went for, the previous applicant left this lying around and he's the one who got the job... just look at how crap it is..." - if you get someone innocently start reading a CV with a negative-bias, they will find a hundred holes in it to poke fun at. See what they pick up on, see whether they care that the imaginary CV has a 2:2 or a 2:1, see if they are more interested in 1 years or 2 years experience in a relevant area etc.
If you're bad at CVs/applications, write out several versions, apply to loads of jobs with them all and see if one particular version gets a better success rate. PHONE UP EMPLOYERS after they have refused you and ask if there was anything wrong with your application, anything you can do to improve it and/or the reasons they refused it. Some big places hate you doing that (they seem to think it could leave them open to legal proceedings) but a lot of places will happily tell you why you didn't succeed.
Basically, ignore the numbers and letters (2:2, A+, BSc, etc.) that you have, or they want, and make them want to employ you anyway.
:lol: 