Top financial tips for graduates

Araminta Robertson, of the Financially Mint blog, shares her financial advice for university leavers:

1. Build digital or technical skills:After graduation, people canfind it extremely hard to find jobs. From programming to digital marketing, your early twenties are for building skills. Future employers will want people with tech skills.

2. Side hustle: At 16, I lived in a village and started teaching online, as well as doing work as a virtual assistant and marketer. There are six skills you can use online: translation; teaching; programming; digital marketing; design and writing. If you master two, youll always be able to make money.

3. Networking: Knowing how to make connections is extremely useful. UseLinkedIntofind people who have the job you want, connect and ask to meet for coffee. Ask how they did it and if they know anyone who can help you. I securedquite a few clients this way.

4. Pay yourself first: The minute you receive any income, put about 15 per cent aside into a savings account you wont touch, to go towards your emergency fund or to start investing. I do 20 per cent. It helped me start saving immediately.

It's that time of year when fresh graduates are knuckling down to the job hunt after a summer celebrating the end of university.

But competition for early-career roles is fierce in the UAE, and graduates must work hard to ensure they start their working life on a firm financial footing to avoid falling into debt.

UAE resident Saad Saeed, 21, from Pakistan, recently graduated with a chemical engineering degree and dubs himself a Ninja No Income, No Job, no Assets.

I realised that if I understood how money works and how to manage it properly, Id be set for life.

Araminta Robertson, Financially Mint

The pressure is on for him to find work as although he was born in the UAE and lives with family in Ruwais in Abu Dhabi he only has a year, post-graduation, on his residence visa and must then find a company to sponsor him or leave the UAE. Its a worrisome, ticking deadline, he admits.

Mr Saeed says that, while he has no debt and pays no rent to stay with his parents, he is at a neutral point financially, although he has made some money investing in crypto-currency.

Araminta Robertson, 20, turned her lack of financial knowledge into a career, starting her Financially Mint blog about personal finance for the young when she went to university two years ago.

I realised there was a huge lack of financial education in universities and the education system in general, she says. And I realised that if I understood how money works and how to manage it properly, Id be set for life.

Two years on, the Scot who grew up in Spain has used her newfound knowledge to become a financial copywriter for FinTech start-ups in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, having dropped out of her accounting degree after three months. She also co-hosts a podcast on financial independence.

Interviewing many people in their thirties aiming to reach financial independence and to retire early (a goal known as FIRE), Ms Robertson advises students and new graduates not to focus on making as much money as possible early on but instead on figuring out the right career. I call this career testing, she says. Take a year figuring out what you want to do. A career is something you build.

The real money comes at the peak of your career when youre 40 or 50 and, if youre trying to become financially independent in your thirties, you wont reach that. Rather than hoarding to retire early, it makes more sense to me to find something you enjoy doing, right from the start, and stick with it. Then you dont feel you have to quit.

The most important things to focus on financially in the early career years, Ms Robertson says, are to build your skills, your portfolio and a six-month emergency fund.

As part of his degree Mr Saeed undertook a six-week internship at an oil and gas contractor, earning Dh2,000, but he says he is open to any role related to the engineering field. Competition is cut-throat, he adds, with many older candidates from overseas with four or five years experience competing with fresh, local graduates.

He is considering continuing his studies for now and going abroad to get a masters degree instead. It definitely feels a little discouraging, he says.

While new graduates may not have much money, its worth investing in getting your CV and LinkedIn profile professionally created, says Dubai human resources director Caroline Finch, as you need to stand out from the crowd to get the best-paying jobs.

Employers are looking for behaviours and values aligned to their business as well as experience, she says. Time spent on projects, including voluntary ones, that benefit others or the environment are a must to mention.

She also advises new graduates to ensure their social media accounts are up to scrutiny. This check is common practice and often overlooked, she warns.

Experts also say it is worth looking at internships to enhance your resume, even if they are unpaid. Gareth El Mettouri, associate director at recruiter Robert Half UAE, says students and recent graduates should use their professional network or approach businesses which are connected to their university.

Paul Stock, an education consultant at the Hale Education Group, agrees, saying internships offer invaluable networking and mentorship opportunities" and can be found through university career service offices, which tend to be sorely underutilised by students.

An increasing number of universities like Mr Saeeds offer co-operative education programmes, Mr Stock says, giving their students credits for taking internships, which are correlated with high postgraduate employment rates.

Ambroz Neil, managing principal at London-based career consultancy Alexander Partners, dubs internships the long interview. Students, if sensible, he says, will also use an internship as an extended interview to ensure a good fit with a company. While he believes internships should be paid and last no more than three months, he says many do offer only lunch and travel expenses.

When it comes to salary, he says it is the last thing to talk about in negotiations firstly, decide if you want to work there and if the company wants you. Once an offer is made, its time to play hardball as the employer will already have a range that they can operate within. Benchmarking is best done by talking to people in the industry, asking recruitment companies and attending graduate fairs, he advises.

Robert Half UAE also offers a salary guide and says analyst, developer and finance manager are the most in-demand roles in the country.

For those who have not even started university and are yet to choose a degree course, short-term UK loan provider Satsuma Loans has reviewed UK government data to determine that medicine and dentistry are the careers paying the most in years one to five post-graduation.

Graduates average a starting salary of 36,600 (Dh166,688 per annum or Dh10,790 per month after tax), 47,100 in year five and 53,300, a 45 per cent hike, 10 years after graduation.

Medicine is followed by economics, engineering, mathematical sciences and pharmacology in terms of highest average wages.

At the bottom end of the scale are graduates of creative arts and design (earning 14,900 or Dh67,862 as fresh graduates and rising to 23,300 or Dh106,113 Dh7,355 after tax per month after a decade), then agriculture, humanities and liberal arts, health and social care and sociology.

Updated: October 16, 2019 02:42 PM

Araminta Robertson, of the Financially Mint blog, shares her financial advice for university leavers:

1. Build digital or technical skills:After graduation, people canfind it extremely hard to find jobs. From programming to digital marketing, your early twenties are for building skills. Future employers will want people with tech skills.

2. Side hustle: At 16, I lived in a village and started teaching online, as well as doing work as a virtual assistant and marketer. There are six skills you can use online: translation; teaching; programming; digital marketing; design and writing. If you master two, youll always be able to make money.

3. Networking: Knowing how to make connections is extremely useful. UseLinkedIntofind people who have the job you want, connect and ask to meet for coffee. Ask how they did it and if they know anyone who can help you. I securedquite a few clients this way.

4. Pay yourself first: The minute you receive any income, put about 15 per cent aside into a savings account you wont touch, to go towards your emergency fund or to start investing. I do 20 per cent. It helped me start saving immediately.

Read more:

How graduates in the UAE can start their careers on the right financial footing - The National