Around this time of year, a new flock of graduates leap from third-level education to the first rung of a career ladder. Some will begin graduate programmes, often 18 months to two years in length, that serve as a sort of middle ground; others will enter straight into full-time employment.Some will have work placements under their belt; others will be going into brand new environments. Amid changing landscapes and the growing impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on graduate roles, University College Cork career consultant Mary McCarthy says that employers keep coming back to “core skills” that remain fundamental.“Communication is huge,” she says. “It’s a really big issue for graduates coming out this generation. Being able to ask questions, contribute at meetings and not be afraid of sounding stupid … Employers are noting that this is something that’s really valuable.”Adaptability and willingness to work in a team are other traits employers want to see, McCarthy says. Graduates may encounter new systems and technologies in their workplace, and will have to get to grips with the operation while demonstrating their own skills and personalities. “My advice to young graduates coming in is to really throw themselves in there,” McCarthy says. “Be curious, ask questions, observe and learn from people who are more experienced. Be interested in what people are doing; be eager to take on tasks and show some initiative – offer to help and take on something else.”Patience and perseverance, at least in the initial stages of your career, are good qualities to have too, especially for those finding it difficult to settle into their new surroundings. These are tips that transfer across a host of industries, but it can be helpful to take in specialist advice more applicable to a particular area.Hugh Manning is a process engineer in the dielectrics department with Intel. His work involves a lot of problem-solving and data analysis; he describes his role as “a transitional layer between the machine and the human” – equipment outputs data, and he has to analyse it and make decisions on that basis.Hugh Manning. Back in 2013, when he graduated with an undergraduate degree in Nanoscience, Physics & Chemistry of Advanced Materials from Trinity College Dublin, Manning found himself deliberating. The recession was ongoing, and graduate roles were scarce. He ended up taking on a PhD in chemistry, which led him eventually to Intel. “I just enjoy learning things,” Manning says. “I enjoy discovery, and it was a natural progression to go from academia to Intel since you’re working on cutting-edge technology. Intel have got great ties to academia and research, and there were always embedded researchers in our group who were working on problems on behalf of Intel. It was a straightforward enough transition for me there.”Manning’s interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics goes back as far as a work placement in transition year of secondary school, so he is cognisant of the impact that professional advice can have on the younger generations. For graduates, he recommends seeking out relevant experience.“What I would say is reach out to somebody during a career fair; reach out to somebody on LinkedIn,” he says. “Chat to them about what you are interested in, the roles that you like. I’ve always found that having a conversation with somebody is way more meaningful and impactful than going off and doing hours of research and that sort of a thing.”Intel recently launched an internship programme, something Manning says wasn’t available to him when he was in college. A cohort of 70 students just finished, a number of lot of whom will stay on and receive offers of graduate roles when they finish out their coursework. Part of their work was validating the integration of AI in Intel’s operating systems. Manning says there is “an undercurrent of concern when you apply AI to certain systems”, but overall he is enthusiastic about its growing influence. Graduates are advised to embrace the technology within the company. “The way that AI is impacting engineering, and Intel specifically, is a positive,” Manning says. “The way that we’re incorporating it into our systems takes a lot of the menial, repetitive work out of our day-to-day, and gives us more time to do more of the deep engineering work. That’s a positive that I can see.”Intel employs 5,000 people in Ireland, and Manning advises graduates to avoid feeling intimidated, “either by the size of the company or the complexity of what we do in terms of the technology”. “If you’re going to fail, fail fast and learn from it,” he says. “That’s the main thing I would encourage people. Don’t be afraid of failure; it’s the only way you’re going to learn from things.”Fear of failure can be an issue for some medicine graduates, who may be used to “a culture of high academic achievement that sometimes doesn’t translate into the real world”, according to Dr Albert Kelly, a locum consultant at St James’s Hospital and the Coombe in Dublin. The vast majority of graduates, says Kelly, eventually find their groove and start to enjoy clinical medicine. It is not the case for everyone, and some doctors will find their strengths lie in more academic areas, away from the interpersonal conflicts of direct care. In the early days of your career, however, he recommends some patience. “People shouldn’t get disheartened by the realities of the job when they start off as an intern,” he says. They go from learning a lot to being a very junior cog in a large machine. That’s probably the most difficult thing. You find yourself doing a lot of donkey work.“It can be hard, but for the most part, I think that people are a bit better supported now than they were. There’s a good sense, if you’re on a good team, of camaraderie and being down in the trenches. Finally getting to practice what you’ve learned in school is good.”Kelly studied medicine at Trinity, finishing up his studies in 2015. He completed an internship in Tallaght, which included a rotation in Wexford, near where he grew up. From there, he followed many of his course mates and headed for Australia – it was a decision made a little easier by the fact that he was born in the country.“One of the big factors for me was I wasn’t entirely sure at that stage what I wanted to do from a medical career perspective,” says Kelly. “Did I want to go into General Practice or medicine or surgery … You do your interim year and you sort of need to figure out what to do afterwards. There are jobs you can do while you’re not, I suppose, progressing your career. There’s lots to learn, and there’s a lot that can be done that’s still worthwhile.”These are “stand-alone” jobs, which do not contribute to a doctor’s initial specialist training, but allow them to gain real-world experience and improve their viability for training schemes down the line. At the time of Kelly’s graduation, he felt there were fewer of those job types in Ireland. Most paths in medicine require long-term commitment, and Australia gave him time to figure out what interested him most. He spent 6½ years there with his partner, and now wife, Charlotte, who works as a nurse. Eventually, by the time the pair moved home, Kelly found a place as a research fellow, completing a Doctor of Medicine degree in epilepsy research. “People should try to go easy on themselves,” he advises graduates. “Just getting through your first few years out of college is an achievement in itself. Give yourself an easier time and try not to compare yourself too much to whatever so-and-so is doing or where they’re working and things like that.”Graduates of teaching courses in Ireland might be more aware of their immediate next step, though there are still decisions to weigh up. In 2003, Colm Ó Suilleabháin completed his 18-month postgraduate primary school teaching course at Mary Immaculate College. Today, he is the principal of St Oliver’s National School in Killarney, Co Kerry.“I’d say that to [graduates], embrace what’s happening in a classroom and the methodologies in a school,” Ó Suilleabháin says. “Don’t be afraid to bring your ideas to the classroom and your ideas to the principal. If things work, then schools will support it, and if things don’t, then what about it? Give everything a try and see what works for you and the classroom.”His first school coming out of university was in Glanmire, Co Cork, where he spent four years before drifting towards Killarney, where he is from. Ó Suilleabháin spent a long time as the principal of the Presentation Monastery National School in the town, before taking the job at St Oliver’s in 2021.“I had fantastic opportunities and fantastic experiences in every school I worked in,” he says. “You’re learning all the time. You go to a different school; you see different procedures, different philosophies, different cultures, different practices. And you are constantly learning from experienced teachers – people who have been in the school 30 years, different principals.”He advises young teachers to “go where the work is for a couple of years”, building up experience in big urban schools if they can, or spending time abroad if it appeals to them. Travel and knowledge of a variety of systems, in his experience, improve teachers’ abilities. Plenty has changed in the 20 years since he finished his studies, but fundamentally, says Ó Suilleabháin, the role of the teacher remains the same. Graduates are not fully prepared for the classroom, but they are equipped to deal with it, and they will learn and adapt as time goes on. “You’re standing up in a classroom and you’re trying to engage young children,” he says. “You’re trying to encourage them in a positive way. That’s fundamentally the same as it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago.”