Wan Yee's Rant

I hold a first class honours from one of the most prestigious art schools in the world: why can’t I find a job?

I have sent out around 220 applications since I graduated last summer, from gallery assistant to t-shirt designer to cake decorator to cleaner— to no avail. What does it mean that I’m unqualified to clean a meeting room, and at the same time, overqualified to be a book designer? Let me know if I'm too useless for sweeping and scrubbing, or am I threateningly useful to specialise in the field of my degree? Make up your mind.

I lit a candle and grabbed an ice cold glass of juice before starting to fill out another job application form, yet I still became extremely agitated just from the sounds of keyboards clicking. Typing the exact same lines for the millionth “how does our company’s ambition align with yours?” drowns every single air sac in my lungs with dread. I am gurgling and choking on what seems to be an infinite sea of mud. This mud is stepped on, frozen, defrosted, and thrown back and forth between the walls of this late capitalist job market.

Job vacancies fell by 16% from March to April. The unemployment rate hasn’t been higher in almost 4 years, yet employees are having their hours cut— who is even working right now?

Four years ago, I came to London with the illusion of opportunities— plenty of jobs, and a flourishing art market waiting for me to tap into. I am a workaholic, and my portfolio stood out in the Hong Kong creative industry. My future will only get brighter once I’ve added a Bachelor's from a big name university to my CV. I was naive enough to compare my job-hunting experience in Hong Kong, where I only needed to send out five applications to get at least two offers, to a broken system in the UK.

The truth is, my CV has probably never been seen by a human so far. Most jobs utilise Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), seeking corporate buzzwords to match their rigid criteria and machine-readable formatting. What I considered to be a human touch to prove my ability as an artist and graphic designer turns out to be a blade that slips under the machine’s eyes. The UK, particularly London, dominates the ATS solution due to its concentration of multinational companies and tech ecosystem (Research and Markets, 2024). Hundreds and thousands of applicants, many overqualified, are sitting in the waiting room of an AI machine, fighting for the slim opportunity that they can slay through the crowd for an underpaying and uninspiring role. 

It’s not about being smart, hard-working, or passionate; it’s filtering and minimising labour. Employers use degrees as a screening device, even if the job in question doesn’t require knowledge from said degree— this is credential inflation, devaluing education, and at the same time dismissing experiences. The irony is that while corporations are unnecessarily raising the entry bar higher and higher to filter out the talent pool, they are threatened by candidates who actually meet the bar. The UK ranked first in the world with its 37% overqualification rate (2023, OECD). 

With the lack of middle-weight jobs in the market, companies unwilling to raise their pay are worried that the mismatch between candidates and their roles will lead to salary negotiations and higher compensation expectations.

At the end of the day, your “survival” is their “profit margins”. Machines and algorithms drive the UK market, a market that is tilted in favour of employers, but not in favour of workers, and the employers know that.

Why create a tight job market when there’ll always be someone in the queue after the previous one has burned out, or when desperate workers will always settle for less?

When I graduated, I expected myself to get an entry-level job at a commercial gallery to support my art practice on the side. I didn’t wish for overnight fame on TikTok, nor did I wish for getting headhunted by Tate at a show; I wished for an ordinary and simple start to my life after graduation. Instead, I was stuck at home in my underwear, sending out form after form, email after email, and desperately tumbling over private views after private views.

These events did not lead me forward either. Rather, I was met with third-generation immigrants whose parents are wealthy enough to move around countries since their youth, art students with generational wealth beyond my imagination, nepo babies who are aided by their established parents’ enormous networks… and of course, most of these celebrated “individuals” are men. 

While my privilege provided me access to higher education overseas, theirs is a realm I can never match.

“[…] many jobs are offered casually over coffee or a glass of wine, often to friends and family. […] the nepotism that glues the industry together is not only hidden in plain sight. It is actively celebrated.”

—Benson, 2020

55% of employers in the UK admitted that they are more likely to hire someone recommended by a colleague, friend, or family member, whilst more than 2 in 5 young people say their dream job isn’t achievable because of their background (KFC & UK Youth, 2023). Bias towards a Eurocentric indicator of wealth and privilege, such as accents and names, persists. Despite having identical resumes, candidates with English names received 45.3% more favourable responses for non-leadership posts and 57.4% more for leadership roles (Adamovic & Leibbrandt, 2022). Working-class applicants are also often unable to gain entry into elite professions due to informal "poshness tests," such as their accents (Levon, Sharma, & Ilbury, 2022).

It feels as if all doors are closed. Inside, a third of those hired via nepotism feel unqualified for their job (KFC & UK Youth, 2023); Outside, a long queue of overqualified people begging to get in. 

Many were told to volunteer and do unpaid internships just to dip their toes in the water. Even so, what happens after you’ve gotten in? Most workers in the UK are on zero-hour contracts, haunted by the possibility of their hours being abruptly cut or reduced.

All the UK market wants is free and disposable labour, because why make it comfortable for the workers when not being comfortable brings profit to the already profited?

This is a job market that doesn't reward abilities, skills and labour, but rewards privilege. 

This is a system structured and calculated to trap, while shifting the blame onto those being trapped. 

Reference list

Adamovic, M. and Leibbrandt, A. (2023). Is there a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions? Evidence from a field experiment with over 12,000 job applications. The Leadership Quarterly, [online] 34(2). doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2022.101655.

Benson, L. (2020). Nepotism Glues the Arts Together, While the Rest of Us Come Unstuck. [online] ELEPHANT. Available at: https://elephant.art/nepotism-glues-the-arts-together-while-the-rest-of-us-come-unstuck-louise-benson-30042020/.

Fennell, A. (2024). Nepotism statistics & how common is it in the workplace. [online] StandOut CV | Create a winning CV in minutes with our simple CV builder. Available at: https://standout-cv.com/blog/nepotism-statistics-common-in-the-workplace.

Levon, E., Sharma, D. and Ilbury, C. (2022). Speaking Up. [online] Sutton Trust. Available at: https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/speaking-up-accents-social-mobility/.

Machell, M. (2023). HR Magazine - Nepotism threatens youth career prospects. [online] HR Magazine. Available at: https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/nepotism-threatens-youth-career-prospects/.

OECD (2024). Do Adults Have the Skills They Need to Thrive in a Changing World?: Survey of Adult Skills 2023. OECD skills studies. Paris: OECD Studies, OECD Publishing. doi:https://doi.org/10.1787/b263dc5d-en.

Research and Markets (2024). United Kingdom Applicant Tracking System Market Trends, Competition, Forecast & Opportunities, 2029. [online] GlobeNewswire News Room. Available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/10/14/2962722/28124/en/United-Kingdom-Applicant-Tracking-System-Market-Trends-Competition-Forecast-Opportunities-2029.html [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].

Team, L.M. (2025). Vacancies and jobs in the UK. [online] Ons.gov.uk. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/jobsandvacanciesintheuk/may2025.

Watt, D. (n.d.). Can your accent be a barrier to your employment prospects? [online] University of York. Available at: https://www.york.ac.uk/research/impact/employment-prospects/.