We’ve all seen them. Lurking at the edge of Cindies or the college bar, awkwardly clutching VKs and smiling vaguely at many, while speaking to few. Not Freshers, of course. No self-respecting Fresher would be seen dead reticently lingering when there are friends and conquests to be made. So who are these loiterers?

The clue lies in their ghostly demeanour; their wizened, faintly familiar faces. It is also to be found in their enthusiastically entitled new Facebook albums: ‘Fourth Time Freshers’ and ‘Yet another Michaelmas!!!’ Yes, these people are postgrads, and they’re riding out the recession with the aid of their 10 per cent discount at Topshop.

I have a confession to make. I’m one too. Early in May I awoke to yet another radio news bulletin announcing that the ‘Crunch generation’ of 2009 graduates – my generation – was facing the worst job market in nearly thirty years. I was in the middle of my English finals and the hard facts of the Today programme seemed very far away. I had batted away all earnest parental enquiries about my plans for next year with stories of family-sponsored friends off to find themselves in expensive European cities or else tearfully passive-aggressive outbursts about my revision schedule and having ‘enough on my plate’. But I had secretly applied for some Masters courses and, listening to yet another radio presenter blithely wish this year’s graduates well, from the comfort of her paid job, I determined to stick with what I knew and do an MPhil. It might, I reasoned, even improve my job prospects.

But will it? The Government seems to think so. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website encourages graduates to consider further study. I’m also told we should perhaps ‘work abroad, to avoid the worst of the recession’. Not terribly comforting. Richard Reeves, director of the thinktank Demos, agrees: “‘Let them do master’s degrees’ is the modern equivalent of ‘let them eat cake’. You just worsen the problem.” Indeed, with graduate job vacancies in the City falling 28% in 2008, the stockpile of unemployed graduates willing to fight it out over any sliver of employment deepens as I write.

And what exactly does my MPhil on Children’s Literature show to the prospective employer? Certainly love for my subject and academic engagement with it. Certainly proficiency in writing essays and using a library. Possibly the ability to hit deadlines and manage my time, though that is open to debate. But life skills? Things that would be useful in a real office in the real world? I can’t imagine that my ability to deconstruct Beatrix Potter is going to come in very useful working at McKinsey or BT or even Faber & Faber.

I fear that, noble though the pursuit of academic excellence undoubtedly is, to many employers my extra year might seem just a determined effort to put off the search for a job, while staying occupied. Martin Storey in the Independent last week warned graduates against making such a mistake: “It’s all too easy to continue down the same path in order to put off thinking about a career or dealing with increasing competition for graduate jobs.” Actually, continuing “down the same path” isn’t as easy as he seems to think, but you can understand why employers might be cynical.

What’s more, having spent yet another year haemorrhaging money, I will be ill-equipped for the months of unpaid internships that are the norm for creatively-inclined graduates. Working for nothing is, at least, cheaper than an MPhil. One of my friends has been working at a national newspaper over the past three months (for free, obviously). I’ve mocked him about his enthusiasm for slavery, only for him to finally find his way onto the payroll last week. And the copy he’s built up is an investment in itself.

Yet I refuse to despair. My plan is to pack my three (definitely) final university holidays to the brim with work experience and CV enhancement to make myself more marketable. Perhaps it’s what comes with the extra year of study that is helpful, rather than the degree itself? Without the frenzy of finals, we lingerers are free to found a new society, endlessly audition for plays or even write for Varsity.

Will it be enough? The final word on this goes to the merciless vision of Elspeth Farrar from the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services: “It’s been bad for those who graduated in 2008, it’s going to be awful for those who graduate this year, but it’s nothing compared to what the graduates of 2010 are going to face.” Ah, excellent. What I should be doing, therefore, is not a measly MPhil, but the whole four-year PhD extravaganza. I defy there to be ‘no jobs’ by 2013.