In the last few months, I have realised that there are two jobs in Norfolk: being Alan Partridge, and being in a crab sandwich. I am not a fictional character, and nor (I am reliably informed by various participants in my romantic failings) is my flesh salty yet tender. These are just some of the glaring character faults that have prevented me from getting a job at home since I graduated.

I am an English graduate. You may remember me from such job applications as "Let me sweep the floor for free" and "I will make tea for you and won’t even put poison in it." I’m here to provide you, Varsity reader, you big idiot, with some basic advice about trying to contract a job now that all the lovely contagious employment has been eradicated by economic antibiotics. By the end of this article I hope that you will have developed the red throbbing hives of entry level work.

Recentlly, this fine organ reported on a YouGov poll, which showed that a majority of employers felt that graduates were not "work ready".

Before we get started on deconstructing this fatuous and insulting claim, let me tell you very forcefully that I am "work ready". I am "ready for work". I am "ready". I am "work". I am Legend. And so are you, as I will now explain.

Surveyed employers claimed that graduates lacked "basic skills for the workplace including punctuality, communication abilities and teamwork skills." But these are skills nearly every graduate undoubtedly has: if you’ve ever done anything extra curricular outside your shower cubicle, you’ve probably spoken to the general public, or worked in a team, or had to get to the GUM clinic on time. Hell, even if you have been in the shower cubicle for most of your degree, you must have some pretty rad communication abilities to be getting that weekly essay through a wall of water.

But of course, we all know that graduates have basic communication skills and can get to work on time. The comments made in this survey represent an offensive sidestep from the real issue: there simply aren’t enough jobs for graduates. The discrepancy between a further claim made in the survey - that that only 8 per cent of employers value the status of the university a graduate hails from - and the fact that Cambridge students enjoy far better prospects than those from other universities makes apparent the profound disingenuousness of those polled.

Then again, you probably shouldn’t be taking careers advice from me: I am so unemployed that I actually went to the premiere of the Alan Partridge film. I went there and pretended that Alan Partridge was a real person. Because if he is a real person, then at least one of the jobs in Norfolk is real. 

You see, the problem with your graduate application isn’t really anything to do with skills. It’s just that your CV isn’t big enough. If you’re using 200pt text or less, it’s time to get an A1 printer. As an explanation, I present the following story by a real journalist from a real broadsheet newspaper made of real paper:

“Employers are being ‘besieged by Godzilla CVs’ Iain Duncan Smith claimed on Friday. The announcement came in response to a worrying trend, which has seen UK jobseekers printing resumes on increasingly large leaves of paper.

JobCentre worker Mary Mary-Mary alleged that ‘we were advised to start telling people that a larger CV would make them seem more employable, and gradually we realised that it wasn’t just about people seeing your application: if you can suffocate one or two of the current employees with your CV, you’re increasing your chances by one or two times.’

Terrance Williams, a supermarket manager in Oxford, said that ‘some applicants have taken to carving their key skills onto trees and launching them, flaming, through the windows of Sainsbury’s. I don’t like it.’ Williams added, however, that he was more likely to employ candidates whose applications had involved an element of arson, saying that they were ‘eye-catching and exciting.’

Godzilla CVs will be discussed in Parliament next week but in the mean time chaos, and paper, reigns. ‘It’s like Vietnam’, said one publisher, Frank Challenge, who did not wish to be identified, ‘If Vietnam was in WHS Smiths and involved only paper and an economic downturn.’"

As you may have gleaned from this article, graduates have the basic skills to converse with others without spitting in their eyes, but the requirements for an entry level job, especially in the current market, are far more challenging. The poll should be seen as a prompt for honesty about increasingly demanding recruitment procedures, rather than a chance to attack individuals who have just paid £27,000 for the privilege of being unready.