I couldn’t secure a job for 4 years despite graduating with master’s degree and 8.0 IELTS

In 2010, when I held both certificates in my hands after a years-long academic journey filled with great effort and sacrifices, I truly believed that the career path ahead would be wide open. I had earlier completed my bachelor’s two years earlier and went straight for a master’s. At the time, "high-quality human resources," globalization and foreign languages were all the rage in the labor market. Yet reality taught me a costly lesson: degrees and high academic scores are not a free pass to a successful career.

I still remember my graduation. Friends and relatives congratulated me, teachers expressed high expectations and I myself was full of anticipation. An IELTS score of 8.0 was something to dream of in 2010, when foreign-language courses and exams were far less common.

I believed I would quickly find a suitable position, but the market does not work the way we were taught in lecture halls. I sent out countless job applications, yet interview invitations were few and far between. Some employers responded very quickly, but only to deem me "not suitable," while others only gave me silence. During interviews, employers would praise my qualifications and language proficiency before following up with a question that left me at a loss: "How many years of practical experience do you have?"

Only then did I truly grasp a familiar but hard-to-accept paradox: young people struggle to find jobs because they lack experience, but they need a job to gain experience. Even a master’s degree and an 8.0 IELTS score did not help me rise above that vicious cycle.

There was disappointment, self-doubt and questions about the value of all those years I spent studying diligently. I wondered whether I had chosen the wrong path or whether society simply did not need what I had been trained to do. In conversations, I heard no shortage of advice like "Studying too much also makes it hard to find a job" and "Why not accept working outside your field first?" Those tips were not wrong, but at the time I stubbornly believed that I deserved a job in my field.

Many people of my generation, even those no less capable than I was, found themselves in similar situations. Companies tightened recruitment and prioritized those who could start working immediately rather than those who needed time to be trained. Meanwhile, postgraduate education remained heavily theoretical and insufficiently connected to businesses’ needs, highlighting the wide gap between schools and the labor market.

The next four years were not easy. I was struggling with the fact that I was no longer a student but also not a working professional. Those years taught me many things not found in any curriculum: how to be patient, set aside my ego and evaluate myself more honestly. I gradually came to accept that a degree is a requirement, not a guarantee.

Businesses need problem-solving ability, adaptability, teamwork skills and an understanding of their work culture, qualities that a diploma cannot prove.

In early 2014, I applied for and started working at a domestic company. It was not the position I had initially aimed for but the first to welcome me after four years of unemployment. Once I entered the workplace, I clearly saw my shortcomings. I was slow to adapt to procedures and unable to keep pace with the workflow. I also had to learn more about things I thought I already knew. At that moment, I realized that four years of waiting had not only set me back but also forced me to work twice as hard to catch up.

My story from 15 years ago is not meant as a complaint or a dismissal of the value of education. On the contrary, I still believe that learning, including higher education, is essential. What it does highlight, however, is that the education system and the labor market need to be better aligned.

College and postgraduate students should be equipped not only with academic knowledge but also with practical experience and professional skills. At the same time, learners themselves need to be more flexible and open to starting from smaller roles and facing setbacks.

This is especially relevant for today’s youth, many of whom have master’s degrees or high English scores. A person’s value in the labor market does not lie in the qualifications they write on a CV but in the ability to deliver results.

It took me years to understand this and many more to accept it. If there is one piece of advice worth sharing, it is this: do not let academic credentials become an oversized coat that makes you hesitate to start small. Moving slower and taking a longer route than expected are both fine as long as you eventually discover your own path.

*This opinion was submitted by a reader. Readers’ views are personal and do not necessarily match VnExpress’ viewpoints.