For Graduates & Early Careers

The grad market is rough—here’s how you can still win.

Hey mate, I know the job boards look like a wasteland right now. You’ve probably seen the same headlines I have:

Big Tech sliced new-grad hiring in half since 2019—fresh grads are just 7 % of all hires now.
Four out of five “entry-level” roles in the Bay Area want ≥ 2 years’ experience, and Australia isn’t far behind.
Internships? Data-science and software spots received almost 7× more applications than normal this season.
Meanwhile, Aussie employers still cry shortage for cyber and defence tech talent.

Translation: companies have shifted their risk to juniors—unless you show immediate return or hold tickets they can’t automate away.

Below are three plays I give my own coaching clients to flip that script. They aren’t fluffy “polish-your-LinkedIn” tips; they’re concrete moves that hiring managers and recruiters (people like me) still green-light.

1. The 90-Day ROI Portfolio Sprint

Goal: Prove you already save money or ship product—so “experience required” becomes a non-issue.

Week	What you do	Outcome to capture
1-2	Pain-point prospecting. Email 20 local SMEs (logistics firms in Brisbane, medical clinics in Perth, builders in Geelong) with a 90-sec Loom demo of a GPT script killing an admin bottleneck.	≥ 3 discovery calls
3-6	Ship the MVP. Build in LangChain/Retool and deploy on AWS free tier.	Feature-complete prototype
7-10	Audit the impact. Track hours or errors saved; get the owner to sign a one-liner.	Hard metric (e.g. “cut invoice processing time 57 %”)
11-12	Signal amplification. Open-source redacted code, write a teardown, pin the numbers on your LinkedIn banner.	Public proof stack

Weeks 1-2 – Pain-Point Prospecting
- Email 20 local SMEs (think logistics firms in Brisbane or medical clinics in Perth).
- Attach a 90-second Loom demo showing how a GPT script or low-code dashboard could chop one of their admin headaches.
Weeks 3-6 – Ship the MVP
- Build in LangChain, Retool, Supabase—whatever is fastest.
- Deploy into their real workflow on a free AWS tier.
Weeks 7-10 – Audit the Impact
- Track tangible metrics: “cut invoice processing from 15 min to 6 min—57 % drop”.
- Get the owner to sign off a one-liner testimonial.
Weeks 11-12 – Signal Amplification
- Open-source redacted code.
- Publish a teardown blog and pin the numbers at the top of your résumé.

Why it works: AI can spit out boilerplate code, but it can’t negotiate access to a live system, handle edge-case data, and leave a stakeholder smiling. That’s your moat.

The grad market is rough—here’s how you can still win.

1. The 90-Day ROI Portfolio Sprint

2. Become the “Pre-Cleared” Cyber/Defence Technologist