Is Vlogging Becoming The Latest Career Path For Graduates?

According to latest figures, the graduate job market has recovered to its pre-recession peak, with a 12% rise in the number of jobs for university leavers. Top employers recruited more graduates this year than they expected, causing it to be the biggest increase for four years after a 23.2% dip between 2007 and 2009. Related: 5 Dynamic Ways To Reinvent Your Career Path However, while it is a positive factor that graduate employment rates have increased, the number of UK graduates have also increased by 85,000 to a staggering 365,000 since 2007. This implies that a further significant increase in graduate-level jobs will be needed to keep up with the increasing number of graduates looking for a job. Many graduates are recognizing that the graduate job market is still very competitive and are seeing it as an opportunity to kick-start their career on their own and start up their own business. According to the BBC, self-employment jumped by 183,000 in the quarter to March and the number of people working for themselves has reached a record high of 4.55 million. One of the biggest up and coming career path choices for Generation Y is becoming a video blogger also known as a ‘vlogger.’ Individuals are using their obsession with social media to turn it into a career and become well-known social media stars. They video blog about their interests, whether this might be fashion and beauty, or gaming and the latest technology. Over time, they manage to build up a huge fan base because so many other fellow Generation Y’ers value their opinion. So, how is video blogging a career and how are these young entrepreneurs making money from this? Well, because they have such a massive fan base and are so influential on other peoples buying habits, companies want them to review their products. Well-known brands will give their products to vloggers for free or pay them to advertise their products to the millions of followers that subscribe to the vlogger. For instance, Tanya Burr, a fashion and Beauty vlogger with over two million YouTube subscribers, has teamed up with retail giant Unilever beauty brands including Dove, Tresemme and VO5 to advertise products to her huge fan base. Great freebies aren’t the only benefit of vlogging, they also get a good source of income from advertising banners on their video blog sites. For example, a banner ad on a vlog can pay up to £20,000 a month and product placement can cost as much as £4000. What’s more, they might find themselves being invited to big name events like London Fashion Week as well as a whole host of other opportunities with all the networking that is involved. Ryan Stone, who has his own video marketing blog and is creative director of Lambda Films, a video production company, expresses how delighted he is to see so many young people becoming interested in video, "It’s great to see young people who have grown up with the emergence of YouTube and social media are using it to their advantage to earn a living." However, although the benefits of vlogging are great and they are doing something that they are passionate about– it’s important that anyone looking to get into vlogging understands that it is certainly no easy task. It requires complete dedication with constant attention and regular updates on their social media channels, if they want to be successful and build an influential fan base. So, as video becomes increasingly more influential on peoples lifestyles, it is a wonder whether more and more people will see video as a way to kick start their career. However, if graduate job prospects continue to improve in the same way as they currently are, perhaps more graduates will settle for a graduate career rather than kick-start their career on their own.