The Graduate's Guide to Getting Hired in the AI Era

Sobanan started as a medical student. Then life took a very different turn, including a prison sentence that most people would leave out of their story. He didn't. He turned it into a philosophy about what it actually means to build a career with integrity and purpose.

Now he runs a social enterprises and spends a lot of time thinking about AI, ethics, and who gets left behind when systems only work for some people. He's never looked for the most polished candidates, because where's the fun in that?

Jasmine was convinced a Masters degree would get her hired - she couldn't have been more wrong. She applied to over 50+ jobs in 8 months after graduating with no luck. She eventually found Breakthrough through a series of fortunate events and a lot of persistence.

She realised there is so much more to getting a job and building a career than a degree. But, her humanities degrees have shaped who she is today. Now she leads marketing and communications across a dual-brand organisation, builds the AI workflows her team actually uses, and thinks constantly about storytelling as a skill that AI cannot replace.

Sarrujan never really started a career. He followed what interested him, and that led somewhere.

First it was science — wanting to understand life, how it works, where it came from. That took him to a Biology degree. The camera came alongside it, not as a plan, but because he had one and the world was worth capturing. Two ways of paying attention to the same thing.

Now at Breakthrough, he uses film and media to tell stories that matter — and he's spending a lot of time thinking about what authentic storytelling looks like when the tools are changing this fast.

Amira Al-Shabazz is Chief of Staff at Breakthrough Social Enterprise, and her career is proof that you do not need a traditional path to do work that matters.

She is currently completing a Master's in Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development, and has spent her career working across tech startups and social impact projects, applying AI and emerging technologies to challenges that actually matter, from supporting communities facing homelessness to building sustainability solutions aligned with the UN SDGs. She got into those rooms before she felt ready, built things before she had all the answers, and created opportunities rather than waiting for them to arrive.