employability
A degree does not equal a graduate job… do graduates know this by now?
An article in the Sunday Times from the Head of UCAS states that ‘Being a graduate is no longer a free pass to a graduate employment’. I think it is fair to say that most undergraduates know this by now. My experience is that the majority of undergraduates are focusing on doing and offering more than just a degree (and yes, I fully appreciate a significant minority are still over relying on their degree!). The challenge for graduates today, and for employers, is to look beyond the degree and at what more they can do, and offer, to secure that highly sought after graduate role.
In years gone by (and I fear I am talking about decades now!) the degree itself was the differentiator, back when the 2.1 or 1st was what helped employers shortlist efficiently (this was my graduate era!). But since then the huge increase in volumes of graduates with a ‘good’ degree, and the growing evidence that academic performance is not a guarantee of work based success, has lead employers to seek other ways to shortlist, and ultimately hire, the best talent.
“The challenge for graduates today, and for employers, is to look beyond the degree and at what more they can do, and offer, to secure that highly sought after graduate role.”
So what is the key, as an employer, to identifying the best suited talent quickly and effectively as most graduates look the same on paper? Work experience is obvious, but again more and more graduates know this, so lots have got that ‘badge’. Extra Curricula activities seems to be the growing focus as this provides evidence as to where students have taken the initiative to do more (such as volunteering, achievement in sport or music etc, or joining / becoming leaders of students societies, and what better on than the Bright Futures Societies, the largest network of career focused Societies in the UK!).
But when assessing graduates in terms of their work experience and extra curricula activities what is key as an employers is to look beyond the ‘badge’ they put on their CV, and focus on the graduates understanding as to how these additional ‘experiences’ make them right for the role. More often than not this ‘understanding’ and ability to convey or verbalise it cannot always be seen on a CV, so it requires someone to actually speak with them and / or an online application form which forces them to provide more of that evidence. So the truth is that recruiting graduates is not just a case of place an advert and the flood gates will open with masses of great applicants (although there are a lot of grads). Doing it well requires a time investment and knowing what to look for, but that investment will significantly improve the quality of graduates you ultimately hire, as the best suited talent will have taken the initiative to do more of the right things, and know how to showcase that at every stage of the process. At Bright Futures we see this every day with the employers we support, in the battle to compete for, and retain, the best graduate talent.
“Extra Curricula activities seems to be the growing focus as this provides evidence as to where students have taken the initiative to do more.”
And going back to what UACS had to say, perhaps this message is more directed to school leavers ahead of go into University. My experience is that this message is being heard loud and clear in High Education and now needs to be heard in the same way in Secondary Education; the sooner young people in school find this out, the quicker, and more effectively, they will take action on arriving at University to improve their chances of securing that all important graduate employment.
Not knowing what you want to do on leaving school is okay…
‘What are you going to do when you leave school?’ How many times do young people get asked this question? And why is it that we expect all young people to know what they want to do when they leave school? I hate this question as the message it gives to those young people who don’t know what they want to do, is that there is something wrong with them and that they should know – and that is no way to encourage them to do anything about it.
When I speak in schools, colleges and universities across the UK, I tell young people that it is absolutely okay to not know what they want to do when they leave school (and even University), BUT it is probably a good idea to do something about it. In other words don’t worry if you don’t know and as long as you are taking genuine action to find out about careers and FE & HE options, asking questions, meeting and talking to people who can help and have knowledge, then you are on the way to finding out what you want to do.
I would rather a young person who left school not knowing what they want to do, took some time to actively find out what they want to do, rather than went straight to uni, as that’s what their mates do, or get a job as that’s what their mates do – as there is a fair chance those options might not be right for them.
Universities want students to come to university because they have consciously chosen to do so. Employers want employees who really want a job and career in their industry and company. I know any smart university or employer would look very favourably upon anyone who said to them ‘I took time out after school (or Uni) to find out what I really wanted to do, and I now know this is what I want to do. This is what I did to find that out and this is why I am in front of you now…’
You can always apply to university next year and you can always apply for a job when you are ready and know what you want. People who know what they want are much more likely to make the right decision and gain their ‘success’ they want, and if it takes a week, a month, a year to find that out I would argue that is time well spent.
How do we help more young people to ‘succeed’ at school and college?
A recent article from the head of an all girls school, made the point that we need to move away from obsessing about getting A grades and that a B or C was good too. Her point being that not getting A grades led young people to feel they have failed or to not even try if they felt they would not get an A.
This got me thinking…
If as a student, they fairly naturally do well academically, that that success alone will help motivate them to do more and do better – i.e. strive for those A grades. But what about those for whom academic success does not come so naturally? What is the motivation for them to do better? Telling them ‘they might get an A if they try really hard’, or worse still, just be told ‘you have to do well at school or college if you want to get a good job’?! But if they don’t know what a good job is or are not excited by that thought then it seems we run a risk of them then disengaging. And with a generation who are increasingly vocal in asking ‘why?’ and challenging convention, when they do not get that success, many will start to question what is the point, or in the immortal words of Catherine Tate’s ‘character Lauren Cooper’ … ‘am I bovvered’?
So how can they be better inspired?
Young people need to know much earlier about the different jobs available and be excited by them. It is unlikely disengaged young people are going to be excited by dry academic subject matter, but the application of that subject matter and what ‘cool’ jobs it can be used in stands much more chance of inspiring them to then bother and do well in their education.
In short they need to be shown how what they learn can be applied in the real world of work – not just learning for learning sake.
We, as an organisation, have seen very recently a great example of this, with an unengaged student in an FE college, who was not performing well and had low attendance rates but through the experience given to him in one of our SPACEs, engaging with employers and the opportunities in the world of work, his attendance rate moved to 100% and his performance significantly increased. And why? Because he had a motivation and reason to bother!
We have seen this too with our Bright Futures School Societies, where a student who was struggling with confidence and to achieve in the classroom, but by engaging with the society activity and employers, his performance and impact grew significantly.
In short we run a high risk of not maximising the potential of many young people who have great untapped potential, if we expect them to do well at school and college because that is what we expect them to do. We need to invest much more time showing them how their education can be used in exciting careers that previously they just did not know or were bothered about.
The Future for Employability…Personal Responsibility?
The latest AGR magazine (http://www.agr.org.uk/Graduate-Recruiter) has an article from Paul Redmond, Director of Employability at the University of Liverpool, ‘Dancing in the Dark’ which makes some key points:
– University is about learning to think, develop opinions, process information and grow as a person but it is also about work AND study.
– The Careers Services ‘task is to prepare students for the world of work, while employers provide the opportunities’. But this is not enough, he says, employability cannot be done to people (a point I have been making for years), ‘students have to engage and take responsibility’.
(I agree with both his points, by the way!)
And not by chance, employers want to hire graduates who will also take responsibility, in this case for their personal & professional development, their career and their future – in essence employers want their new ’emergent talent’ to take a lead and drive their own futures.
This ‘taking of responsibility’ it would seem is thus an agreed key theme and attribute that students need.
It is for this reason I am so passionate about our Bright Futures Societies, in Universities and Schools. Through these Societies students are taking responsibility for their employability and taking a lead on what they do when it comes to careers, skills and their future for their peers.
However does ‘taking responsibility and taking a lead’ get the profile at University that it clearly needs to? Through our work in schools, we hear more and more about ‘student leadership’ and the Schools that are establishing Bright Futures student Societies, see what a great opportunity for student leadership the Society presents. For some reason I just don’t hear that message as strongly at University. The University ‘Experience’ absolutely provides huge amounts of opportunity to take responsibility & to a lead but it seems that the important trait is not highlighted enough and made much of.
Students know that to get good jobs they need to demonstrate key skills such as team work, communication, flexibility etc, but do they realise how important ‘taking responsibility’ will make on their futures?
Career Opportunities – lack of Supply or lack of Demand?
So 83% employers think young people need better career advice and to develop skills for employment, according to yet another survey – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24873223 – shock horror!
Employers have risen to the challenge and opportunity of offering more apprentices and career opportunities to young people and this is very much what is needed. The UK has an increased supply of career opportunities & jobs for young people, and that is both with the big employers and the SMEs too – by way of example a friend of mine who runs an SME is about to start recruiting two. BUT not nearly enough is being done to create the levels of demand for these opportunities, again I was at a meeting with a quantity of SMEs locally just recently and one of the companies has had unfilled apprenticeship vacancies for over a year!!
Why is this?
For most School leavers the only post education option they really are fully aware of & understand is University; the alternative of work opportunities are mixed and confused with dated ideas about apprenticeships, not to mention the range of apprenticeships. It is this area of creating demand that now needs effort and focus.
How can this be done?
The government quote that caught my eye was the statement that their new reforms are ‘putting employers in the driving seat’, which is all well and good for the government to show itself as being pro-business but what about the young people in schools themselves. Why can they not be put in the driving seat?
Provide students with the opportunity to find out for themselves about their career options post-secondary education, because realistically no career advisor (however knowledgeable) can be expected to know about all the careers available. Encourage the students to set up job / employment clubs at School, like our Bright Futures School Societies, and create career events for themselves and their peers which brings them into contact with employers who offer those range of career opportunities (be that graduate post University or school leaver and apprenticeship post school) and thus put them in the driving seat for their own futures.
It’s about demonstrating, not writing or talking, about skills that counts
At a recent event I attended hosted by TMP we were told,quire rightly, that companies need to give students the opportunities to experience the skills they need for the world of work and the values of an organisation “in action”, so they can really understand what is required.
For the really forward looking companies, who genuinely want to win the competition for talent, they need to find ways to see students demonstrating their skills and values far earlier than at assessment days. So we need to take this one step forward and give students the opportunity to demonstrate those skills so, as employers, we can see them. The obvious route is through internships and placements but that will never give companies exposure to enough students, hence the rise of on campus competitions and challenges, such as L’Oreals Brandstorm; Npower’s Energy Challenge or the UBS Challenge (for 1st Years). But these are just one way, others include working with Society Committees; involvement in the curriculum, the list goes on..
And for students the message is, get involved in activities where employers can actually ‘see’ your skills in action, like those mentioned above, do this and you will stand out far ahead of and in advance of the hordes of unaware students!
There really are jobs for graduates
Communication and the ease of it today is great but it has a huge downside. There has been so much doom and gloom, reports dominated by redundancies and companies going out of business that this has affected the new graduate workforce of the UK. They believe there are no jobs so they are not job hunting – so instead even more are going travelling or taking up post graduate study.
The rationale being that come 2010 – when they return to the job market things will be better when it comes to jobs. But this is just not the case.
So many finalists are not applying that many of the big firms still have vacanies to fill – so there are jobs out there now! Taking on the costs of a post graduate degree just to put off job huting is an expensive mistake. Employers wants graduates with real world, work based skills not more academic knowledge. And come 2010 there will be another 300,000 graduates leaving University to compete against for jobs.
So what’s the message? If I were a finalist today or a graduate from last year, knowing what I know, I would apply to as many companies as I could and if I did not secure the job I want this summer, I would get work experience and apply again for next year – as that work experience will help me stand out for the rest.
Student apathy or timing, timing, timing?
Having set about organising a national student conference for Bright Futures, where students can network with major graduate recruiters and build their skills AND where their travel expenses, accomodation and food are all paid for, and yet still we struggle to get all of them involved or having committed some then drop out, has caused me much frustration and many sleepless nights.
Once my initial frustration subsided I started thinking about why we could not secure the consistent commitment of all those who showed initial interest? And my deductions were that however relevant or important you think or believe something is and / or indeed the stduents themselves know it is – if the timing is not right then they won’t do it – not because they are not interested but they, understandably, have different priorities at different times. In our case, their career cannot always be their number one priority to them, even if it is for us!
So what’s the answer? The truth is I don’t know for certain but perhaps it lies in understanding that if you want to help others (in this case students) don’t expect them to take it however that help comes just because it is ‘help’ – that help still has to be right for them and that includes the timing of delivering the events and actvities.
Whether services or help come at a charge or are free, when that help is offered matters and not everyone will change their schedules.
Rant over and it helped me deal with my frustration! Thanks to my blog!!
Simon Reichwald 