BUT CEO ADMITS ‘MYRIAD SUBTLETIES ABOUT OUR ROLE, WHO WE PARTNER WITH AND AT WHAT LEVEL’ – AND FAILS TO EXPLAIN WHY MY LINK WAS DELETED FROM THEIR FORUM
The wait is over.
Prospects has at last made a statement to clarify its claim to be ‘The UK’s official graduate careers website.’
Unfortunately:
1) Prospects didn’t make this statement to us, and
2) Graduate Fog is still pretty confused.
But more of that in a minute.
First, I want to remind ALL Graduate Fog’s users (especially students and graduates, who I built this site FOR) that this issue concerns us ALL – not just the careers professionals and other interested parties who have been so vocal about it here in the last few days.
The only reason I’m being such a terrier about this Prospects thing is because ultimately the people who have the most to lose from us failing to address this are you, the students and graduates.
(You also have the most to gain, if we can fix it).
Why?
Because I want to change the way we provide graduate careers advice in this country – because, in my opinion, what we have now just isn’t working.
And it is my belief that we cannot create enough change on a big enough scale without first tackling everything that’s wrong with the current system.
THAT’S why I’m giving Prospects such a hard time.
But never fear – while I’m working on this I will continue to provide graduates with help to clarify your next steps and find a job this summer.
Sound good?
Right. Now, back to this statement from Prospects.
Who persuaded them to break their silence?
People, I give you recent graduate – and uber-committed Fogger – ‘Christopher’.
(Perhaps you’ve spotted his name among the comments from the last few days?)
Sharing Graduate Fog’s frustration about Prospects’ failure to respond to the recent debate, Chris took the matter into his own hands and emailed them himself.
After receiving no response from emailing them via Facebook, Chris re-sent the following email to enquiries@prospects.ac.uk:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to draw your attention to the debate taking place regarding Prospects on Tanya de Grunwald’s Graduate Fog website and to request that Prospects kindly provide a public response to the queries presented which are as follows:
– a clarification of Prospects’ business model, specifically whether Prospects is a charity, government-funded entity or a commercial business?
-taking into consideration the justifications provided for the link to Graduate Fog having been provided by Tanya along with her comment on the Prospects forum, an explanation of why the link was removed.
Having personally worked alongside professional careers advisers in the past and having also recently graduated from two British universities I, along with many other students, graduates and careers professionals would very much appreciate a public statement from Prospects in order to clarify the significant issues which this debate has brought up.
Many thanks,
Christopher
An hour later (!), he received this response, from Mike Hill, Prospects’ CEO (?!).
Here it is, in all its (unedited) glory:
Dear Christopher
Thank you for getting in contact with us concerning the ‘debate’ on graduate fog.
I am writing privately to you because you have asked perfectly reasonable questions. I have offered to speak to Tanya privately about these matters, but she has refused this invitation.
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) is a charity, with two members: Universities UK, and GuildHE, which are umbrella organizations for Vice Chancellors and HE College principals. It does not have shareholders, but does have stakeholders, who pay for membership. The average membership fee is about £1000 per HEI. This figure has been halved twice in the last 20 years.
HECSU owns another charitable organization, the National Council for Work Experience. HECSU is chaired by Professor Keith Burnett, VC at Sheffield, and the board is made up of VC, registrars, careers advisors and graduate recruiters. Each year, HECSU spends between £750k and £1m supporting careers services, helping students and graduates, commissioning research etc.
Graduate Prospects is a wholly owned subsidiary of HECSU. It is the commercial arm of the organization, and when it makes a profit, it gift aids that profit wholly to HECSU. There is no dividend. Although Graduate Prospects seeks to make a profit in a very competitive and cut-throat sector, it is not profit maximizing: the person with a third from a less high profile university who wants a job with a local SME is as important to us as a person with a first from Oxbridge who wants a job with a blue chip.
GP is also charged by UUK and the sector to maintain the official postgraduate course database, and works with AGCAS to maintain upwards of 400 jobs profiles on the site. These are expensive projects.
We are not a government body.
There are myriad subtleties about our role, who we partner with and at what level, how we strive to make ends meet in the midst of an economic downturn and during the most testing decade in media in recent history, how we try to be a force for good (our main competitors are owned by News International, and a venture capital company) on behalf of students, graduates, overstretched and under-resourced careers advisors and so on.
There are also many subtle constraints to how we operate, which cannot be fully explained in the Twitter-age, and require a careful and full dialogue, but I hope I have allayed some of your concerns.
All the very best
Mike Hill
Chief Executive
Clearly I have my own thoughts on this statement (!) but it’s lonely up here so I’d love to hear from you first.
So: Questions? Comments? Don’t be shy…
I’m a little under the cosh at the moment so can’t post all my thoughts but:
Has anyone noticed that they’ve still completely side-stepped the dubious “official” status, their seemingly inappropriate .ac.uk domain, the reasons (commercial?) for removing your link, the systematic failure of the careers service and Prospects symbiosis which sees students and graduates batted between one and the other.
Also, there remains a steadfast refusal to air this discussion IN PUBLIC as has been requested and as was specifically asked for by Christopher in his email to them.
I feel a little uncomfortable that private correspondence has been quoted publicly without discussion/consent, but Prospects’ continuing reticence to take a public line on this has, I suppose, left us with very little option.
Thanks Charles – I don’t make a habit of airing private correspondence in public but as you say, sometimes needs must! Thanks for your comments – and yes, i noticed similar holes in Mike’s statement…
I’d also be very interested to hear on what basis are they ‘official’?
Clearly it cannot be the fact that they are the commercial arm of HECSU – being affiliated with a charity wouldn’t usually afford you any kind of official status.
So surely it must be because of their affiliation with AGCAS? Firstly, AGCAS is the professional body for careers advisory practitioners, so whilst I can see that they have some oblique kudos from that I don’t see how that can possibly make them officially endorsed. It’s like me running a butchers and getting the Royal Institute of Fishmongers to endorse me and then claiming I’m the country’s official butcher. The areas may be close, but they are not overlapping, and credibility in one doesn’t lend credibility in another.
Secondly, even if we allow that endorsement from AGCAS entitles them to claim that they are ‘official’, should this not be made clearer? Should there also not be a substantial amount of transparency about the amount of money they contribute to AGCAS (it’s in the substantial 6 figures).
To the untrained eye, it would look like a bit of a cozy stitch-up between industry body, charity and commercial entity. Naturally, I’m sure the substantial size of donation is completely independent of endorsement.
Right?
Really interesting debate. Thinking about the bigger picture, is this a failure of AGCAS as well? Surely it is their responsibility to ensure their member services are equipped with the best possible armoury with which to help students. At the moment it seems like each service is given 1 option i.e. prospects and beyond that they have to make individual choices. Shouldn’t AGCAS do a proper review of graduate services each year and supply their members with a clear list of the best materials on offer. Perhaps they already do this? From my understanding what happens is that career services are bombarded by calls from graduate media and can’t distinguish good from bad. The fact AGCAS take a huge grant to promote a commercial organisation and seemingly only promote their services strikes me as a terrible conflict of interest and a bad deal for students.
@MikeHill
I built Graduate Fog for 500 quid.
The first of my (our) questions was barely answered. The second was completely ignored. I’ll be replying to Mike to make him aware that I don’t feel that this response was satisfactory. As has been said above, I did specifically ask for these issues to be PUBLICLY clarified and this has also been completely disregarded. I’m afraid I’m fed up with the general attitude of this company towards its users which is that they can do as they like. They cannot. As Jim says, AGCAS really is at the root of all of this. As they are essentially in charge of managing all university careers advice services in the country, they need to be constantly reviewing, updating and improving the way these services function and fulfill their role. Which I hardly need to mention, is clearly not happening. Perhaps I’ll contact AGCAS directly! This issue absolutely needs to continue to be explored.
As a student currently trying to work out how on earth I’m going to find the right job for me, I thought the government’s Prospects service would be able to help. To be honest, I thought the poor advice they offer matched what I would expect from a government body! However, I do feel I have been misled by my career service – what makes them ‘official’?? That they are lining the right pockets?!
Many thanks
@Student – thanks for your post – and Welcome to Graduate Fog! I’d stake my LIFE on the fact that you’ll find this site more helpful than Prospects…
Your post highlights exactly the issue here – Prospects is NOT a government funded website! What on earth was it that led you to think it was? The wholesome ‘ac.uk’ domain name? The slogan ‘the UK’s official graduate careers website’? Or the fact that it is so widely recommended by university careers centres?
I can certainly see how you – and hundreds of thousands of others – might be confused by this…!
; )
In answer to your question, NOTHING makes Prospects ‘official.’ We don’t HAVE an ‘official’ careers advice website in this country. Prospects have just slapped that label on themselves because they ‘work with’ (ie fund) AGCAS, the university careers advisers’ professional body.
*Sniffs* Do you smell something?
Hmm, me too.
Don’t worry, stick with Graduate Fog instead : )
And tell your friends! Come the revolution! xx