NEW SURVEY SHOWS THIS YEAR’S FINALISTS ARE THE LEAST PREPARED EVER
This year’s university leavers are the least prepared for life after graduation ever, new statistics from High Fliers Research reveal.
Overall, 14% of finalists have yet to decide whether they will seek work, do a postgrad course or go travelling – the highest proportion ever seen since the survey was launched in 1995.
But among arts and humanities students this figure rises to almost 50%.
The new figures also show a 15-year low in students’ confidence in the graduate job market:
45% of finalists describe prospects for new graduates as ‘very limited’
and
One in six say they wouldn’t have gone to university if they’d realised how tough the graduate job market is.
Across all degree subjects, only a third (36%) of finalists believe they will either start a graduate job or be looking for a graduate job after leaving university this summer.
A quarter (26%) plan stay at uni to study for a postgrad course
16% are preparing to take time off or go travelling, and –
8% expect to temp or do voluntary work.
Graduates from the Class of 2010 expect to owe an average of £17,9000 (up from £15,700 in 2009) and are seriously concerned that the Class of 2009 will take most of the entry-level vacancies on offer this year.
Martin Birchall, Managing Director of High Fliers Research, said:
“The recession may be officially over, but with a record number of students due to complete degrees in the coming weeks and tens of thousands of last year’s graduates still looking for work there is widespread concern on campus that competition for graduate jobs has never been fiercer.
“The research highlights that students from arts and humanities courses and those who’ve had little or no work experience during their time at university are the least confident about the future.”
These new stats confirm Graduate Fog’s fears that this summer is going to be extremely tough for graduates – and frankly I’m losing my patience with the people who were supposed to be looking out for you lot.
WHAT is being done about:
– The shortfall in the number of jobs for university leavers, particularly now the public sector is planning a graduate recruitment freeze in most areas?
– The scandalous spread of unpaid internships, which normalises the exploitation of young graduates who are desperate to work?
– The nonsensical obsession with sending 50% of our country’s young people to university?
– The lack of modern, useful careers advice for graduates to help you make good decisions about how to handle this muddle?
David Willetts MP – What are you actually DOING to help the hundreds of thousands of students who are about to graduate into this mess? So far we’ve seen a lot of talk, but ZERO action.
Prospects and AGCAS – Can you really put your hand on your heart and say you’re doing a fantastic job of giving these young people modern, useful career advice to help them make sensible, informed decisions about what to do next?
Universities – Don’t you feel even a teensy bit queasy about the fact that you’re selling qualifications to young people for thousands of pounds – which will turn out to be almost worthless on the job market?
Schools – Do you still think it’s a good idea to encourage so many of your pupils to go to university, when this is the reality they will face when they graduate?
Unfortunately, Graduate Fog can’t create graduate jobs or change the careers advice industry overnight (though believe me, I’m trying!).
But this summer I will do my very best to provide you lot with the support, information and advice that nobody else seems willing or able to supply.
In return (remember, I’m unpaid for all this work I do!), PLEASE tell your friends about Graduate Fog and keep commenting on posts and pages.
Remember: Alone, you are one – but together we are many!
Imagine what we could achieve if our Graduate Fog army had TENS OF THOUSANDS of members?
If you lot really want your situation to improve, you need a clear, collective voice in order to get things happening.
I’m very happy for you to use Graduate Fog to build this ‘voice’, so we can shout louder and louder and get you the help that you deserve.
I can’t do anything without knowing I have your support.
Sound good?
*Have you left your post-graduation plans to the last minute?
Tell Graduate Fog why – we promise we won’t judge! Do you feel angry or let down by the government or your university? Get it off your chest here…
“Do you feel angry or let down by the government or your university? Get it off your chest here…”
Interestingly, we’re conducting a survey at the moment which covers both that and a lot of similar questions to the HighFliers research (purely coincidentally mind you, we drafted it before they released their findings) – if anyone wants to take part and let us, as well as Tanya, know what you’re thinking you can click here to take our survey and get entered in to our prize draw to win a £100 thank-you voucher for Amazon for taking the time to help us out!
Not much to add to Tanya’s post above, except for a big +1 to all of it. There is a mis-gearing at all levels towards pushing young people in to university education when, frankly, they’d have been better served by dodging £20k in debts and being 3-4 years behind on their career trajectory.
Thanks Gareth – looking fwd to hearing your findings!
Hello Tanya,
Glad I found your site!Since I finished on the 14th of May 2010, I’ve been on countless interviews always getting to the last 2. no useful feedback since i’m always so impressive. if i’m so impressive, why aren’t I the one with the job? That’s what I’d like to know! I am not one of those who wasn’t planning ahead, unlike most of my friends, I did plan ahead and I’m still unemployed. I do have an unpaid (expenses only) internship due to begin in July which I’m grateful for but what I’d love is a job. Especially as I was forward thinking enough to collect experience before & all through my degree. It still didn’t count. I just feel so let down not just by the system but by my parents. yes I said it. both of them wouldn’t even consider the possibility of life without a degree (my dad a retired surgeon now a GP and my mum a Pharmacist) so having a daughter who is Arts inclined was difficult but they still sold me the dream of a degree = a great job. It is only barely a month into my unemployed status and I’m already sounding a tad bitter. but the truth is I loved my degree (English and Creative Writing) and I enjoyed my time at University, I just wish that I knew that the equation I was sold was a little outdated before I graduated.
Tanya, surely it is the graduates themselves that have to take on the main responsibility for doing something -i.e. researching their potential futures. Even when I first went to uni (10 years ago) there was no guarantee of any job after your degree, let alone a good one. Anyone who had any foresight knew this, and (apart from the medics) most of us were aware that the competition after uni was where your career really began. Moreover, in fields like media, politics, publishing and law, it always has been your contacts and social capital that have been more important than your degree in anycase -its not your parents/teachers/government that are to blame, its the institutions themselves that are very adept in keeping outsiders firmly out.
Its important to note that the university qualification itself is not worthless. In fact looking at the various curiculums over the last 30 years, little has changed in my field. Its just that the sheer number of graduates eliminates any premium it once had.
Ultimately, it is this oversupply that renders the otherwise good idea of graduates coming together as unlikely (I say it sadly as a member of a union myself and a believer in collective action). Most graduates realise they are each others competition and will always be looking to get that edge over the next person. This is the real reason for those unpaid internships you hate so much are being taken up and why young people are spending more and more money to get any vague advantage. Even if you were to close of the 50% participation rate, the unpaid internships and expensive MScs, all it would do is displace the “competitive advantage” into other areas.
@Lucy – I’m glad you found us too – welcome to Graduate Fog!
I know many graduates share your feelings of disappointment and betrayal (or is that too strong a word?) when discovering that the real benefits of a university of education seem to be less than you were led to believe.
However, given that you DID decide to go to uni and you DO have a degree, you’re wise to concentrate on pressing on with your job hunt. Keep an eye on your confidence and motivation – and whatever you do, DON’T opt to go back to do further study just because you keep coming second for jobs! I know it feels like slap in the face, but coming second is a fantastic achievement when the graduate job market is as tough as it is now. Keep coming back to Graduate Fog and commenting on posts to let us know how you’re getting on xx
@Ian – thanks for your post.
It sounds like we are around the same age (i graduated in 2000) so i’m not surprised that you aren’t aware of how much things have changed since we graduated.
I agree that the ultimate responsibility for organising their future lies with the graduates themselves – believe me, Graduate Fog is not about spoon-feeding. If they’re old enough to vote and pay taxes, they’re old enough to take responsibility for themselves! So although I have provided a lot of advice and info for graduates, I make it quite clear that I’m not going to get a job FOR my users – THEY’RE going to have to do that!
Re my blog post – Of course, the ‘ostrich’ tactic of refusing to think about the future while at uni is nothing new among students – i know I did that myself – I had nothing lined up for when I graduated! And yes, certain industries (media, politics etc) have always been competitive and having some contacts and/or being able to work for free certainly helped.
However, what’s changed is that now it is IMPOSSIBLE to get into these industries without working for LONG periods COMPLETELY UNPAID. This is at a time when graduate debt has never been higher (on average nearly 18k).
It sounds like you may not be aware just how much tougher things have got for graduates in the last few years. As you say, the sheer number of graduates has increased enormously since 2000. Throw in the recession, a public sector graduate recruitment freeze, an average graduate debt of nearly 18k and the spread of unpaid internships and you’ve got hundreds of thousands of young people graduating in to a huge mess this summer.
The need for better careers advice has never been greater – yet most graduates say their university’s service was unhelpful to all but those who already knew what they wanted to do!
Re my comment about some qualifications being ‘worthless’ – far from disagreeing with me, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The ‘worth’ of a degree surely comes from how rare it is and how ‘valued’ it is by recruiters. What i’m objecting to is universities knowingly providing more and more places for the most popular courses (eg media studies) when they KNOW there aren’t enough jobs in those sectors to accommodate all these graduates. The number of media studies students had tripled in the last 10 years . At the same time, the media industry has never been in a worse state…
Right or wrong, students have an idea that the number of places avaliable for a certain subjects has some correlation with the number of jobs available in those industries. The universities know this isn’t true, yet they happily take money off more and more students, knowing exactly how unlikely they are to make that degree ‘pay off’ – especially if they live outside a big city and can’t afford to work for free.
So yes, i agree that students and graduates must take responsibility for taking charge of their future. But i also think there are an awful lot of people (MPs, universities, careers advisers, schools and teachers) who should hang their heads in shame about how they have let own an entire gneration of our brightest young people. To leave them to fend for themselves in this terrible mess WE have created because WE gave them bad advice is disgusting.
– Tanya, yep graduated same year, same degree subject and classification too by the looks of things. I stayed on and took it further. As part of my work, I do have to mentor, lecture, employ (and sadly clinically treat) graduates so I do have some awareness of the current university scene.
While I agree that its not at all easy now, but I am not sure how much easier it was back then either. True we didnt have the scary level of debt thanks to tuition fees, but also we didn’t have the sheer access to information that graduates have today. Also there has been an explosion in “new graduate roles” (e.g. changes to Nursing, I.T. etc) that were really not that developed for those entering university in the 90s, and we had our own recession too. What is true is that mainstream careers advice was, and still is woeful. It needs to be more targeted and ideally linked in to people that actually work in the profession or industry.
I disagree with the statement that you HAVE to do long periods of unpaid work. That’s often the most straightforward and obvious option, but there is usually a paid option even if it is off the beaten track. The difference tends to be in the resourcefulness of the individual.
I would also challenge the idea that it is the job for universities to be involved in workforce planning or as a vocational factory. Take a subject like psychology, where not everyone that takes it either wants to practice or teach it. Its a useful course that provides transferable skills, numeracy,writing etc but if universities were forced to limit its teaching of it, many would miss out. It would also reduce the pool of applicants that do want to work within the field, and that is damaging not just in terms of hidden talent, but diversity as well.
Part of the problem is lumping all graduates together as a homogenous mass. I would suspect that the top quartile graduates in any field probably won’t struggle that much. Those at the bottom quartile probably would not have stood much of a chance either with or without their degree, but may have hopefully personally benefited (socially, intellectually, culturally). Its the mid ranking grads that are most subject to the vagaries of the cycical business cycle. They suffer the most in the recessions and hard times, but there is usually some place for them in the boom years. However, the needs for each group are quite different.
Hello Tanya,
Thanks for that! I will keep going as I have got a boost of re-motivation! Which I feel I needed. I just have to view it from the right way. Here’s to all the graduates.. we can do it!:-)