BUT GRADUATE FOG FEELS WEIRDLY POSITIVE – WHY?
At long last, recruiters have confirmed what so many of you already know: that the graduate jobs market is tough – and getting tougher.
New figures from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) show:
– 69 applicants for every graduate vacancy
– A 7% drop in the number of graduate vacancies available (on top of an 8.9% drop in 2009)
– 78% of graduate recruiters now insisting on a 2.1 minimum
Clearly, this news is demoralising for those of you battling with your job hunt this summer.
(Is this you? Then don’t miss Graduate Fog’s Advice pages How to Fight the Recession and How to Stay Motivated).
But while these new figures may not seem like good news, I actually think they are.
Why?
Because these numbers are so stark that they will make it very difficult for politicians, universities, schools and businesses to stick to their ridiculous fib that the graduate situation isn’t really that serious – when it is.
Once they admit that there is a problem here, we can start doing something about it.
Pretending everything is fine when it isn’t will not help anybody.
(Think this is tough? Read my even harsher words for politicians in today’s Scotsman.)
For a long time, Graduate Fog has been criticised for being ‘negative’ because we discuss the reality of graduate job-hunting in 2010.
This is because I refuse to spin bad news to you, as if it’s good news.
Or find a tiny sliver of good news and present it as a major breakthrough that everything is going to be fine, when in fact this situation remains extremely serious for hundreds of thousands of you.
Although this website is popular with new graduates, many visitors to Graduate Fog have been job-hunting for a while. You know that graduate vacancies are thin on the ground right now – and that competition is stiff.
So if I wrote a post with the headline ‘Good news for graduates! Big bank / massive chain takes on two extra graduates this year!’ I know that’s not going to wash with you.
If you’re smart enough to get a degree, you’re smart enough to spot a whitewash.
If you prefer to discuss what’s really happening (as opposed to what the universities and politicians wish was happening) keep coming back to Graduate Fog this summer.
I can’t promise I’ll always have good news for you – but I can promise we’ll be discussing the truth, with honesty.
*What do you think of the AGR’s latest figures announcement?
Will they help put the plight of job-seeking graduates into the spotlight? Or does all the negative talk make it harder for you to stay positive?
I don’t think the “69 applicants for every job” statistic is particularly helpful on its own… if you have 69 candidates and each of them applies for the same 69 jobs, it’s possible that every one of them will find a job (not guaranteed, as employers might decide to hire none of them!) but it will still be true that there were 69 applicants for every one of those jobs. I know I’ve applied for more than 69 jobs over the past few weeks (and not all were “graduate-level” jobs, but I only managed to score 1 interview, possibly because there were 100s of people applying for each job and perhaps the recruiter didn’t bother looking at more than 50).
What’s more worrying is the drop in the number of jobs available, especially, as you say, on top of last year’s drop. I’m in the very, very fortunate position of being able to start a funded Masters in September (and believe me I am grateful) but this summer is a struggle. I gave my boyfriend £1000 of my last student loan instalment and he is sending it back to me at the rate of £50 a week, not really enough to live on! I’m only getting by thanks to his generosity really, and hope to ‘pay him back’ once I manage to find a job… IF I manage to find a job. I’m really worried about the possibility of a ‘double-dip’ recession because even though I’ve effectively put off having to get a proper job for a year, there might be even fewer jobs to go round next year when I graduate from my Masters and while I don’t consider myself “above” entry-level or non-graduate jobs (a job is a job!), I will have a debt of over 30k to clear (got studying in London to thank for that).
I especially feel for those who have ended up with a 2.2 because employers are increasingly asking for a 2.1 or above. I somehow managed to scrape a surprise First (from the University of London) and I’m worried, so I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like for those who have been told since school “Go to uni, then you can get a good job” and are now being told that their degrees aren’t going to help them.
I agree Tanya, I think these figures are a good thing because those in power cannot ignore this situation any more. Something must be done, although I’m not sure exactly what. I might get hate on here for saying this but I think reducing the numbers of graduates would be a start. There are always exceptions of course but in general I’m not sure that university is the best place for someone who has achieved two Ds and an E in their A-levels. And don’t tell me that doesn’t happen, I’ve worked for an institution on their Clearing process and it happens a LOT.
@Ayesha Patel
Thanks for commenting – I’m glad to hear you agree with the angle of my latest post.
To be honest, I find it a difficult balance sometimes. I want to be helpful and positive for Graduate Fog’s users (for one thing, I know you won’t come back if I’m a big downer!). But I also can’t stand fakery and phoneyness – it makes my blood boil to see so many people trying to spin bad, serious news into something it isn’t.
For some reason, I’ve found the graduate recruitment firms show a particular tendency to do this – is it just me who thinks they come across more like primary school teachers than recruitment professionals?!
; )
It’s like they’ve made a pact not to acknowledge that actually it’s really tough getting a graduate job right now… And if they don’t verbalise this then maybe you lot won’t notice??
While we are in the middle of a recession and graduates are finding it difficult to secure appropriate work, I also notice that the statistics often report areas that were always hard to break into. The AGR tend to represent the higher end “blue chip” companies that are always attractive due to their structured training programmes and higher starting salaries. Naturally they will be, and have always been, oversubscribed. Additionally, most of them have sought 2:1s and Russell group universities for a while now.
The cuts in the public sector and civil service will have a more profound effect especially on the type of graduates who may not be so ambitious or commercially oriented, but sought after a safe job with a steady income.
On the plus side, it could potentially make people think twice about going to uni, bring about more valued vocational training courses. In doing so it may work against the 50% university participation target that we frequently question.
You’re right it is a difficult balance.
This balance is made even more difficult when two conflicting reputable reports are published within a week of each other.
The High Fliers report did actually contain some positive news – an improvement in the number of applications per vacancy from 2009, for example – which we felt that people should have an exposure to, as well as the most negative snippets of the report that the media focused on. (Do you not agree that fewer applications per vacancy in 2010 compared with 2009 is positive?)
Now the AGR have produced a report which directly contradicts these findings. As you rightly say in this article, the AGR has reported a 7% drop in the number of vacancies available, in stark contradiction to High Fliers who reported a 17.9% increase. The AGR report is bleak. I don’t think anyone would try to claim otherwise, there are no positives to be drawn out of it.
This to me is hugely confusing. Two reputable reports covering pretty much same subject matter (High Fliers looks at Times Top 100 Recruiters; AGR looks at top 199 companies) reporting somewhat contradictory data.
Yes, I agree that it would not be very balanced to address both reports. Real balance, however, comes from identifying the problem and then attempting to provide a solution.
Agreed with Ayesha – that stat by itself is vague – can we have more info? As in her example, if we’ve got 69 applicants but there are applying for 70 other vacancies, fab! But I have a feeling what they meant that it’s more like 69 applicants and <10 openings. 🙁
Also, if it's a grand total of X vacancies, we might have to reduce them by a certain amount because they are only open to a certain type of graduate, ie natural sciences, IT, and so on. How bad is it? Thanks again, Tanya!
Hi ML – Unfortunately I’m up to my eyeballs in (paid!) journalism work today so no time to research this further – does anyone else have time to dig around? Thanks!
I can’t find any figures for graduate vacancies other than the 17,920 in the article linked. I think it truly may be that low. :0 I have seen some very high figures on the Web, between almost 700k and over 1m, but I can’t say whether they are reliable or not. Anyone know?