WHEN WILL EMPLOYERS STOP BASHING YOUNG WORKERS – AND START INVESTING IN TRAINING AGAIN?
The Confederation of British Industry has declared that applicants for graduate jobs are failing to meet business’ high expectations.
Susan Anderson, CBI director for education and skills, announced:
“Employability skills are the most important attributes that businesses look for in new recruits, but graduates are currently falling short of employers’ expectations. Competition for jobs is intense and graduate unemployment remains high, so students need to proactively develop relevant employability skills. But at the same time all universities need to explain these skills better and make sure they embed them in teaching.”
The CBI has also quoted findings that over 80% of businesses say that ’employability’ skills are the most important consideration when recruiting graduates. In other words, employers now expect graduates to turn up on Day One ready to do the job, without them being required to provide any basic training.
Could it be that graduates are no more ‘green’ than they ever where – it’s just that businesses have got stingier about training you properly, because they know the dire graduate job market means that they’ve got you over a barrel? Instead of putting their hand in their pocket to do what employers have always done before (invest in their young staff), is it possible that businesses are simply opting for the easier (and cheaper) option of blaming you lot – and your university – for being rubbish?
Even more disturbingly, it seems that young people are accepting that what business says is fact. New figures reveal that two-thirds of students think universities don’t do enough to support the teaching of vital ’employability’ skills for their jobs post university, such as customer awareness, team working and self management.
Am I missing something? Why on earth should it be your university’s responsibility to teach you “customer awareness, team working and self management”? These are business skills – and that’s why business should pick up the bill for teaching them.
Yes, young people are increasingly going to university because they want to get a better job (rather than simply because of your love of learning). But unless I’ve missed something, university’s primary purpose is still to teach you the subject you chose to learn there. Making you ‘work-ready’ was never part of the deal.
Eh? Is Graduate Fogdefending universities, for once? Yes, actually.
As regular readers will know, I am not often seen leaping to the defense of the universities – which I think need an urgent re-think to ensure they provide advice and information that is actually useful to their students and graduates planning their next move after university.
However, I think pushing all the blame on to them to make you ‘work perfect’ when you start a new job is unfair. I’m irritated by the CBI’s assumption that universities should now start providing the sort of training that THEY used to provide for young workers. How dare they demand that universities do their job for them?
Not long ago, training was something that employers factored in when hiring graduate recruits. You had a degree, which showed you were intelligent and hard-working. They hired graduates based on your potential, not on your experience (because it was assumed that you wouldn’t have any experience – because you’d been at university, see?) Employers accepted that it was their responsibility to train you up so that you could do the job really well in a few months’ time. They did NOT expect you to know everything, have experience and get it all right on Day One.
My theory? That by continuing to knock graduates’ confidence by implying you that you’re not good enough, employers maintain the upper hand in the recruitment war. The more they tell you your labour is worthless without experience, the more crap you’re willing to put up with from them.
Scarily, their strategy is already working. Too many of you effectively already pay to train yourselves, in the form of unpaid internships. The latest batch of graduates aren’t even questioning this horrific situation, simply accepting it as a fact of life. Worse still, we are now seeing the rise of Stockholm Syndrome interns, who are convinced their employer is doing them a huge favour in allowing them to work there, unpaid.
Enough. It’s time that businesses stopped distorting young people’s idea of what it means to be a worker. All employees deserve to be paid for their labour – and all employees need some training when they start a new job. If employers want to get the best out of their graduates recruits, they should stop telling you how rubbish you are – and start telling you the truth about how much value you really bring.
*Do employers deliberately make graduates feel worthless?
Do you blame your university for failing to equip you for the world of work – or should businesses take more responsibility for training their junior staff?
“Am I missing something? Why on earth should it be your university’s responsibility to teach you “customer awareness, team working and self management”? These are business skills — and that’s why business should pick up the bill for teaching them.” The difference is that students have spent three years and a lot of money invested in a degree so I think it is only right that degrees are more geared towards helping students find a job. Also many universities say that their degrees will help graduates to find work or at the least they have mislead students into believing that their degrees will help them to find work so I would expect the universities to be consistent and for this to be the case. I have not spent a penny on the business so I think it is more unrealistic to expect them to spent time on training when they can find someone more experienced. Also just by providing more work experience as part of the degree can be a good way of the student gaining work experience, training and contacts that would really help. NVQ’s are more geared towards helping people find work so why can’t degrees also be?
”They hired graduates based on your potential, not on your experience”
Nail on the head Tanya! This is so frustrating, also I literately did not know that that unpaid internships were illegal! I really don’t want to do an unpaid internship, after being in retail and uni my whole life what choice do I and others have eh?
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/about/employability/
“At London Metropolitan University we take our students’ future employment seriously and we are committed to helping them build rewarding careers.” They have a full page on employability
They say it themselves, their role is to help student’s future employment.
@Grad26
Thanks for your comments – and I agree that this is a bit of a grey area.
You say:
And of course I agree that universities have a responsibility to prepare you for job-seeking (deciding what you want to do, interview technique etc), but I still don’t think it is up to them to make you ‘work ready’ from Day One in a new graduate job. There is a big difference between the two. Besides, every company is different – and it’s up to them to show you exactly how they want you to do the job. If they’ve hired the right person, they won’t take long to pick it up.
If we’re now saying that universities should basically be hot-houses preparing you to be handed straight over to employers, I think someone should tell the universities that their brief has changed..?
i wrote about this last year for the Guardian – Graduates: a problem in four parts – and I’m dismayed to find that we seem to be no nearer to reaching a consensus on what university is actually FOR. And I fear that until we can agree on this, it is going to continue to be you lot – the graduates – who pick up the bill for this crucial ‘no man’s land’ period that neither the universities nor employers are willing to help you with.
As a recruiter of some 112 years standing I regularly find that graduates do not have the skills employers are looking for. Employers do not have to look for ‘potential’ skills when they are recruiting from graduates – some graduates have those actuals skills already, or are we all falling into the ageism trap of presuming all graduates are under 25?
Many graduates have worked with employers both before and during uni, part time in shops, call centres etc. frequently they are exposed to customer service skills, planning and organising, collaboration skills etc – so its not unreasonable to expect them to have these business skills, neither is it against the law to ask for them. Employers are allowed to find the best persons for the job. In my experience IKEA (and sometimes MacDonald’s heavenforbid) offer their staff great training which is remembered and used to great advantage in interview situations.
So here’s the thing, the graduate leaves uni and then expects to be able to put all that academic theory into practice in the workplace. The employer doesn’t want that, they want practical skills, people skills, exposure to life experiences etc. That’s what the CBI is talking about, and that’s what is lacking from graduates – I quote “relevant employability skills” – not fabulous dissertations or research experiences.
Have unis got it wrong? Shouldn’t education give you more life experience? Who knows, but it is a strange world when you ask a bunch of newly qualified accountancy grads to sit a practical exercise in a job interview and not one of them takes into account budgetary constraints – its happening on a daily basis.
12 years standing
As depressing a situation as it is, you have summed it up best with “it’s just that businesses have got stingier about training you properly, because they know the dire graduate job market means that they’ve got you over a barrel.” The situation now is so bad now that the power is entirely in the employers hands and there is nothing that can be done about it. Employers can ask for what they want, and only look at the absolute cream of the crop.
The CBI quote “Competition for jobs is intense and graduate unemployment remains high, so students need to proactively develop relevant employability skills” just highlights the fact that employers can ask for more and we will do it, because what choice do we have. If an employer asks for tightrope skills, I will damn well go out and try and learn how to tight rope, regardless that it has no relevance to the job whatsoever.
So where does that leave us graduates? Our problem is that we are desperate, really really desperate to find anything. We know there is a glut of graduates after three years of a troubled economy, but reading the papers shows that the country is still not recovering very well at all. This just makes us more desperate, because we know that without a significant economic recovery, the glut of graduates at the bottom will only increase. We have heard talk about us becoming a “lost generation” and a lot of us are getting truly scared that this might be the case, so will do absolutely anything to get a decent job or just a foot in the door (or just a finger nail in the door with the hope that one day you will get a foot in there).
If an unpaid internship comes up for a company that I want to work for, I will get that application done faster than Usain Bolt, nevermind that it is illegal or I can’t afford it. It is not that we graduates think we are worthless (despite the job centre’s best efforts) but we can’t wait for the companies to be made to respect the law eventually, we need something now or we get left behind. Beggars can’t be choosers.
@Derrick
In the 12 years you’ve been in recruitment, would you say that employers have got more demanding of graduates, or has the standard of graduates dropped?
Because I was looking for my first job after uni about 11 years ago (I graduated in 2000), and I had no experience at all (2 months of temping) and landed something immediately, paying 20k. So did most of my friends. And we were really ‘green’! Now I see ads for graduate jobs and they’re asking for the moon on a stick… Do you agree that something has changed?
You say:
…and of course I agree. But in the current climate with so many graduates and so few jobs, I just feel that employers’ demands are becoming unreasonable.
“it’s just that businesses have got stingier about training you properly, because they know the dire graduate job market means that they’ve got you over a barrel.”
Here’s some business facts. When times are tough, recruitment is cut advertising and training budgets are the first and deepest cuts for any employer. This affects all staff not just new recruits. Its not that employers are targeting grads, if the money isn’t there to train its not there to train and training will always be a peripheral activity – wrong as that is – and easily cut for all staff.
Here’s some life facts, perhaps over the last 10 years we’ve seen the development of a movement that feels the world owes them a living and if it doesn’t go our way we’ll winge about it. Grads can take the unpaid job and then make a NMW claim and win, like others are. Grads can take part time jobs in professions that are not relevant to their degree in order to gain some relevant business skills. They cannot reasonably expect there to be jobs available in their profession if they’ve chosen an overly glamorous degree subject in an already overcrowded market. What’s wrong with an apprenticeship?
Yes its tough, but grads also need to shoulder some responsibility, by continually taking unpaid jobs and doing nothing about them, they are hardly solving their own problem. Graduatefog is helping in that respect and I for one applaud them in their crusade.
There are rogue employers out there, there are exploiters out there, there are also decent employers out there who are struggling to make ends meet. There are grads who simply throw their hands up in the air and accept their fate then whinge.
@Daniel
This is EXACTLY my point!
And this:
…is interesting too. Do others feel the same?
Thanks Tanya,
“In the 12 years you’ve been in recruitment, would you say that employers have got more demanding of graduates, or has the standard of graduates dropped?”
Not more demanding, just better at sorting the wheat from the chaff. Employer’s requirements are no longer vague, they don’t ask vague questions like “where do you see yourself in 5 years time, or what can you bring to this job?” which candidates used to Bulls*** on all the time. Now employers check to make sure candidates can do what they purport by using tests and exercises. That may ‘feel’ more demanding for candidate’s but it also means employers aren’t saddled with those who talk the talk but cannot walk the walk – which is good for those having to work with the new recruit.
Has standard of grads dropped? Yes, anecdotally basic literacy skills are poorer, not so sure on numeracy, I think if you look at some of the psychometric studies undertaken in the UK and US they back this up. Normative base lines for sample groups have dropped.
As for business skills standards, well see my response above, employers are better at asking for what they want, rather than taking the candidate’s verbal responses at face value.
Because I was looking for my first job after uni about 11 years ago (I graduated in 2000), and I had no experience at all (2 months of temping) and landed something immediately, paying 20k. So did most of my friends. And we were really ‘green’! Now I see ads for graduate jobs and they’re asking for the moon on a stick… Do you agree that something has changed?
Please supply evidence – this is unsupported.
“…and of course I agree. But in the current climate with so many graduates and so few jobs, I just feel that employers’ demands are becoming unreasonable.”
Again, be specific, what’s unreasonable about asking for ‘relevant business skills’ – when some grads have them – there’s nothing new in that.
Happy to discuss with you but please back up your assertions with evidence not just subjective assertions ‘now they want the moon on a stick’.
Thanks Derrick, that’s all very interesting.
Sorry but that’s not quite the way this works – this is a blog, not a dissertation! ; ) Plus you may or may not be aware that I run GF entirely unpaid so have to be careful how I spend my time. I quite understand if you would like to leave the discussion there – I’m afraid I can’t justify spending time finding job adverts to quote to back up every point I make – hope that sounds reasonable! That said, most of the unpaid internships ads I see require extensive skills and experience – ‘the moon on a stick’ – and so those for permanent, paid roles ask for even more again…
Perhaps another grad reading this could provide Derrick with a concrete example?
This is interesting:
“In the 12 years you’ve been in recruitment, would you say that employers have got more demanding of graduates, or has the standard of graduates dropped?”
Not more demanding, just better at sorting the wheat from the chaff. Employer’s requirements are no longer vague, they don’t ask vague questions like “where do you see yourself in 5 years time, or what can you bring to this job?” which candidates used to Bulls*** on all the time. Now employers check to make sure candidates can do what they purport by using tests and exercises. That may ‘feel’ more demanding for candidate’s but it also means employers aren’t saddled with those who talk the talk but cannot walk the walk — which is good for those having to work with the new recruit.
… Psychometric assessments have been used for years, but “on-the-job” type exercises and tests (where applicants do exercises specifically related to the challenges of that job) would be a bit unfair on entry-level grads, who by nature of being entry-level don’t have relevant experience. Surely at grad level, employers can only assess on potential, personality, attitude etc.
I get the impression that what is happening is that – with the exception of “graduate schemes” – there are no more entry-level type jobs. There’s internships, and there’s employment. And when very few employers can afford to take on people to train up, relevant experience is what counts.
I think a scheme to help undergrads become more employable is good, in its own way. But as economic recovery continues to elude us, and as the number of grads goes up, competition will only get fiercer.
—————————–
And this is also interesting to me:
“Has standard of grads dropped? Yes, anecdotally basic literacy skills are poorer, not so sure on numeracy, I think if you look at some of the psychometric studies undertaken in the UK and US they back this up. Normative base lines for sample groups have dropped.”
The CBI tends to tell us every year that literacy is going down the drain. I’m personally not convinced, because I think that what we do literacy wise (lots of emails, blogging, commenting, synthesising info, repackaging it for different platforms) is not as “tested” as more trad ways of proving literacy (i.e. long reading comp type tests). We’re more “web-literate” rather than “book-literate”. But I think people generally write far more now than they did than in my generation.
@ Claire
“… Psychometric assessments have been used for years, but “on-the-job” type exercises and tests (where applicants do exercises specifically related to the challenges of that job) would be a bit unfair on entry-level grads, who by nature of being entry-level don’t have relevant experience. ”
Firstly, the exercises are related to competencies and skills, not jobs specific factual information. So the exercises are carefully designed to be applicable to all candidates focussing on general competences such as planning and organising, customer focus, collaboration, performance and drive etc. These are generic and easily transferable to the workplace, they are business skills.
Literacy encompasses spelling, use of grammar, clarity, brevity, structure, comprehension, inference etc. Report writing is a skill that needs all round literacy. Perhaps the use of phonetic learning as well as spellchecker is making graduates lazy and unable to adapt? I have no solutions but do agree with the CBI.
@ Tanya, I agree unpaid internship job descriptions do take the piss and we both agree they are the exploiters but I haven’t seen that elsewhere.
Thanks for your clarification Derrick.
@Derrik
‘Heavenforbid MacDonald’s’
May Heaven forbid that MacDonalds show more interest in an individual’s career than a high brow recruiter.
‘Employers are allowed to find the best persons for the job’
But what exactly does this mean? If you mean Experience > Potential the grad. is less of a risk (but also a massive snorefest). Are people that tight to save on training costs to overlook great potential?
Is business this dull?
>>>But what exactly does this mean? If you mean Experience > Potential the grad. is less of a risk (but also a massive snorefest).
It means the best person for the job based on the criteria that the employer is looking for. If that means they want someone who can hit they ground running then they are allowed to recruit for that. If they someone whom they can development – succession planning – then they are allowed to recruit for that.
>>>Are people that tight to save on training costs to overlook great potential?
Let me reverse this, are graduates that lazy that they can’t be bothered take responsibility in own development and skills that are widely available? The competencies I’ve listed above are not that difficult to get hold of – like I say, plenty of student friendly employers offer them and plenty of graduates do have them and put them to use in assessments and interviews.
There is no conspiracy, just too many grads and not enough entry level jobs.
“Not long ago, training was something that employers factored in when hiring graduate recruits. You had a degree, which showed you were intelligent and hard-working. They hired graduates based on your potential, not on your experience (because it was assumed that you wouldn’t have any experience — because you’d been at university, see?) Employers accepted that it was their responsibility to train you up so that you could do the job really well in a few months’ time. They did NOT expect you to know everything, have experience and get it all right on Day One.”
Tanya, I completely agree. This is not meant to contradict what Derrick is saying about customer service or other general skills required for basic suitability, but when businesses or offices get too focused on narrow short-term ‘hit the ground running’ hiring they are missing out on talent. At the same time, bright graduates are being discouraged. A lose-lose situation.
There are times when all that is needed is for someone to do work on X database and there is no time to train, but often it seems like they are too hung up on finding that magical candidate who knows X database, Y programming language, and is fluent in !Kung besides….when letting someone have a go with general aptitude and talent in IT and languages might be able to get up to speed, and meet unforeseen future requirements as well. I used to work in a place where our specific training was very hard to find on the outside, and it always paid off to find someone adaptable rather than the person who thought he or she knew all that there was to know, but then lost their &!$#% minds when Vista went to Windows 7, or horrors, we left for Linux altogether…or anything else changed at all!
ML,
I agree that IT skill and particularly platforms change all the time, its a prerequisite that IT staff constantly keep their skills updates. The same is not true of other disciplines, their platforms and tools don’t change that rapidly.
No one hires on experience, that’s a myth – its discriminatory, so its not done. They hire on skills and competencies, the fact is that 1. We are in a recession and employers are allowed to look for those with the skills as they haven’t got the budget for anything else 2. There are too many graduates.
@Derrik
‘No one hires on experience’
News to me! May I ask how one gets these skills without experience?
6m experience, 12m experience, 12 years experience – what matters is the quality, mastery and application of the skills, not the experience alone
From the States here.
Wow… and I thought it was bad here…
What really strikes me is all the “employability skills” talk. Five years ago we were in the same place the UK is in today– almost universal consensus on the part of employers to blame the applicants. Where we are starting to come out of this Hayley Taylor self-confidence-magical-thinking trance, I’m very sad to see that in the UK they’re doubling down.
I have a sinking feeling I know what “employability” really means. It’s someone who will turn off their dignity, own opinions and right to a personal life. It’s someone who will cheerlead the company brand 24/7/365, even in their personal life. It’s someone who turns off their empathy for fellow human beings, and thinks and acts exactly like the people spouting this crap.
It’s someone who, in other words, is in no position to make any constructive change at their organization, and has no time or energy for anything but survival.
If we have to become that kind of person, or adhere to an ever-increasing list of cultural demands, in order to be employable… then despite any proclamations of freedom from our government, we are NOT free. Nor can we think, love, or do anything else humans do at their best.
And that is inhumane. For humanity can only do its best when we can rise above survival. Where we have time, energy and money for friendships, love, art, adventure, and discovering who we are.
What do these employers think… they already have the workers they have in mind, the ones who have been carefully screened and selected to be EXACTLY like them? Is that why they’re almost universally decided not to care about education, hard work, or reality of what it really takes to become an accomplished worker?
Also, @Derrick:
My issue is what KIND of person is “wheat”, and what kind is “chaff”. You look at the kind of person who IS employed, and is making a good wage… what kind of person are they? That’s your “wheat”.
Do they all seem to be homogeneous of personality? Of socioeconomic background? Of point of view? Of outlook– do they all think and act like Hayley Taylor, who talks like she eats for breakfast the copies of The Secret all us frustrated Yanks threw out?
What are business skills and “emotional intelligence” being defined as? What kind of person is held up as the exemplar of those skills? Can that kind of personality be attained by a middle-class or working-class person… with dignity intact and without requiring a time machine to go back and choose new parents, a new neighborhood, a new identity?
Do you, at the end of the day, want to become that kind of person?
Not necessarily anything wrong with that, as long as it actually pertains to what skills are relevant at the company.. Too many companies measure something that has nothing to do with future performance at the company– which is what the “reality show” interviews are about– and purport it’s about “business skills”, “people skills”, “creativity” (way to sully the meaning of THAT word) as a way to make it FEEL obligatory to the applicant.
I’ve spent enough time on political blogs that I advise people to always look at the source of these anecdotes and studies. In particular, who funds these studies? Is it by a company or organization with a vested interest in the outcome being put forth?
That’s one of the main “business skills” in demand, Derrick– to never miss an opportunity to sell your philosophy. And too often, those pesky little things called facts mess up your image discipline and thereby kill the sales pitch.
My issue is what KIND of person is “wheat”, and what kind is “chaff”.
My response is it depends on the job and the skills and knowledge required. People are individuals and trying to classify them with neat populist theories doesn’t help the individual or the employer. Neither do theories take into account the huge amount of employment legislation underpinning recruitment methods and policies. But that’s the problem with theories, they aren’t practice.
But that’s the problem with theories, they aren’t practice.
And these employers know damn well that you can’t truly become accomplished unless you put your raw knowledge into real-world practice. So all they have to do is not hire them, or not put them in a situation where they can develop their work skills; in order for said skills to atrophy in a real-world, non-theoretical sense.
If I were more conspiracy-minded, I’d swear this was done deliberately. To keep out those people they find undesirable (i.e. aren’t “salable” enough, or aligned enough with the CEO’s point of view), thereby ensuring that no one with a point of view that differs from their own will ever make it to the top.
Sometimes you can’t wait until yo’re first the right person to start working. Sometime you do NOT know you’re right for the job until after you roll up your sleeves and start working.
Most ‘training’ doesn’t take any additional money, it just means people around the office will have to work harder to make sure the newbie is on track.
Honestly, most of this is about pure laziness. Fat cats who already have their dream career help each other out, whilst turning a nose up at qualified people who really do need the job.
Much as I feel sorry for graduates who cannot find work………what about the other end of the job market the over 50’s. My husband has not been able to secure a “proper job” since he was made redundant in 2008. He was recently approached by an recruitment company about a job and was told that “his age would go against him as the potential employer would worry about retirement”. My husband has had to push for this agent to put him forward. Ageism is alive and kicking in the UK – it’s become a crap country where you cannot support yourself and all dignity is lost. If I was a graduate now I would go abroad……
@lucy Montrose – I totally agree….
Also, I must add that just because you have a degree does not always mean that you are a better candidate or that you are more intelligent or harder working than someone who left school at 16. I have had friends who left school at 16 found the right vocation and have become successful in their careers. A degree should not mean automatic right to be better than anyone else…..we all blossom at different ages!
It is defineftly done on purpose, it has always been widely known that people who studied at College or Uni were not taught how to apply their knowledge in the real world yet in theory on paper they were qualified to work within the feild they studied in and they would be given the chance to learn how to apply their skill’s on the job by their employer. This was so because if you had gained the qualifications then you were bright enough to be considered worthy of the job placement, anyone who applied for the position whom had no University Education had no hope in hell of being considered for such Vacancy what so ever. I suspect the main reason’s things are the way they are today is because you have alloud it to happen, where would Employers be if enough Students made a big enuff noise about it? SNP are the only party in Scotland who would put this nonsense to bed once and for all, you see if Scotland was independent there would be a detonate need and requirement to focus on building our countries future through proper investment in our own people as a matter of priority. On the other hand voting Tory is the worst choice one can make because they are the people who have brought about these things against you in the first place, they have taken your rights away and handed all the power to Employers hence why no action is being taken against Employers full stop. Again if Scotland had its independence we would not be experiencing anything of the sort at the hands of Employers because it would be completely counter productive to the future proofing and staffing of our countries interests as we would be to busy ensuring we had tommorows work force in the making, then big business would be dependent on the new system entirely and be unable to lord it over you.