NEW DEMANDS FOR EXPERIENCE OVER A DEGREE ARE UNFAIR AND NONSENSICAL, SAYS GRADUATE FOG
First, you were told that a degree would lead to a good graduate job. Then, you were told you’d need a degree and several months of experience before you’d be considered for these roles. Now, graduate recruiters have changed their minds again, saying what they really want you to have is no degree – and two or three years of work experience instead.
A study by Santander has revealed that two thirds of employers would prefer to hire a school leaver with two years work experience over a recent graduate, with 80% favouring a school leaver with three years work experience over someone with a degree.
Of the 400 firms polled – from sectors including IT, manufacturing, financial services and education – 60% of employers claim that it “makes no difference” if candidate has a degree or not when considering them for a job.
Richard O’Flynn, Talent & Leadership Development manager at Santander, said:
“The survey results demonstrate that employers are open-minded about the various talent pools that they recruit from.”
“Open-minded”? Try schizophrenic. All the way through school, an entire generation of young people has been told that having a degree will lead to a better job than not having a degree. Their parents said it, their school said it, politicians said it – and employers said it.
And now they’re suddenly announcing that the reverse is true – like it’s no big deal that hundreds of thousands of young people have apparently wasted tens of thousands of pounds studying, when they should have got a job at 18. Well, thanks for nothing.
Recruiters are positively queuing up to bash graduates. Writing for yesterday’s Huffington Post, Jane Scott Paul, Chief Executive of the Association of Accounting Technicians (accountants), could hardly contain her excitement about all the ways that school-leavers are better than graduates, saying:
School leavers on apprenticeship schemes have a strong sense of pride and willingness to learn. They don’t come with huge expectations and are aware how lucky they are to be earning, training and working at the same time. They also tend to have a good work ethic and are used to a school routine – this lends itself well to the office environment.
School leavers also have a strong sense of loyalty to their employer and apprentice scheme. They invest in the business and the business invests in them. This sense of worth instils confidence in the school leaver and as they climb the career ladder they inevitably add more value to the business. School leavers are not just stop-gapping before something better comes along.
Serious questions need to be asked about why schools, parents and politicians are still encouraging hundreds of thousands of young people to go to university — when employers say they don’t value the qualifications that graduates are coming out with. How many more young people are going to make this costly mistake before something is done to halt this madness?
Graduate Fog also has serious concerns about how exactly young people are expected to obtain these two or three years of ‘work experience’. As anyone who’s picked up a newspaper in the last year will know, the jobs market for young people isn’t exactly a smorgasbord of glittering opportunity. The latest unemployment figures showed that 949,000 16-24 year olds are unemployed — that’s more than one in 20.
Of course, there are plenty of unpaid internships (endless slave labour with no paid work even on the horizon), but actual jobs paying actual money are a bit thin on the ground these days. So are these years of work experience supposed to be unpaid? If so, how are you supposed to live? And if these positions are paid, where are they?
Where are all these jobs with great prospects for bright young 18-year-olds? Because I haven’t seen many. Even applicants for unpaid internships must have a degree these days.
It’s also worth noting that under UK National Minimum Wage law an 18-year-old’s work is worth less than a 21-year-old’s work, simply because of their age. If you’re between 18 and 20, your work is worth a measly £4.92 an hour (as opposed to a pitiful £5.93 if you’re over 21). Apprenticeships — widely lauded as the solution to youth unemployment — pay a shameful £2.50 an hour. That’s £20 a day.
When Graduate Fog asked Santander to clarify exactly what form this super-valuable work experience takes and where all these fabulous jobs are, they were unable to provide answers. Their spokesperson admitted that the wording of the survey had not specified the whereabouts of this mythical work and whether it would be paid or unpaid.
Graduate Fog feels that this is yet another example of employers’ moving the goalposts — and blaming young people for the fact that they can’t be bothered to train you to do the job, and they’re too tight-fisted to train you while you work for them.
There is a huge gap between what the recruiters say they value, and how realistic it is for someone to fill their ever-changing list of demands. What are these jobs that these employers say will impress them more than a degree — and where are they?
Many graduates reading this will be painfully aware that this isn’t just about a tough market for jobs — there is also a tough market for experience. Many unpaid internships require a degree in a relevant field as a minimum — and often previous experience on top of that.
It is easy enough for recruiters to say that they would consider people with experience and no degree, but the reality is you often need a degree in the first place to get that experience. These recruiters have revealed that they are completely are out of touch — and in making these nonsensical demands they betray a generation of bright young people.
*Are recruiters talking rubbish?
Have you seen many good jobs out there for bright 18-year-olds? As hard as it is for graduates to find work, do young people without a degree have it even tougher? If you’re interning or working now, could you have been considered for the position without a degree?
I went and did a degree! Did not get particularly good grades… and now I am in lumber, don’t seem to be able to get a job! Yet my friends who did not do a degree are better off than me have great jobs so maybe this survey is right!
I think the key thing is GRADUATE schemes. 3 years work experience or not, you can’t get onto GRADUATE schemes (a degree being the minimum entry to these schemes) unless you have a degree.
How much longer can British universities last under all this?
One week margarine is good for you, the next its bad.
Welcome to the wonderful world of statistics and market surveys.
With NEETS rising to 18% there are no jobs for youngsters http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14644613
but its not just youngsters, the shock news is that we are in a recession and there aren’t jobs for older people also.
How about we change our thinking from “the world owes me a living, I’m so hard done by” to “lets do something more than whinging”?
http://www.aboutsantander.co.uk/csr/csr-news/uk-plc-university-degrees-not-necessarily-critical-to-success.aspx
Funny, when you read the whole article in its context its much more nuanced and balanced.
@ derrick’s line “the world owes me a living, I’m so hard done by” to “lets do something more than whinging”?
I think you should apportion some of the blame for any such belief at the door of universities/educational establishments/politicians/teachers. If these people tell students that great exam results = great degree = great (guaranteed) job = great wonga, then it’s no wonder that there’s a feeling of entitlement among this generation. I bought into it and I think I was sold down the river. At the same time, in the context of what these learned people were telling me plus the then-stipulated requirements of degrees, why can’t I feel that I am entitled to decent work (+ salary) after committing myself in anchoritic-fashion to education. Even if I am wrong in some small measure, should I really still be looking for ANY work after 500-1000 job applications?
@rebeccah – if you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.
I certainly think the dynamics of the marketplace have changed in the last ten years but surely anyone with a degree doesn’t swallow wholeheartedly the opinion of politicians and those with a vested interest in getting you on their courses?
Mind you if I was finding the job market hard, I suppose I’d find an easy scapegoat in blaming others rather than market-forces and capitalism itself.
@rebeccah
I agree with you 100%! And I think @Derrick is being more than a little harsh on anybody who did a degree assuming it would lead to a better, higher-paid job. People make their decisions about uni when they’re 17 – that’s not even old enough to vote! I thinks schools in particular have a duty to make their pupils aware of exactly what a degree will and won’t guarantee… Then again, few 17-year-olds have much understanding of how huge a £30k of debt is – most grads i speak to say it was just a number in their head – and to some extent it still is. it’s only really when you start earning regularly, paying all your own rent, taxes, bills etc that you begin to see how difficult it’s going to be to pay off such a sum…
@Derrick
As I’ve said before, if you want “nuanced and balanced” articles, I’m afraid Graduate Fog is not the website for you! This blog is written with strong opinions, and I write every story from the viewpoint of graduates who have spent 1,000s on their education – and are struggling to get their career of the ground after leaving uni. I make no apology for any of this.
And please watch how you speak to other Foggers. There was no need to be so aggressive towards @Rebeccah. She clearly disagrees with you, but didn’t feel the need to make her comment personal.
@ Tanya,
I wasn’t commenting on Grad Fog, merely expanding knowledge by providing access to the article in full as it exists in the original – I make no apology for this. I too have opinions, please don’t read into them things that simply aren’t there.
Rebeccah’s paragraph and closing question were squarely directed at me – that’s personal and there’s nothing aggressive in my language.
I would like to say that I have a degree, and a good one at that, for something that is almost impossible to get into without a degree and yet it still took me 6 months of solid job searching to find something that is not even very relevant to what I studied. I think what needs to be assessed a little more is the number of places available on courses with respect to expected trends in employment opportunity figures.
Now obviously there is a lag between what is happening now and new students finishing degrees, i.e. 3 or 4 years, however I am certain there is a very bright programmer or mathmetician out there who can devise an algorithm to give at least basic predictions.
I also agree that it is quite right for a graduate to expect a decent starting wage and better prospects than a school leaver. After all is it not right for someone with 3 or 4 years work experience to also expect better prospects, and that is essentially what a degree is. With regards to the ‘the world owes me’ I can say from a personal viewpoint I believe that the world owes me nothing but I strongly believe that the hard work and dedication I applied for 4 years to get a first masters does earn me a right to more than minimum wage.
Thats probably enough of a rant for now.
After all is it not right for someone with 3 or 4 years work experience to also expect better prospects, and that is essentially what a degree is.
Not so. Degrees do not cover the practical application of skills and practical knowledge in the workplace. Degrees frequently do not teach ‘common sense’, performance, drive, delivery of result, equality and diversity, customer service, planning and organising. Work has a practical element to it and a significant amount of those skills I’ve listed previously.It is those elements that experience and work experience specifically carries and frequently employers seek.
I am so angry at this that I have just written an article on the subject and sent it off to The Guardian. Whether they will print it or not is another matter, but I had to try at least. Simply intolerable situation!!
@Derrick, “Degrees frequently do not teach ‘common sense’, performance, drive, delivery of result, equality and diversity, customer service, planning and organising” – rubbish!! What uni did you go to? Admittedly, being a mature student I had all those things before I went to uni, but I still recognised those qualities in all the modules and lectures that I attended, and some people consider Bath Spa to be a small university, so if those qualities were taught there, which they were in my experience, they must certainly have been taught at other universities, and this isn’t even mentioning the value of university sports teams or associations. Thou pander to politicians too much I feel….