APPLICANTS HAVE “SELF-INFLATED AIR OF IMPORTANCE”, CLAIMS COMPANY BOSS
British graduates need to improve their work ethic if they hope to compete with their rivals from other countries, the boss of an international company has claimed.
In a piece titled Get on your bike, grads! Tony Goodwin, founder and chief executive of Antal International said many home-grown graduates are “arrogant”, “lack lustre” and have a “self-inflated air of importance” which hampers their efforts to find good jobs after leaving university. He wrote in Management Today:
“We work in countries all across the world and are constantly reminded of the efforts many jobseekers will go to in order to get a job. They don’t assume going to university is enough and seem to understand it takes hard work and perseverance to prove themselves. Unfortunately, you can’t say the same for the majority of British graduates.
“Our vast experience of the industry shows that if you want lack lustre, uninspired graduates then Britain is the place to go. By comparison, the Chinese, Indian and Polish are streets ahead. Graduates in these countries don’t have a self-inflated air of importance, they just want to knuckle down and get on with it. Their studies are relevant, they work hard in their holidays to achieve relevant vocational skills and they are constantly improving their employability.
“I would say the current generation of [British] graduates are sometimes far too arrogant in terms of what they expect they deserve when they actually lack the vocational skills and degrees they need for the world of work. Too many of them are happy to fritter away years of study on courses which have no relevance to the career they want to pursue and don’t even then use that time to develop other skills and attributes that may help them to get ahead.”
Goodwin is entitled to his opinion – but Graduate Fog finds the new trend for graduate bashing to be deeply troubling. Last week, we were disturbed by the eagerness of the British press – and public – to criticise Cait Reilly, the Birmingham University graduate who is challenging the government over a two-week unpaid internship she says her job centre “forced” her to do in order to keep claiming her £52 a week Jobseekers Allowance.
At a time when young people are struggling, is it really fair to kick them when they’re down? It is easy for bosses like Goodwin to criticise today’s graduates, saying they have the wrong skills and an entitled attitude. But he forgets that you have just spend tens of thousands of pounds on a degree you were encouraged to do because you were told it would lead to better – and better-paid – jobs than if you didn’t go to university.
He also assumes that it is the job of universities to make graduates work-ready on their first day in the office. But who ever said this was what university is for? Sure, that’s what businesses would like university to be for – because it would mean they wouldn’t have to pay a penny to train up their own staff. But the last time we checked, university was still a place of learning, for expanding the mind, not learning how to fill in an expenses spreadsheet. Is it possible that Goodwin has it in for British graduates simply because they refuse to kiss his feet?
*DO YOU THINK BRITISH GRADUATES ARE ARROGANT?
Are you troubled by the recent trend for graduate-bashing? Should employers be doing more to support young workers, instead of constantly criticising you and making sweeping generalisations about your generation being lazy and entitled?
Yet another blogger, representing a company that no-one has even heard of, who reverberates the same insidious attitudes as other individuals with a personnel clerk mentality.
Sadly, unless and until employers become part of the solution, making a practical contribution towards the training of UK Staff, including providing placements and sponsorship to candidates at College and University, they will only ever be part of the problem at revitalising the UK Economy. Although I am more than confident that UK Graduates can compete with the best, I am not sure whether personnel clerks of the ilk typified by the blogger will survive by playing the “Attack UK Graduate” game.
Give up. Get a Reality Check.
“Too many of them are happy to fritter away years of study on courses which have no relevance to the career they want to pursue and don’t even then use that time to develop other skills and attributes that may help them to get ahead.”
Absolutely spot on.
The thing is, they’re both right.
UK graduates do think they have a worth and think well of themselves. This means we won’t work ridiculous hours for no money!!
Also, the foreign graduates who speak very good english are more like the top of the crop from that country and so to compare average UK to average Chinese/Indian/Polish is unfair to begin with. Not only that, but due to the nation’s living conditions, the same wage to a UK graduate is worth less than the same wage to the chinese graduate. This will eventually change and then we’ll all be arrogant no doubt!
“Too many of them are happy to fritter away years of study on courses which have no relevance to the career they want to pursue and don’t even then use that time to develop other skills and attributes that may help them to get ahead.
Absolutely spot on.”
Well that was me then. Silly, shallow, time-fritterer me, who chose to study French. Of what use or relevance has French been to me, living as I do in Italy? How have my studies of French literature (completely forgotten now, btw) assisted me in my career, or delivered a ROI to those who funded my studies?
And what of those long summer holidays in which I could learn new relevant skills to help me get ahead? Waster that I was, I worked in a packing factory because that was all the work I could get as an undergrad.
Yes, I was extremely fortunate to go to Uni and to study a subject I enjoyed and was good at, without having to pay through the nose for it. But if I hadn’t gone, what would have been the alternatives? Would I be doing a freelance job that I enjoy and which arguably helps others? Would I be giving anything back?
My argument is that not everything has a price. The value of a university education goes far beyond a vocational degree. Arts degrees, language degrees, social sciences degrees – they might not all have a career mapped out to them, but what they teach in terms of mental agility, information processing and analysis can be just as useful. I’m not saying you’re suggesting this, but if you limited all degrees to those that were vocational, useful or relevant, you’d pretty soon end up with generations of ill-educated or “unrounded” robots.
“”Too many of them are happy to fritter away years of study on courses which have no relevance to the career they want to pursue and don’t even then use that time to develop other skills and attributes that may help them to get ahead.”
Absolutely spot on.”
Absolutely wrong.
Graduates are strongly encouraged by many professions they seek to go into not to pursue job-specific courses, like Publishing, as academic degrees are just as, if not more, valuable.
It’s really time the ignorant public stopped laying the blame at the feet of graduates and looked at the sorry legacy they’ve left us – we’re the ones who are paying the price of their mistakes. You can’t encourage a generation to study at university to increase your career prospects, and then deride them once they’ve graduated because older generations have screwed our country over royally.
I’ve lost count of the number of astro-physicists that I’ve interviewed for transport planning jobs. The host of this website studied psychology.
Did become a journalist straight after you graduated?
“No, I didn’t know what I wanted to do — but was (mistakenly) sure it would ‘come to me’ if I waited long enough. It didn’t. I went home to live with my parents, where my confidence evaporated and my self-esteem nose-dived. That summer I worked as a very grumpy ‘Office Angel,’ de-stapling (yes, literally removing the staples from pieces of paper). It was, in a word, crap. When autumn arrived and I still had no direction, I took a job as a ‘front of house manager’ (receptionist) at a small recruitment firm in central London. It sounds boring but it really wasn’t. It was the perfect first job for me, at a time when I didn’t have a clue where I was going. Since then, I’ve figured out everything else as I’ve gone along.”
Life is sometimes boring and not all dreams come true. Get over it.
You’re certainly the wrong person to be interviewing people if you can’t see any use in transferable skills and think people need to pigeon-hole themselves into one career as a teenager.
Good lord, what a terrible attitude.
I got a first class degree in English and History. I’m now working in software engineering with a great salary in a fantastic company, and doing very well.
I’m happy the world doesn’t work the way you want it to.
I don’t think it’s arrogance as much as its bad advice. When I was in sixth form college I remember a tutor advising us that any degree was better than not doing a degree. Paying thousands of pounds for our degrees was no big deal because we would get better paid jobs afterwards. At 17 you just believe stuff like that.
Also as Scottspeig says there is being arrogant and then there is being someone who does not want to be taken advantage of.
@ Sabrina,
what transferable skills did you learn studying English and History?
@ Sabrina
and what was your career progression?
@Derrick.
I think you’ll find we’re not asking for our dreams to come true but to simply have an income right now. Have you not seen the news? 2.68 million unemployed and when over 1 million of that is young people, we obviously have a problem here. You are talking nearly half of the employment rate belonging to a small subsect of society, 16 – 24 year olds as opposed to 25 – 65 year old. Your ignorant attitudes towards education is not surprising given the views you actually possess. All degrees have transferable skills, time management, communication skills, team work etc. And what kind of world would we be in if nobody felt the need to educate and better themselves because it’s useless? Of course it is reality that not everyone will get the career they wanted but I’m sure no one will regret having gone to university to study, it is also a life experience and there is nothing wrong with that either.
All degrees have transferable skills, time management, communication skills, team work etc.
So why isn’t that listed as part of the coursework? Because its not taught – there is no training in these skills, grads are simply left to get on with it, what is taught are academic skills and knowledge, there is no significant or formalised learning on the skills you list.
Having interviewed 6 grads this week, none had any qualifications in the skills you mention or awareness of business practices and best practice in these necessary business skills. They weren’t taught them.
Well, to be frank, I don’t need a qualification in these skills to possess them. Every degree now attempts to include courses which would possess these transferable skills. For instance, group projects and presentations would entail teamwork; time management is a great part of university being able to cope with various coursework deadlines and exams; communication skills should be an obvious skill which is considerably strengthened throughout university. Furthermore, those who join the groups and committees would also bring with them further skills that can help them in the work place, such as leadership skills etc. There is no direct training for these kind of skills but most graduates attain these skill indirectly throughout their degree, you can’t just get a degree from just sitting there with a book and then writing about what you have learnt!!!!
Not to mention self-motivation, analytical skills, research skills, dedication, some form of intelligence, one would hope meaning that most graduates would be easy to train etc. I don’t understand the views of employers wanting graduates to be almost ‘ready made’. I’ve temped in different companies and they all do things differently so to be honest, I think it is a bit of a non-issue.
Tony Goodwin is the founder and CEO of Antal International, a very big and allegedly profitable company specialising in recruitment. However, according to this article, it is implied that he doesn’t pay them: http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2011-08/26/content_13198314.htm Can someone clarify this?
I don’t understand the views of employers wanting graduates to be almost ‘ready made’.
Budget. Budget. Budget. Less recruiting costs. Up to speed quicker. Less change of mistakes. That’s capitalism for you.
As for your adage that anyone can pick up these skills by doing a degree, then why are grans suddenly unable to iterate these skills in the same what as they are demanded by the workplace? If employees can do it – shouldn’t grads also be able to do it?
@Derrick.
May I ask, have you done a degree?
Universities are more aware than you think of providing, what they call, ’employablity skills’ to their students. They now adapt courses so that university courses aren’t simply just writing essays and passing exams. Even so, one friend of mine even had to write an essay about how her History degree was relevant today and what are the transferable skills gained for the ‘real world’; probably because the university knows students would come across such ignorant employers. I think it would be a much poorer society if education largely stopped at 18. I can’t really offer an explanation to the poor experiences you seem to be having with the graduates you have employed but I suppose, like anything, you have poor quality graduates and poor quality employees, maybe you should improve your recruiting skills?
And you basically stating that companies don’t want to train anybody, again, just reiterates the struggles we face as a young generation with few job opportunities. We are losing out to an older, experienced workforce who may have lost their own jobs and being taking advantage of through unpaid internships. We’ll just sit here with our debts and our overdraft and blame it all on our lack of skills we have all clearly failed to pick up!
We’ll just sit here with our debts and our overdraft and blame it all on our lack of skills we have all clearly failed to pick up!
That may be the case, the point I and many others are making is that the older workforce aren’t on the web whinging about it. Perhaps its their experience that tells them that things may get better and that its more complex than simply the employer’s fault.
This is one thing I don’t get. Companies act as though the need to train up new graduates is a recent phenomenon. Were new graduates ever work ready? Were people born before the 80s simply born with work skills?
Issues such as literacy and time keeping I understand and think schools have a lot to answer for but complaining that graduates aren’t “career aware” or don’t have “office skills”?
I think a lot of the older generation are looking back at their 21 year old selves with rose tinted glasses.
@Derrick
the older workforce aren’t on the web whinging about it
But they are. In fact, that’s exactly what has prompted Tanya to write this article – an ongoing trend where the media and members of the “older workforce” are publicly bashing graduates and emphasising their role in the current employment crisis.
Perhaps its their experience that tells them that things may get better
Of course things will get better eventually. Does that mean people shouldn’t acknowledge problems in society and try to do what they can to fix them by speaking out and taking action? Is it preferrable to simply wait for change to happen?
its more complex than simply the employer’s fault.
With respect, if what you say is true (and I think it is) then surely the problem is also more complex than being simply the fault of graduates?
Wherever I see these discussions occuring, I have to say I am frankly disgusted at how eager people are to to place blame and turn against one another rather than showing some compassion for others.
@Tanya
Great article, great site. It’s important that there is a balanced debate going on about these issues and I think you are doing a fab job! 🙂
@Helen
Great article, great site. It’s important that there is a balanced debate going on about these issues and I think you are doing a fab job!
You aren’t seriously suggesting Tanya has written a balanced articles. Most articles here are biased, don’t contain a response from employers who are quoted and the typing in bold (see above) is surely bound to inflame and create a polemic. Isn’t it just adding flames to the fire and creating further division????
@ Helen,
With respect, if what you say is true (and I think it is) then surely the problem is also more complex than being simply the fault of graduates?
Precisely, but one can’t get the graduates to see that, and blogs like this that blame the employers and portraying ALL graduates aren’t helping the debate. I have given examples of where graduates fail all I get back is a load of abuse saying employers are wrong and don’t know what they are doing. Yes employers should train more, that has ALWAYS been the case, that the British fail to train more than MOST other companies in Europe, but no they are perfectly entitled to reject candidates who fail to meet their recruitment criteria. There are some graduates out there who do meet them, in a tough marketplace only the toughest and best equipped survive.
typo…
Precisely, but one can’t get the graduates to see that, and blogs like this that blame the employers and portray ALL graduates as victims aren’t helping the debate…
@Helen – I completely agree. Young people are being disproportionately affected by the current jobs climate and it’s important this issue is made aware. And FYI Derrick, if you have read the site, you would probably gather that one of Tanya’s main issues is here is young people on unpaid internships is one of the larger problems here, paying out of their pockets to subsidise companies. In fact, I read in a magazine today, Michelle Mone, happily giving advice to someone starting a new company to hire marketing students as interns to get free marketing. So yeah, employers aren’t exactly helping the situation.
And like your generation didn’t like to complain, growing up all I remember reading were articles about the difficulties of balancing career and family life as you were the first generation to be promised it all, and you got it. Funny that, now there are careers to be had!
@Derrick
Regarding your point that the articles on this site are not always balanced, I have never claimed that Graduate Fog was a Reuters / BBC style news service. This is a blog for job-seeking graduates – and as such, all the editorial is written from the point of view of someone who is looking at these stories through those eyes. There is a plenty of anti-graduate media out there (and growing), so I think it’s only fair to redress the balance a little! If you find the editorial on Graduate Fog is not to your taste, perhaps this isn’t the website for you?
@Derrick
Tanya may be writing in a very ‘biased’ way, but she’s one of the very few journalists who writes about the gory side of internships and graduates. If it wasn’t for her, I would still naively believe that internships were a ‘rite of passage’ and would probably have been ripped off by several people who tried to con me in to doing free work for them (because they themselves didn’t have the skills to do it or could be bothered to learn). If I had done that, I would not have had a) time to look for real jobs b) been able to attend the interviews I had for real, paid jobs, one of which I have been successful in, after many, many setbacks. Goodness knows what would have happened to me, would I be one of those eternal interns, devaluing my work and allowing employers to believe I could work for free forever?
In addition, I completely agree with what Helen and Lisa have said. We aren’t just ‘whinging’ about nothing, we are fighting against a real problem where future jobs are at stake as they become increasingly replaced by unpaid internships/work. It’s not just for ourselves, it’s to ensure a healthy economy for future generations. We are not all inexperienced and lazy, that is a completely biased generalisation. If you believe the candidates that come to you behave in this way, then we’re fine with you not recruiting them, that’s completely up to you. However, we are not cool with being stereotyped, unpaid and exploited, and that is what we are fighting against.
@ above
we are fighting against a real problem where future jobs are at stake as they become increasingly replaced by unpaid internships/work.
So am I. As I’ve said on numerous posts. Its just alarming how those who read this website feel that all employers don’t know what they are doing when hiring (paid) graduates and have no idea what a high quality candidate is. The trouble is that every time someone tries to say that they are shouted down by the ‘you’re all out to exploit graduates’ theme on here – ITS NOT THE SAME ISSUE!
That’s not just the balance needed but the accuracy.
@above
If you are helping to fight against the cause, then you’re not doing a very good PR job of stereotyping all of us in to saying, for example:
“”Too many of them are happy to fritter away years of study on courses which have no relevance to the career they want to pursue and don’t even then use that time to develop other skills and attributes that may help them to get ahead.”
Absolutely spot on.”
People are using this as an excuse to exploit us. You might not do so yourself, but other people are, and it’s just helping to stoke the fire of how our work is worth nothing therefore, we should work for free. We’re not saying, “Hey recruit us or you’re a terrible person”. We’re just sick and tired of people stereotyping us all the time, when it simply isn’t true for every graduate out there. Just because you have had a few bad candidates, maybe as someone said earlier, you might do better if you further publicised your own recruitment and therefore get better candidates in the future. There are plenty of talented young people out there, and I have many friends who are extremely bright, few if any of them are lazy and unskilled.
On another note, I’m still extremely interested in whether Tony Goodwin is using free interns at Antal (as implied here: http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2011-08/26/content_13198314.htm), I’d have a lot to say about that.
@ Report,
Err that first paragraph isn’t clear….do I understand correctly… people are using that fact that graduates don’t have the relevant skills as an excuse to exploit them?
What skills are you talking about? Business skills? Team working skills? Collaboration skills? But only earlier someone else was saying that graduates have these skills.
Hmm, shouldn’t the company name be ‘Anal International’? It’s just griping that British graduates aren’t prepared to willingly add to the legion of corporate slaves that are dotted around the world…. continue to ignore and press for change instead…
@Derrick
That’s right. They are saying our qualifications and skills are not good enough or valuable enough for them to pay us, therefore we need ‘experience’ to make up for it. However, most of the time, these experiences are not truly training at all, most of the time they are menial jobs that nobody else in the workplace wants to do, and then those so-called ‘unskilled’ graduates are chucked out once the ‘experience’ is over. If a company doesn’t want to recruit someone, then just say so, rather than beating around the bush and exploiting people.
If anyone can remember in the ‘old’ days, there used to be such a thing as a ‘probation period’ where you were properly recruited, paid NMW, trained to fit in with the culture of the workplace, and then kept on and perhaps promoted to a slightly higher wage. You’re lucky to get this now.
Whatever skills are suitable for the job. Not all jobs require exactly the same set of skills, and not all graduates fit every job. In my opinion, it’s up to recruitment to match those skills to each job. That said, some degrees have transferable skills, and some people learn things outside of their degree. It’s a very personal thing. I just think it’s abhorrent that we are tarred with the same brush of not ‘learning the relevant skills’ or are too ‘unskilled’ and ‘lazy’.
@ Derrick
That’s right. They are saying our qualifications and skills are not good enough or valuable enough for them to pay us, therefore we need ‘experience’ to make up for it.
I don’t think its the same, I don’t see employers saying that skills aren’t valuable enough to pay – that’s illegal. I do see charities saying “gains skills and experience here” and exploitative employers saying “gain experience here” – its not the same lever as ‘blaming’ a lack of skills, they are simply exploiting the desperation.
Hi all,
This is to confirm Antal International doesn’t have any unpaid Interns – all our trainees are paid good basic salaries. The article (in ChinaDaily) was pointing out the views of a number of people on the market in China and that in their experience some companies (not Antal International) offer unpaid internships and so we were advising interns to look at it in a critical manner if they were taking up an unpaid internship and ensure they got value from it.
Tony Goodwin started his artice saying that “I have seen exactly what a difference it makes to have that ‘get on your bike’ attitude and the problem is there are some British graduates who just don’t have it” and “among a lot of British university leavers – not all uni leavers, of course, but enough to concern” which means that the subject was based not on all British graduates and of course we do understand there are also self-motivated and go-ahead youth here in UK.
Antal International is one of EMEA & Asia Executive Search & Selection agency with a network of over 107 offices in 33 countries, recruiting talent in a range of industry sectors & skill functions.
Website: http://www.antal.com
Best regards,
Sophia
@ Sophia,
and so we were advising interns to look at it in a critical manner if they were taking up an unpaid internship and ensure they got value from it.
WHY WEREN’T YOU ADVISING THEM TO LOOK AT IT IN A LEGAL MANNER? ie. its illegal – nothing to do with VFM.
“Lacklustre” is one word, guys.
Graduates’ English skills are frequently below par, too…
I think a bigger problem is the general arrogance of employers these days, most of whom can’t even be bothered to get back to you, even after interview. We have to kiss the feet of these slave merchants otherwise we are called ‘shirkers’ – it is a vicious circle, especially if you want to get a half-decent job …
I can honestly say that that is absolutely spot on. I work for an engineering driven company that is Grad heavy and have and am having first hand experience of these cretins.
They are pompous, lazy, self righteous, highly opinionated but have no experience of anything, full of there own self importance and the only thing that they are interested in is feathering their own caps to get on. Not looking at what is the right thing to do but totally self driven.
This is of course most grads and not all grads. In saying most grads I mean 80% to 90% of grads.
@James Oh dear, sorry you’ve had such a negative experience of working with new (British) graduates! Do you think the behaviour you describe is a result of the education system / their families / society etc – or do you believe there is something innate in this generation of young people?
Personally, I think it’s harsh to write off a whole generation as being innately lazy or arrogant. However, you are not the first person to have noted certain characteristics in some members of Generation Y (sorry, I hate that term too!). However, I think that the ‘arrogance’ you describe is in fact the result of growing up in the Blair years, when aspiration was encouraged, perhaps without enough emphasis on hard work and struggle? Also there wasn’t that much to struggle against / with / for. They were lucky to have grown up in an era with a relatively quality of life. On the other hand, many of this generation are certainly struggling now 🙁
There was a 16 year period of growth between John Major and Black Wednesday and Lehman Brothers going bust. Things were so good for so long that the 08 crash came as something of a shock to a lot of people. Remember Gordon Brown’s hubristic line about “abolishing boom and bust”?
I’ve certainly learnt the importance of saving for rainy day. The government might bail the banks out but they won’t bail you out!
The question ‘Are british graduates arrogant?’ – The ones I know through family and friends – no, they are not arrogant. The ones I have had to work with in office environments? – yes, unfortunately they have been extremely up themselves, with a ‘what’s in it for me?’ attitude. Staff moral always went downhill once we were joined by a graduate newbie. As for non british graduates – their humility is outstanding!