BUT WHOSE FAULT IS IT IF YOU NEED MORE TRAINING?
More than half of the UK’s biggest employers have complained that ‘none or few’ of the graduates they have taken on this year were ‘job ready’ (in other words, ready to start doing useful work on their first day).
But is it fair to expect graduates with little experience of the workplace to have all the necessary skills when you’ve only just left uni? And don’t employers have a responsibility to help you bridge this skills gap, rather than just whinging that young people aren’t up to scratch?
A new survey commissioned by The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide found that 52% of employers said ‘none’ or ‘few’ of their graduate recruits were work ready when they joined. Only 19% said ‘all’ or ‘most’ graduate recruits were work ready (or ‘oven ready’, as one charming employer once told Graduate Fog).
The survey also raised questions about the value young people are getting from their degree as it emerged that some universities have a ‘positive outcome’ record of less than 50% – meaning less than half of their graduates go straight into a professional job or period of graduate level further study.
The worst performer – Buckinghamshire New University – had a positive outcome for just 43.7% of its graduates, followed by East London University with 43.8%, Highlands and Islands University with 43.9%, London Metropolitan University on 45.6% and Southampton Solent University on 48.5%. The top performer was Imperial College London with 89.2%.
Alistair McCall, one of the editors of the Good University Guide, said:
“University prospectuses are now full of programmes and initiatives promising to give students more than just a degree. They say they will equip students with the skills they need to make them more attractive to employers.
“The YouGov survey findings suggest this is an investment that is sorely needed. With the typical degree now costing £27,000 in tuition fees alone, students have a right to be better prepared for the battleground that is the graduate jobs market. The survey also shows how crucial it is to make an informed choice of course and university when investing so much money in a degree.”
Graduate Fog agrees that there is a clear skills gap between what employers want and what graduates are capable of – and it is clear that universities must do much more to help their graduates into work. But we question the assumption that this is wholly the universities’ responsibility. What about the employers – why aren’t they doing more? As the eventual beneficiaries of this skilled workforce, aren’t they ideally placed to show young people exactly what skills they want? Nobody has ever said that universities should be hot-houses churning out ‘work ready’ graduates. Universities are there to teach young people to think, reason, present and argue. When are graduate employers going to stop whinging – and start helping?
TOMORROW ON GRADUATE FOG: WHAT EMPLOYERS REALLY THINK OF YOUR DEGREE
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*ARE YOU SICK OF EMPLOYERS’ GRADUATE-BASHING?
Does it irritate you that they are always telling graduates what a disappointment you are – rather than doing anything constructive to help make you ‘work ready’? Do you think your skills really are as poor as they claim – or are they deliberately undermining your confidence so you’ll be more grateful and less demanding if they offer you a job? Is it your university’s job to train you for work – or should employers share this responsibility too?
Employers may whinge, but very few of them nowadays seem to want to offer any kind of useful training or the opportunity to gain further qualifications whilst in work. A few decades ago, it wasn’t expected that graduates (or anyone for that matter) would be able to hit the ground running without being properly trained. The lack of training on the part of employers is a sad reflection of current times, where it seems to be all about maximising profit.
It’s a wonder all us young graduates haven just given up and retreated in to the sewers to create our own sub-par civilisation, the amount of constant negative and disheartening things we have to hear.
We’re work-shy, snobbish, self-entitled, lazy, whinging gob-shites who are apparently just not up to scratch for the work place (unless you’ve done a good few years of unpaid internships which have made moderately more employable).
In all the many low wage restaurant and bar jobs I’ve done since graduating (whilst also doing internships and free freelance jobs) training has always been required to some level – despite how experienced you are. Surely in ‘graduate jobs’ the same thing should apply, that’s why they’re low paid, entry level jobs.
I personally have given up on trying to get a job in this way, having had to deal with plenty of unprofessional companies and “professionals” who’ve refused to pay me money that was agreed upon and flat out ignored me when I’ve tried to get them to do so.
So, being the lazy, work shy graduate i am, I – like may others in my situation – have decided to set up my own business. It may not work, but it’s better than being constantly belittled and ignored.
The only way to get experience is an unpaid internship. Arrogant employers do not consider graduates worthy of investment, training or renumeration. Which is why Graduate Fog’s campaigning against unpaid internships is so counterproductive. You have the choice of a) working for free b) the dole queue. In an age where some internships are even being paid *for* we should consider oursevles lucky for the opportunity to work for free!
“Or are they deliberately undermining your confidence so you’ll be more grateful and less demanding if they offer you a job?”
I suspect quite of few of them are doing that.
And anyone employer a graduate for – say – data entry or photocopying who claims their new recruit hasn’t done any “useful work” in their first day or week is probably either lying, has a very specific definition of “useful work” (possibly similar to the definition used by those abusing interns), or needs to re-assess their recruitment practices.
Moreover, with graduate schemes, civil service-type jobs and many professional jobs, don’t HR and other bureaucrats spend a lot of the first day on form-filling, induction and such like? Which would naturally impact the ability of people to work on their first day. Not to mention how slowly IT sets up new log-ins in some institutions.
That was certainly the impression I got of what happened when permanent staff (as opposed to temps like me) started.
@KM:
Hear, hear! Indeed, we can’t win: either we’re work shy job snobs, or if we try to settle for more “realistic” jobs we lack ambition and have wasted our educational opportunities.
What I’ve found in some of my jobs is that the same managers who complain about graduates being liabilities are the same ones who won’t let them take any initiative of their own. You can’t have it both ways – either you let graduates contribute their own ideas or you train them to work exactly how you want them to work. You can’t undermine their work, refuse to train them and then moan when you think they’re not working in the right way.
Anyone who says that “office” experience is vital to land a graduate job is a moron.
Honestly, working in an office isn’t some odd foreign world where everything’s upside down, backwards and reflected in a transluscent mirror. It’s just like anything else in life.
I’m sick to death of hearing that graduates aren’t work ready. The first day that any person spends in a business, they’re NOT work ready for that business.
I agree with CostaDel. It’s not often the case that anyone (graduate or otherwise) is 100% ready to produce good work on their first day, simply because they’ve only set foot in the company – they still have to familiarise themselves with their processes, their ways of working, their past/present/future activities, etc.
If someone’s hiring a graduate, they have to understand and appreciate that training will likely be required. The benefit however of hiring someone fresh out of uni is that they haven’t been tainted with bad habits and/or poor training that other work places might’ve offered – and they can be ‘crafted’ into the type of worker that the company wants/needs them to be!
@Steve That is not how they think. When I’ve said “Well I could quickly pick that up” in a job interview in response to a question it did not go down well. They don’t want to train people. Of course the only way I could gain the competency they were looking for was to have done the job previously. #farce
Finally, I have came across a website that provides useful advice on what is happening to our young, fabulous, and broke generation. Grades issues aside, more companies need to start picking up the slack and hiring graduates. The majority of lower-level positions require a minimum of two years (PQE)Post Qualified Experience. We know what you are saying — you want someone else to break us in first. You do not have the time to spend with us. We know we are a drain on resources and initially have no idea what we are doing. But give us a break — you were all graduates once. You cannot all reap the benefits without giving something back eventually.
It seems like a lot of employers have amnesia because when I talk to older people about their first jobs they pretty much all say 3 things; that they were useless at first, that they knew virtually nothing about working in an office for example but that they were trained on the job and gradually became better. They certainly don’t hark back to some glorious age when even toddlers knew how to write a business letter without any training.
I do think that there are some concerns with secondary schools not preparing students for the world of work with poor discipline and lack of concern about things such as spelling and grammar but I don’t see why it is the responsibility of schools or universities to teach specific workplace skills.
I’ve experienced this kind of hypocrisy from older people too Catherine, and it drives me mad!
I feek like the victim of a scam. I’ve paid thousands of pounds for a worthless piece of paper and can’t get my money back. If I think my degree is worthless how am I supposed to convince employers otherwise?
If the State and Candidate are fulfilling their responsibilities, with the State bankrolling candidates through subsidised Student Loans, with candidates agreeing to accept financial responsibility for their studies (which could extend over 3-4 years @ £9K per annum tuition fees plus £xK living expenses), and if at the end of the course, the candidate qualifies… then the candidate is qualified for whatever job they have been trained to do.
If, conversely, employers provide neither sponsorship nor placement to College/University Graduates, then such employers have nothing to say on the subject.
But… such employers are welcome to make a contribution to the debate if and only if they accept a modicum of responsibility for training candidates at College and University.
As a graduate employer, we know that graduates won’t have the skills they need to do the jobs we want, we have a choice: we can pay less and train them, or we can pay more and hire someone who does have the skills. We have hired a number of graduates and placement students over the years, and having a clear induction and training plan, coupled with a careful recruitment process and we have been very successful with the graduates we have trained who are now loyal, hard working members of the team with a detailed knowledge of how the business works.
They key for us, is how you show during interview, that you know you don’t know it all, and that you have a willingness and ability to learn. Most of our unsuccessful applicants came across as thinking they did know how to do the job and run our business, which of course they didn’t, and we didn’t expect them to, but the attitude displayed was wrong for us.
In interviews where I have admitted not being the finished product I’ve been rejected. On one occasion I more or less said I needed the job first in order to gain a specific skill – an answer that did not go down well with an employer unwilling to support/provide training. In interviews where I’ve bluffed a bit I’ve been selected. Based on my experience of interviews I can see why people have to act as “know it alls”. Honesty has not got me anywhere…
Unfortunately I cannot comment on interviews you were in as I was not there, and did not meet other candidates or know what the employer was looking for. There may be other reasons that you were rejected other than not having a skill that the employer needed. I would say that if it was so cut and dry that any employer was not going to provide support or training for an essential skill for the job, then IN GENERAL you should consider what else that employer would not do that might not make them ideal for you. Employment should be as much about you choosing the organisation as them choosing you. I know several people who have turned down job offers as it did not feel right at interview.
I think there is also a mighty chasm between coming across as knowing everything and bluffing a little. I would suggest that there is also a difference in the impression you leave depending on how you present your self – you have said above you have admitted to not being the finished product, when an employer would prefer to see someone with a proven track record in what they can do and the willingness to learn new things. Presentation is all important.
@Anthea: In a perfect would where graduates had plenty of employers after them, never-ending financial support from easy-going parents choosing an employer suited to yourself would be sensible.
Unfortunately, for many this not the world we live in. Many, surely most, graduates have to take (or are under overwhelming pressure to take) the first job they are offered (certainly the first permanent job, since for many these can be gold dust), even if they serious doubts about suitability, are not offered training, the organisation appears to be a disorganised shambles or – in some cases – there are ethical concerns.
That is, if they don’t want to risk being sanctioned (if it was a Job Centre directed interview), placed on the Work Programme and forced to work 30 hours a week for just dole money, or – if living with or financially dependent on parents – falling out with family who may consider them lazy, work shy or entitled – or at least being labelled as such by the media.
@Alex, I agree with you. My point was directed at a non-recent graduate who has had some work experience and interview successes from the comments made, and I am sorry if that was not clear. That’s an entirely different situation from the difficult position of “getting your first job”.
A lot of people who already have a job will decide in the days before not to attend an interview or not to accept a job that is offered. Recently I had 4 out of 8 candidates drop out less than 48 hours before an interview, and this has not been an isolated experience. I have also been to third choice candidates on job offers as well. This will probably seem crazy to recent graduates but is a fact of working life that applying and getting a job is not the same as starting it.
@Anthea
That is not the first time I’ve been told about employers – usually SMEs – who have found that they either cannot find enough applicants for their graduate roles, or that half of the ones they invite for interview don’t turn up.
Yet is is hard to believe that anybody on GF would not turn up to an interview! So what is going on? I honestly don’t know…
But my instinct is that a lot of graduates are all going for the same jobs – the ones they see widely advertised, often by big, recognised brands, or placed on a big, obvious job board. But for smaller businesses with less money to spend on recruitment advertising – or where it makes less sense as they are only looking for one new hire, not 20 – they are still finding it very difficult to get in front of the right kind of grads. Like the ones on GF, who WILL show up to interviews!
I did not write the above trolling comment from 11:18pm.
And unless the person who did is also called Alex and has a last name begin with W by some massive coincidence, I would like to complain about people attempting to misrepresent me in this forum.
@Tanya:
One think I’d say is another factor sometimes – often made by those arguing there isn’t anywhere near as much of a skills gap as is claimed – is many companies seem to only try to poach people already employed doing something similar, or with years of experience of something relatively rare or esoteric, but won’t or are not able to offer that much money (like claiming there’s a Ferrari shortage when you will only pay £300 for one and can’t get one) and – to come back to it again – many won’t train people (with Anthea’s firm thankfully being an exception).
If someone is in a position of experience or with desirable skills, and especially if they already have a job, it is going to be harder to get them in your firm than someone without those things, simply because they have more options.
I guess with SMEs publicity may also be an issue as well. With SMEs in my region and my particular experience and skill-set (Politics degree, speaking some German, years of admin and retail experience) short of spamming any company I come across, or checking jobsites, agencies, company websites/social media I really don’t know where to begin with any kind of targeted approach to try and gain employment in all these SMEs we apparently have lots of.
Particularly since most paid vacancies in these smaller places seem to be industrial-/STEM-related often requiring either experience of X or Y or a STEM degree, whilst most opportunities related to more written work, PR, Politics etc have the unpaid internship and X years’ experience of Y barrier for practically everything I come across.
There 1000s of graduates stuggling to find jobs. At the same time, there are 100s of employers who say they need more skilled employees (?_?)
Either employers are lying or graduates are not looking in the right places. The best solution is for employers to start looking for potential employees that want to work for them.
@Alex W
I have removed that comment from the other imposter Alex W! The email address didn’t look spammy but they showed no sign of being called Alex and the comment was not constructive so… trashed! I marked it as Spam so that means their comments should always need to be approved before they appear, if they ever post again. I don’t want to have this as the default setting though, as real-time debate is so much more lively and engaging than having to wait for me to approve every comment – I hope everyone agrees?)
If I ever don’t respond to a complaint you leave in the comments then please email me via the Contact Us page. I try to read every comment posted on GF but on busy days I may miss something. Thanks!