COMPANY CULTURE, TRAINING – OR COLD, HARD CASH?
A fat pay packet is no longer the top priority for job-hunting graduates, according to new figures. Despite their large student debt and the high cost of renting, only one in ten graduates rate salary as their top concern when sizing up employers and opportunities and looking for a great graduate job.
When professional services firm EY asked 1,000 students to rank the most important considerations when choosing a future employer, they were surprised by the results. For 35% of respondents, the top priority was ‘Access to training and development’ (an increase of 15% from last year).
In second place came ‘People and culture’ (21%), third was ‘The reputation of the business’ (14%) and fourth was ‘Good work life balance’ (13%). Salary and benefits came in fifth place, with only 11% of students rating it as the most important factor.
Julie Stanbridge, Head of Student Recruitment at EY said:
“Money clearly isn’t king for today’s graduates as this drop in importance shows. With the graduate job market recovering, the class of 2015 are making longer term decisions about what their first job will bring to their career prospects, rather than focussing on the quick win.
“It’s no surprise that training and development once again remains top but there is now more debate around what quality personal development looks like for new entrants to the workplace.
“We are seeing moves away from structured classroom based seminars and Powerpoint slides to on-the-job learning in dynamic teams and through working collaboratively on projects.”
Stanbridge said the picture emerging was of a generation of young people who want to feel good about their work, and how it fits with their values and the rest of their life. She said:
“Today’s graduates are looking for job satisfaction at inspiring and progressive workplaces, with initiatives such as flexible working being seen as ‘business as normal’ and something to be expected rather than a perk.
“Start-ups, especially, in the tech industry are leading the way in challenging traditional corporate cultures and norms. Larger graduate employers, however, aren’t resting on their laurels and are placing more importance in creating connections with students through face-to-face interactions at universities and careers fairs, as well as through social media.”
The poll also questioned students about where they looking for their first job. London proved to the most popular destination with 54% of graduates stating that they were hoping to start their career in the capital. The next most popular option was overseas, with 7% of students looking outside the UK. Stanbridge said:
“With the popularity of overseas gap years increasing, you can see why some graduates would want to seek out international opportunities. Many large companies, such as EY, offer opportunities to work with clients across the globe.
“However, for those who would rather stay closer to home, 42% of our graduate and student places are available outside of London and across the UK, which means students and graduates can work with a broader range of clients and companies than in London.”
EY, one of the UK’s largest student recruiters, is currently recruiting for over 800 graduate trainee positions, 100 school-leavers, and 500 places on its undergraduate programmes for 2015.
(Click her to read our article How to Get a Graduate Job at EY.)
At Graduate Fog, we have our own theory for these findings. Today’s young people are required to fork out tens of thousands of pounds for their degree, before being told to train themselves further for work by taking a low-paid or unpaid internship. Against that backdrop, perhaps it’s no wonder a job offer from an employer who’s prepared to train graduates while they earn is so treasured by today’s young jobseekers.
*WHAT MATTERS MOST TO YOU WHEN LOOKING FOR A GRADUATE JOB?
Rank these options in order of their importance for you: 1) Training and development 2) People and culture 3) Reputation of the business 4) Good work-life balance 5) Salary and benefits. What matters the most – and what matters the least?
At this point I’d rate stability I think. The knowledge you can be fired on a whim at a minute’s notice isn’t conducive to trust, forward planning etc.
I’m still not entirely sure what is a “graduate job” any more. My old uni seemed to use a rather dubious definition to improve their stats, and many jobs now require degrees which didn’t previously.
Oh work life balance too – at least unless I had a paid job I actually liked (in politics, academia etc perhaps).
One advantage of agency work paid by the hour is that they don’t want me working over 37 hours a week typically, whilst unpaid overpaid overtime is endemic in a lot of salaried roles.
I’d rate training and development highest as it is rare to find an employer willing to invest training and development in staff in this day and age.
@MWA and @AlexW, really interesting to hear your views.
Having thought about this a bit more since I wrote the post, I wonder whether there is a slightly different way of looking at this… Perhaps today’s graduates really value training more than graduates used to, because they know how expensive it is, having paid so much for their own?
Interesting on the stability issue too – after so much ‘precarious’ work, a permanent job certainly starts to look very attractive to graduates (I’ve been freelance myself for most of the last 15 years, so I know all about that one!).
The work life balance concern is a funny one. I’ve heard lots of employers say Gen Y / millennials (sorry!) are being naive / immature on this one, expecting to ‘clock off’ from a well paid job at 5 or 5.30 every night, and complaining about working ‘late’ if they’re still in the office at 6.30pm.
In the current work culture (and economic climate, including cuts and redundancies), most employees regularly work long hours as part of their job, and it’s never recorded (or paid for!) as ‘overtime’. It’s seen as normal – just part of being committed to your role and your employer. I’m not saying this is right – just that this thinking has become very ingrained in anyone aged 30+. In fact, perhaps millennials are the only ones who see sense on this! (Well, them and many parents of young children who are struggling to balance childcare with a job, who also feel that it’s unreasonable to be asked to work long hours as ‘normal’). I don’t have all the answers but it’s interesting to see the push / pull factors on this. It depends how much weight these ‘demanding’ employees have. Do they hold enough power to make businesses re-think? But there is a strong push in the other direction too. Remember, businesses need to keep making money, or everyone will be out of a job!
I would say responsibility and ability to make decisions too. One of my previous roles was ‘graduate trainee manager’ yet it was more like glorified shop assistant because of their increasingly ridiculous top down management structure not allowing us to even go to the toilet without written permission or set guidelines! We want to grow, think for ourselves- make our own mistakes and discoveries/changes/fresh ideas!
Oh, and treating us like slaves working us to death with unreasonable workloads and hours because they were too cheap to staff sufficiently. Even being left on our own in a lot of cases. Highly dangerous- someone was violently assaulted eventually. Not that they cared, plenty of desperate peons to replace you
Did this survey include graduates from overseas who spent part of their undergraduate course in the UK? Did this survey include mature graduates? Did it include graduates who attained a 2:2 or a Third? What about the different responses along gender lines? This survey is a mere snapshot and doesn’t look at graduates’ changing view from their first job to their second job. It accepts at face value the respondents’ answers and doesn’t look at income group, privileged graduates whose parents have all the right connections to put them ahead of the competition, or the university the graduate attended.
@Brian Good question – I’m not sure of all those details. The press release just says EY surveyed 1,000 students, who were looking for their first job. But they do tend to be good at commissioning research like this properly, so it won’t just have been quick poll of whoever they could find!
It’s interesting to consider how the results would have been different if they’d homed in on certain groups of students / graduates. What results do you think they would have found if they’d looked at the kind of sub-groups you mention? Are you suggesting that salary may be more important to those from a less wealthy background? I really wouldn’t like to bet either way on that! There are so many complicated factors that go into how young jobseekers rate opportunities. It’s endlessly fascinating to me!
@Tanya, I’m only posing the questions and I don’t know enough to be able to comment adequately. But isn’t there a theory of a pyramid of needs and wants, where we have basic needs that we feel we need to meet before we can move on to other needs? Isn’t one of the first Security, then material needs, followed by Love? I’m not sure of the order, but the answer probably lies with the psychologists.
I would say training and the chance to develop new skills, along with the values of the company. I know this seems overly picky in today’s economy but I really want to work somewhere that shares my values of sustainability and social justice, so I can feel good about making money for them rather than feeling like a corporate robot.
I just want enough money to live on and not to have to stress about paying the bills, money would be down the list a little way for me.