Graduate Employability at Warwick
Steve Hind, Senior Careers Consultant
Anne Wilson, Head of Careers
We will cover:
How degrees at Warwick contribute to
graduate employability
What do our graduates do?
Enhancing employability through extracurricular activities
Plan B. What do graduates do when things
don’t go according to plan?
Some statistics:
92.3% of Warwick graduates secure either
employment or further study 6 months
after graduation
Of those in work, 75.7% secure graduate
level employment
(Based on 2012 data)
Quick quiz:
Which departments achieved the following?
100% employment (graduate level)
97.2% (graduate level )
84.6% (graduate level)
All destinations info is publicly available
through GEMS: http://destinations.warwick.ac.uk/
Commonly asked questions at
Open Days:
Some sample destinations:
English Literature graduates:
Accounts Executive Intern
Equality and Diversity Policy Manager
Social Media Executive
Staff Writer and Conference Coordinator
Researcher
English Teacher
N.B. See also ‘What can I do with a degree in…?’ Series
What do graduate recruiters want?
A good degree from a good university
Work experience
Extra-curricular involvement
The ability to ‘tell their unique story’
What students can get from
Warwick
Access to thousands of opportunities; work experience,
volunteering, research projects
Over 250 Clubs and Societies
Personal and Academic Skills development
Access to qualified and highly skilled careers consultants
Sociology and employability skills
You will learn:
How to work independently.
How to find information, extract what is important from it and turn it
into an argument.
How to work in collaboration with others, but also how to work
effectively without close supervision.
Research methods and how to generate new knowledge and
information using a wide range of tools - large social surveys
interpreted through statistics, to in-depth interviews, analysing the
language used in media texts
How to conduct research both with others and on your own
What Warwick offers:
‘There are no graduate jobs.’
93% of millionaires are
graduates/professionally
qualified (BBC News, May
2014)
Many graduate recruiters do
not fill their vacancies
National picture
(from HECSU)
Overview of 2013 destinations data (6 months after graduation)
Of the 242,285 graduates who responded to the survey:
Destinations
5.9%
13%
8%
67.7%
Employment
Unemployed
Further study/training
Work+ study
Average salaries of graduates employed full-time in the UK ranged from £18,345 to £22,535,
depending on their occupation.
Warwick Picture 2012
Graduate Destinations
5.6%
9.9%
7.2%
25.3%
52%
Employed
Unemployed
Average salary:
Further Study
Work + Study
Mean = £27,900
Median = £24,000:
Other
Destination of Leavers
from Higher Education Institutions
Longitudinal survey of 2008/9
leavers
Aim of survey: to collect information
on the activities of graduates
approximately three and a half years
after leaving Higher Education
Responses were received from
c.25,000
Most graduates in employment
(80%) were working in occupations
that were classified as ‘graduate
occupations’
THEIR REFLECTIONS
EMPLOYMENT MARKET TRENDS
Graduate vacancy projections: up 10.2% compared to 2012-13
UP
Source: AGR
DOWN
IT/ Telecomms
+ 40.3%
Investment banking
-1.4%
Public Sector
+20.1%
Law
- 4.2%
Energy/ Utilities
+ 17.5%
Banking/finance
+ 15.7%
Accountancy/professional services + 12.2%
Engineering
+9.2%
Transport/logistics + 7%
Consulting/business services 5.7%
Retail 2.7%
FMCG + 2%
Examples of starting salaries by career area
in 2011-2012
Source: AGR
Investment banking
£38,250
Legal work
£37,000
Consulting
£28,500
Actuarial
£28,500
Manufacturing engineering
£26,500
IT
£26,000
Accountancy
£25,000
How recruiters select:
Degree classification is used as a screening tool by a high
proportion of AGR employers (82.1%) when recruiting
graduates.
The majority (81.3%) use the 2:1 as a cut off for most of their
positions, 15.0% use a 2:2 and a small minority (3.8%) state
that it varies by role.
There are a range of other graduate employers including SME’s
for whom this is not such a significant factor
How to Future Proof* our graduates
Know themselves – be able to articulate and build on their strengths, passions,
skills, attributes, motivations and values
Get experience –work experience, volunteering, clubs and societies
New ways of working – Portfolio working, Social Enterprise
Entrepreneurial skills
The Luck Factor* – being open to and willing to seek new opportunities
Networking – 50-80% of all job opportunities are not advertised
* Professor Richard Wiseman The Luck Factor Random House, 2003
*National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) project http://www2.bcu.ac.uk/futureproof
22
‘To be employed is
to be at risk,
To be employable
is to be secure’.
Hawkins, 2005
Futureproofing