WORKING OUT?
graduates’ early experiences of the
labour market
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EMPLOYMENT
RESEARCH
CSU
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should be addressed to
Kate Purcell at Bristol Business School
University of the West of England
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Bristol BS16 1QY
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the University of Warwick in 1981. It aims to promote
advanced study and research in areas such as the
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ISBN 1 84016 064 0
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WORKING OUT?
graduates’ early experiences of
the labour market
Kate Purcell, Jane Pitcher and Claire Simm
follow-up report to
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
SHORT REPORT
January 1999
three
c
ontents
PREFACE
page 4
INTRODUCTION
page 5
KEY FINDINGS
page 5
WHAT DO GRADUATES DO IN THE NEW LABOUR MARKET?
How important is choice of degree subject?
The effect of gender
Do age barriers exist?
‘Old’ versus ‘new’ universities
Is getting a 2.1 important?
page 6
THE IMPACT OF DEBT
page 8
FINDING EMPLOYMENT
page 8
SKILLS FOR EMPLOYMENT
page 9
THE IMPORTANCE OF WORK EXPERIENCE AND
EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
page 11
THE ROLE OF CAREERS GUIDANCE
page 11
WHAT IS A GRADUATE JOB?
Types of graduate employment
A typology of graduate job seekers
page 12
BIBLIOGRAPHY
IBC
TABLES
FIGURES
1.
2.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Current situation, by area of undergraduate study (%)
Current situation, by age (%)
5.
Current situation, by gender
Current situation, by degree level
Sources consulted about opportunities available
Use of skills, knowledge and aptitudes in current
job: graduates who used these ‘very much’ or
‘quite a lot’.
Important factors in enabling graduates to obtain
their job
four
p
reface
This is a short report based on Working Out? which
was commissioned by the Higher Education Careers
Services Unit (CSU) and the Association of Graduate
Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) and undertaken by
the Institute for Employment Research (IER) at the
University of Warwick. The research was funded by
the CSU with support from the Department for
Education and Employment. An extended analysis of
the survey data is being undertaken by the authors
and will be published in due course.
In Spring and early Summer 1996, nearly one in
three1 final year undergraduates at 21 UK higher
education institutions were surveyed about their plans
and aspirations for the future by means of a detailed
self-completion survey. After Final Examinations,
randomly-selected respondents were invited to attend
focus group workshops at ten universities around the
country to explore attitudes and particular experiences
in more detail. The findings were reported in Great
Expectations: the new diversity of graduate skills and
aspirations, by Kate Purcell and Jane Pitcher, published
by CSU in October 1996.
1
At the end of the Great Expectations questionnaire,
respondents were asked to provide their names and
addresses if they were willing to be surveyed at a
later stage to provide details of how their
expectations had been met and their careers were
progressing. Over 80% volunteered for this follow-up
at the time of completing the first questionnaire and
they were surveyed at Christmas 1997, with a second
mailing in Spring 1998. This report provides
fascinating information about what has happened to
them after graduation.
Acknowledgement is made to the graduates who
participated so willingly, to Patricia Raderecht (Chief
Executive of CSU), Margaret Wallis (Director of the
Careers Advisory Service at the University of Warwick)
who co-ordinated the project, to Daniel Johnson
(Labour Market Analyst at CSU) who helped with the
typescript, to Ruth Eaton, Steve Haddican and Sharon
Walton in the Production Department at CSU, and to
Maureen Garcia for her skill, patience and good
humour in typing endless drafts of both the
questionnaires and the report. The authors of the
report were Kate Purcell, Jane Pitcher and Claire
Simms at the Institute for Employment at the
University of Warwick. Kate Purcell is now Professor
of Employment Studies at Bristol Business School,
University of the West of England, but remains an
Associate Fellow of IER .
Excluding those on highly specialist vocational courses such as Art & Design, BEd and Medicine
and related courses.
five
w
orking out?
INTRODUCTION
KEY FINDINGS
vidence from research on graduate employment
in the 1990s suggests that the impact of growth
in higher education participation has led to an
increasingly diverse graduate labour market. This
follow-up study of 1996 UK-domiciled graduates from
a wide range of undergraduate courses and higher
education institutions assesses how successfully
members of this cohort have been in meeting their
expectations of career development, some 18 months
beyond graduation.
• Choice of course is clearly the single most
important variable in determining the segments of
the graduate labour market to which new
graduates have access: discipline or subject area,
performance, type of institution, gender and
location also have a significant impact on the
options available or perceived to be available to
them.
E
The overall findings are positive. The majority were
either in full-time employment which they considered
to be related to their longer-term career plans or in
postgraduate study. Seventy-one per cent of
respondents were very or fairly satisfied with how
things were working out for them 18 months after
graduation. Of the remainder, half had not yet
seriously attempted to embark on career
development.
The full report explores a range of factors associated
with the ease or difficulty experienced by graduates in
turning their expectations into reality. Detailed
analyses of responses to factual and attitudinal
questions have been carried out, by the key variables
of gender, age, subject studied, class of degree, type
of institution attended, social class of parents and the
extent to which respondents had embarked on their
undergraduate courses with a clear view of the career
path ahead. Where possible, analyses according to
ethnic origin and disability were also undertaken.
This summary highlights the key findings of the full
report and carries out a brief discussion of these
supplemented by a selection of figures, tables and
statistics from the main report.
• As a degree has become an essential prerequisite
for a wider range of occupations, graduate
employers are becoming more concerned with
evidence of skills and competencies and less
concerned with qualifications. This means that
labour market boundaries and boundaries within
organisations have become less rigid and more
permeable. Relevant work experience emerges as
a key factor in finding suitable employment.
• Graduates with less sought-after qualifications and
experience consequently need to make a realistic
assessment of their skills and competencies and
the options available to them and find ways of
maximising their potential. The onus is on
employers who require graduates with
employability skills to ensure that there are
opportunities for graduates and undergraduates to
develop these, by working in collaboration with
higher education institutions (Harvey et al. 1998).
• The graduate labour market is stratified,
particularly in areas where the supply of specialists
and generalists exceeds demand, but career
planning, initiative and perseverance were often as
significant as formal qualifications in determining
how things worked out for ‘The class of ’96’.
six
‘’
There are clearly
different types of
graduate career
trajectory, depending
on degree subject,
WHAT DO GRADUATES DO IN THE NEW
GRADUATE LABOUR MARKET?
The effect of gender
There are clearly different types of graduate career
trajectory, depending on degree subject, gender, age
and the type of university attended. The diversity of
routes into careers shows that first destination results
cannot be relied upon as an indication of longer-term
success in the graduate labour market.
• Men were significantly more likely than women to
be in full-time employment which they considered
related to their longer-term career plans, for which
a degree was a prerequisite, which they believed
appropriate for someone with their skills and
qualifications and which used their skills and
knowledge.
gender, age and the
type of university
attended
How important is choice of degree subject?
• Graduates with vocational and numerate degrees
were more likely to be in work which they
considered appropriate for their skills and
qualifications, for which a degree was required,
where they used their graduate skills and
knowledge and to be in permanent career-related
employment. They also had higher salaries on
average. Having a degree in Engineering &
Technology, Business Studies or Maths &
Computing was associated with positive career
outcomes and satisfaction with career to date.
• Graduates with Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences,
Natural Sciences and Inter-disciplinary degrees
were more likely to have experienced difficulty in
finding appropriate employment and were also
most likely to have opted for postgraduate study.
• A higher proportion of male graduates compared
with female graduates were in professional and
associate professional occupations, with women
being in much higher proportions in clerical and
secretarial occupations - many of which were not
graduate level jobs.
• Men earned higher average salaries than women.
The gap between male and female graduates’
expected salary and their actual salary in full-time
work 18 months on appeared to have widened: a
much higher proportion of men than women were
earning more than £15,000 per annum, even
when comparing salaries of those in typically
‘graduate’ occupations and with similar degrees.
Current situation, by area of undergraduate study (%)
Current
Situation
Arts/
Humanities
Modern
Languages
Interdisciplinary
39.6
5.9
22.5
8.0
3.0
13.3
8.6
4.1
3.8
1.5
8.9
45.3
4.3
29.5
5.8
2.2
7.9
5.0
1.4
2.2
5.8
53.9
4.2
19.2
1.8
3.6
6.6
7.8
1.2
5.4
0.6
5.4
45.6
3.1
17.2
4.2
1.3
17.8
6.4
3.3
5.1
0.4
6.4
(n=388)
(139)
(167)
(454)
Full-time career-related
Part-time career-related
Full-time - other job
Part-time - other job
Self-employed
Postgraduate (+ grant)
Postgraduate (- grant)
Voluntary/unpaid work
Unemployed
Not seeking work
Other
All (100%)
table 1
Natural
Social
Sciences Sciences
Law
Business
Studies
Maths &
Computing
Engineering &
Technology
51.2
2.4
15.7
6.3
3.1
7.1
11.0
5.5
2.4
1.6
11.0
72.7
1.6
15.6
1.9
1.0
3.9
2.9
0.0
2.6
0.6
3.2
72.3
2.2
11.4
1.6
0.5
11.4
4.3
1.1
0.5
1.6
76.2
0.5
10.7
1.0
6.3
1.5
3.4
3.9
(335) (127)
(308)
(184)
(206)
43.9
5.7
21.2
7.5
2.7
12.2
7.5
3.6
4.5
0.6
7.2
seven
Current situation, by gender (%)
figure 1
P-T employment related career
take longer to be
F-T employment other
Males
P-T employment other
Females
Self-employed
assimilated into the
labour market at
appropriate levels,
PG study (with grant)
PG study (self-financed)
but most were en
Voluntary Work
route by the time of
Unemployed
the survey
Non-employed
0
10
Do age barriers exist?
• Mature graduates take longer to be assimilated
into the labour market at appropriate levels, but
most were en route by the time of the survey.
• Graduates under 30 were more likely to be in
career-related employment than older graduates.
20
30
40
50
60%
• Those aged 40-49 were least likely to believe that
their career development expectations had been
met and to have experienced difficulty in finding
appropriate employment - though few regretted
returning to study. They were less likely to have
achieved jobs for which a degree was a
prerequisite than younger respondents and more
likely to express disappointment with their current
job and career development so far.
• The oldest graduates had most often taken
degrees for personal developmental reasons rather
than because of employment aspirations.
Current situation, by age (%)
Current Situation
‘’
Mature graduates
F-T employment related career
table 2
Under 25
26-30
31-39
40 and over
Full-time career-related
Part-time career-related
Full-time other job
Part-time other job
Self-employed
Postgraduate (+ grant)
Postgraduate (- grant)
Voluntary/unpaid work
Unemployed
Not seeking work
Other
56.4
2.5
18.2
3.5
1.1
11.0
5.4
1.8
3.2
0.5
5.5
55.6
2.6
18.4
5.3
2.0
10.5
6.6
2.0
4.6
0.7
7.2
42.2
6.7
15.6
9.6
4.4
13.3
11.9
5.2
3.0
2.2
7.4
23.1
17.6
20.4
11.1
11.1
6.5
7.4
9.2
9.3
1.0
9.3
N=2275
(1728)
(304)
(135)
(108)
eight
‘
’
A ‘good’ degree is
clearly essential for
many graduate jobs
but respondents
reported that
employers were often
more concerned with
work experience and
‘Old’ versus ‘new’ universities
Is getting a 2.1 important?
• Those from old universities were more likely to be
in jobs for which a degree was required, which
they believed to be appropriate and which used
their graduate skills and knowledge. They were
also more likely to be satisfied with their career
progress to date and less likely to have
experienced difficulties in obtaining appropriate
employment.
• Those with a First Class or Upper Second Class
Honours degree were most likely to be in
employment which they regarded as appropriate.
Contrary to the fears of graduates, a high
proportion of those with Lower Second Class
Honours or less had been able to obtain
employment which they regarded as appropriate
and for which a degree was required.
• Outcomes varied by degree subject. Those who
had done vocational courses or courses with a
work experience component were more likely than
others to be in career-related employment
regardless of where they studied.
• A ‘good’ degree is clearly essential for many
graduate jobs but respondents reported that
employers were often more concerned with work
experience and proven competence than formal
qualifications.
Current situation by degee level
figure 2
proven competence
F-T employment related to career
than formal
P-T employment related to career
qualifications
First or Upper Second
F-T employment (other)
Lower Second or Other
P-T employment (other)
Self-employed
PG (with a grant)
PG study (self-financed)
Voluntary or unpaid work
Unemployed or seeking work
Other
0
20
40
60
80
100%
THE IMPACT OF DEBT
FINDING EMPLOYMENT
• Three-quarters of respondents had had repayable
debts at the end of their undergraduate courses
and of these, over half had not begun to repay
them, 42 per cent had started to do so and only 8
per cent had repaid them in full. A third of those
with debts considered that their career options had
been restricted as a result.
• Nearly half of those who had sought employment
considered that they had experienced difficulty in
obtaining appropriate employment.
• National newspapers, family and friends, local
newspapers, trade press, graduate vacancy
publications and careers guidance staff, in that
order, were the most commonly-used sources of
information.
nine
Sources consulted about opportunities available
figure 3
‘
’
The skills most used
Academic staff
by graduates in
Careers Advisory Staff
employment were
Professionals in similar work
spoken
Previous graduates
Family & friends
communication,
Graduate publications
interpersonal skills,
Computerised sources
National newspaper
ability to prioritise
Local/regional paper
tasks and time
Trade press
Internet on employers
management
Internet on vacancies
Job centre
Recruitment agencies
Already had job
0
10
20
30
SKILLS FOR EMPLOYMENT
• The skills most used by graduates in employment
were spoken communication, interpersonal skills,
ability to prioritise tasks and time management.
• At the time of the Great Expectations study, it was
clear that those from new universities were most
likely to believe that ‘Personal Development’ and
‘Enterprise or Business’ skills had been developed
in the course of their undergraduate programmes.
In their employment, those from both categories of
university were being required to use such skills
and the gap between those from old and new was
considerably less in practice than in the degree to
which they had been included in courses.
40
50
60
70
80%
• ‘Enterprise or Business’ skills clearly often had to
be developed in employment, after respondents
had left higher education.
• ‘Traditional Academic’ skills, which were highly
developed during most courses, were least used
by graduates in employment. The exceptions were
those with Mathematics & Computing and
Engineering & Technology degrees, whose work
was more likely to relate to subject knowledge
gained in higher education.
• The skills that graduates believed were most
sought-after by graduate employers were ability to
work in a team, interpersonal skills, spoken
communication, computer literacy, ability to
prioritise tasks and problem-solving skills.
ten
Use of skills, knowledge and aptitude in current job:
figure 4
1: Traditional academic skills
Spoken communication
Ability to apply knowledge
Logical thinking
Computer literacy
Written communication
Specialist knowledge
Ability to use numerical data
Critical analysis
Research skills
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80%
20
30
40
50
60
70
80%
20
30
40
50
60
70
80%
2: Personal development skills
Self-confidence
Self-discipline
Self-reliance
Independence
Problem-solving skills
Desire to go on learning
Awareness strengths/weaknesses
Creativity
Knowledge international affairs
0
10
3: Enterprise or business skills
Interpersonal skills
Ability to prioritise tasks
Time management
Ability to work in a team
Presentation skills
Leadership skills
Entrepreneurial skills
0
10
eleven
THE IMPORTANCE OF WORK EXPERIENCE AND
EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
• ‘Employability skills’ development has increasingly
been part of undergraduate programmes and is a
strong component of supervised work experience.
One of the strongest messages to come out of the
research is the importance of work experience in
enabling graduates to obtain appropriate
employment and, conversely, the extent to which
lack of success in the job market was attributed to
lack of relevant work experience.
• These skills are not only developed within
programmes but also in vacation employment,
other paid work and voluntary activities. Graduates
reported that evidence of such activities was often
regarded by employers as equally, if not more,
important than their course content and degree
results.
Important factors in enabling graduates to obtain their job
figure 5
Art/Humanities
Modern Languages
Social Sciences
Law
60%
Business Studies
Maths/Computing
Natural Sciences
50
Engineering/Technology
40
30
20
‘
Graduates who had
10
used their University
0
Work experience
in the
organisation
Relevant WE in
similar
organisation
Paid work
experience
before
THE ROLE OF CAREERS GUIDANCE
• Graduates who had used their University Careers
Advisory Service were very satisfied with the quality
of information and guidance they had received,
although there were comments on the imbalance of
information available on different options – for
example, lots about the major graduate recruiters
but little about the voluntary sector.
Voluntary work
Extra-curricular
activities
Formal offices
held at university
Careers Advisory
Service were very
satisfied with the
• There is clearly more scope for both better careers
information and guidance prior to course choice
and a need for graduate careers guidance for
some time after graduation, for those graduates
who are not satisfactorily integrated in to the
labour market at the early career stage.
quality of information
they had received…
twelve
WHAT IS A GRADUATE JOB?
qualifications. This indicates some of the ways in
which graduate jobs are changing.
The answer is that boundaries are far from clear.
• It is clear that although requirement for a degree
in job advertisements may be an appropriate
indicator of what constitutes a graduate job –
those in jobs for which a degree had been
required were more likely to believe that they were
in an appropriate job and to be satisfied with their
career to date – many graduates in other jobs
believed that they were using their graduate skills
and knowledge. If these are included in the
definition of ‘graduate jobs’, 89 per cent were in
graduate jobs at the time of the survey.
‘
’
Around two-thirds of
those in employment
considered their
current job to be an
appropriate post for
someone with their
skills and
qualifications
• In October 1996, 45 per cent of those in
employment were in jobs for which a degree was
required and 34 per cent were in jobs where
degrees were not required and where they were
using neither their graduate skills nor knowledge.
By December 1997, these proportions had
changed to 71 per cent and 11 per cent
respectively.
• Around two-thirds of those in employment
considered their current job to be an appropriate
post for someone with their skills and
qualifications.
• The discrepancy between these proportions is an
indication of the changing boundaries of the
graduate labour market, as is the significant
minority which had experienced difficulty in finding
employment which they regarded as appropriate.
Gender, age and type of degree obtained were
significantly related to employment outcomes.
• At the time of the survey, the majority of employed
graduates were in professional, associate
professional and managerial occupations. A
significant minority were also in administrative/
clerical and sales occupations, with many
graduates in these areas considering themselves to
be in jobs appropriate for their skills and
• The largest concentrations of graduate
employment were in the service sector: in
Consumer Services, Business Services, Banking &
Finance, Other Public Services and Education.
Types of graduate employment
If a graduate job is ‘a job that graduates do’ we
identified six ‘types’ of graduate employment, which
are discussed in the final section of the report:
Trad Grads – graduates in jobs traditionally requiring
degrees; further divided into professional specialist
occupations which require particular degree subjects
and fast-track management and administrative jobs
where degree subject is less important than evidence
of general potential, traditionally evaluated by class of
degree and elite provenance of degree.
Gradual Graduates – graduates in trainee or
experience-building jobs which provide pathways to
more traditional graduate occupations in the
professions, management or administration.
The New Knowledge Workers – mainly relatively
new jobs where high information technology skills are
required, in sectors such as Finance, Business Services
and Communications.
The New Persuaders – again, often new kinds of
job in Business Services, Communications and
Customer Services, where high levels of interpersonal
and communication skills are required.
Carers with Credentials – mainly public sector and
social welfare posts where, again, excellent
interpersonal and management skills are called for.
‘McGrad Jobs’ – which clearly represent underemployment.
This typology does not represent a hierarchy: clearly,
under-employment is generally associated with
dissatisfaction and low rewards, but in all the other
categories, job-holders range from those who believe
that they are in the ideal job for them through to the
very dissatisfied.
Salary level is associated with satisfaction with career
development to date, but this varies by sector,
occupation and degree subject. The highest salaries
tend to be earned by Trad Grad generalists, New
Knowledge Workers and New Persuaders, but some
of the lowest salaries are also earned by people in
these categories, as well as among Carers with
Credentials, Gradual Graduates and McGrad
jobholders.
A typology of graduate job seekers
Employment patterns need to be considered in
relation to participation in postgraduate courses and
training programmes. It is already clear from this
evidence that there are different kinds of graduate
career trajectories. High satisfaction with career so far
is related to occupation and salary, but many of those
taking a longer-term view are, for example, very
satisfied to be in relatively low-paid employment, or
have postponed serious career development to
concentrate on other aspects of life such as travel.
Examples of a diverse range of graduate career paths
are cited in the full report and show that enterprise,
initiative and career planning normally have played a
strong role in successful outcomes. We identified
three kinds of graduate job-seeker:
Career Planners, who had undertaken their courses
with a clear view of where they wanted to get to –
and who were most likely to be in an appropriate job
and satisfied with their career development – not
always without having had to surmount obstacles
along the way;
Adapters, who had not thought ahead when
choosing their course, or who had changed their
minds about what they wanted to do in the course of
their undergraduate experience or as a result of
disappointing degree results – but who had
considered their realistic options and had set about
making the most of the opportunities available; and
Drifters, who had not had clear ideas at the outset
and were still experimenting with a variety of options
or waiting for something to turn up. Some were
deliberately drifting by postponing career
development for a finite period, but most were
unsatisfied with the situation and looking for more
appropriate opportunities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harvey, L, V Geall, and S Moon, 1998, Work
Experience: Expanding Opportunities for Graduates,
Birmingham: University of Central England
Purcell, K and J Pitcher, 1996, Great Expectations: the
New Diversity of Graduate Skills and Aspirations,
Manchester: CSU
Purcell, K, J Pitcher and C Simm, 1999, Working Out?
Graduates’ Early Experiences of the Labour Market,
Manchester: CSU
‘
’
Salary level is
associated with
satisfaction with
career development to
date, but this varies
by sector, occupation
and degree subject