Why we decided on an Employability Day
Will Jodrell of Graduate Works who run graduate training
programmes for Sainsbury's:
“These days the gun goes off when you leave school.
Students should be interning or volunteering in their
summer vacations before they even get to university, if
nothing else showing that they have the ability to get
off their a**** . Many graduates say they have
received no careers advice whatsoever about the
importance of holiday work schemes. They have
cottoned on too late, learning from peer pressure..”
The Challenge
Katrina Borrow - 21 years old.
•Degree 2.1 in modern languages from Cambridge.
•Runs 8 miles every day to stay focused
•Has coxed rowers from the age of 13
•Choral scholar at Cambridge
•Had four internships in communication and PR agencies
•Unemployed, signing on in Kidderminster.
“Monday I spend trawling through the 700-800 job
vacancies on various websites. I then make a shortlist.
Tuesday I start sending off applications, many of them are
to recruitment agencies. Normally you just don’t hear back.
In the last month I have applied for 25-30 jobs in PR and
communications and heard back from one. It is so
frustrating. One recruitment agency told me I was the next
best thing to sliced bread; I never heard from them again.”
(The Times)
High Fliers Survey 2012 – the Bad News
• One third of this year’s entry-level positions are
expected to be filled by graduates who have already
worked for their organisations – either through
industrial placements, vacation work or sponsorships
• Graduate recruitment at the UK’s leading employers
remains below pre-recession levels (still 6% below
that recorded in 2007)
• An extra 50,000 new graduates are expected to leave
university in 2012, compared with the numbers who
graduated five years ago
• Starting salaries at the UK’s leading graduate
employers in 2012 are expected to remain unchanged
for a third consecutive year – at a median of £29,000
(+7.4% in 2010 and 5.9% in 2009)
More bad news
2011: 263,845 UK graduates from UK universities.
• 9% of all graduates were unemployed 6 months after
graduation (50% increase since before the recession)
• 715 graduates ended up working in factories, 13,485
were in basic admin. jobs, 9,070 were in low-starting
‘elementary’ positions
• Number of applications soar to an average of 83 per
vacancy (69 in 2010)
• (AGR Survey 2011)
• 1 in 10 students failed to get a job after university last year.
(H.E. Service data)
2011: 263,845 UK graduates from UK universities.
9% of all graduates were unemployed 6 months after
graduation (50% increase since before the recession)
715 graduates ended up working in factories, 13,485
were in basic admin. jobs, 9,070 were in low-starting
‘elementary’ positions
Number of applications soar to an average of 83 per
vacancy (69 in 2010)
(AGR Survey 2011)
High Fliers Survey 2012 – the Good News
• The UK’s leading employers are expecting to increase their
graduate recruitment by 6.4% in 2012 (+2.8% in 2011) (+12.6%
in 2010)
• Public sector employers are planning to expand their graduate
intake by 21.9% in 2012
• Will be a substantial rise in the number of graduate jobs
available at engineering & industrial companies (up 22.4%
compared to 2011), IT & telecommunications firms (up 31.6%),
• High street banks (up 16.0%) and retailers (up 11.5%).
• Armed Forces recruitment have been reduced further
• Graduate vacancies at the leading accounting & professional
services firms appear to have peaked after three consecutive
years of significant increases
• The largest individual recruiters of graduates in 2012 will be
PwC (1,200 vacancies), Deloitte (1,200 vacancies), the Teach
First scheme (1,000 vacancies), KPMG (800 vacancies)and
Ernst & Young (740 vacancies).
Try to avoid
22 year old Orlando Barley: 2.1 in Geography from
Durham. Wanted a job in insurance. In his best suit
he stood outside Lloyd’s Insurance building in
London holding a large laminated placard with the
words: “Just graduated from Durham and looking for
a job in insurance”. He was armed with 70 CVs,
handed out 67, received 22 business cards, offered
3 stint of work experience on the spot, received
several emails, received 4 interviews, received 3 job
offers.
(The Times)
Awareness
Otegha Uwagba 21 year old graduate
‘Not to have interned is basically not to have
existed in world of graduate employment,
especially in areas such as law.’
‘I realised that I had missed the boat in
building up a ‘portfolio’ of experience before
I had even graduated. Other students had
10 times more experience.’
Be aware (USA)
Google receives a million job applicants a year and
hires only 1 from every 130 people interviewed.
Every candidate is said to be the subject of a 50-page
dossier, detailing their history and their ‘Googlinness’.
Google has asked applicants “Why are most manhole
covers round?”
USA – ‘extreme interviewing’ in a very crowded job
market:
Campbell Mithun (advertising firm) require
applications in the form of 13 Twitter messages (“it
finds digitally savvy, creative thought leaders”)
A marketing company asked applicants to “ just
entertain us for five minutes”.