Education and Employability Pack
WHAT DO EMPLOYERS WANT FROM GRADUATES?
Graduate Attributes
After considerable research, Lee Harvey and his colleagues established that
employers want graduates with a range of personal attributes. Some of these
attributes are shown here. (Harvey, Moon, Geall, 1997, Graduates’ Work:
Organisations Change and Students’ Attributes).
Why Employ Graduates?
30% of future employees are predicted to be graduates in future. The careers and jobs
you will be entering after graduation will be many and various. How do you fit in
with the ‘wish list’ of six characteristics given below?
Research suggests that employers want graduates who not only add value but who can
COPE WITH CHANGE and who are able to help to POSITIVELY TRANSFORM
their organisation in the face of continuous and rapid change.
Employers want graduates who can anticipate change and effectively communicate
innovations to colleagues as well as clients and customers.
Knowledge may be less important than the ability and willingness of graduates to
learn and continue learning.
From the research, 6 broad areas of graduate attributes emerge as of major importance
to employers:1. Ability to work in a modern organisation
2. Core/transferable skills
3. Interpersonal skills
4. Communication
5. Enthusiasm for learning and willingness to learn
6. Knowledge and intellectual ability
As you read about these characteristics make notes on those which you feel you have
already or which you are looking to develop.
Ability to work in a modern organisation
Traditionally art and humanities students do not think in terms of the vocational
aspects of their degrees or of working in business environments. They may not
understand them.
Employers on the other hand traditionally do not think of
employing humanities graduates nor do they understand them. This means both sides
are often frustrated in their employment relationship feeling neither side can bring
value to the other.
Core/Transferable Skills
Employers expect graduates to exhibit a wide range of attributes in addition to the
acquisition of a body of knowledge. The research suggests a set of
generic or core skills and attributes
personal attributes
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willingness to learn
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commitment
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team work
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energy
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communication skills
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self-motivation
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problem solving
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self-management
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analytic ability
logical argument
ability to summarise key issues
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reliability
co-operation
flexibility and adaptability
Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal skills in an area that is often regarded as very important by graduate
recruiters, but one where there is a gap between expectations and performance.
Employers often refer to the:
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Arrogance of graduates particularly in terms of a lack of recognition of skills
and abilities of non-graduates. There is a fine line drawn between arrogance
and self-confidence and it is the latter that recruiters look for during the
selection process.
Lack of awareness that graduates have of the impact they make and their
failure to realise that they have to gain the respect of peers and subordinates.
They think they know it all and often lack tact and tolerance.
Inability of graduates to relate to other non graduate employees. Graduates
see themselves as a ‘breed apart’ and employers want graduates who can
communicate with people who are not on the same intellectual level.
Communication
Employers place a great deal of importance on graduates’ communication skills both
oral and written. Communication skills, including listening, are important to
employers because it is necessary for graduates in industry to communicate ideas and
concepts efficiently and effectively to colleagues and customers. Employers were:
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Dissatisfied with both oral and written communication skills.
Often critical of graduates’ grasp of fundamentals of written communication,
especially basic grammar, sentence structure and punctuation.
Concerned about the range of writing abilities of graduates. They may be
good at producing essays, laboratory reports, academic projects and
dissertations but graduates are relatively poor at producing other forms of
written communications.
Disappointed by the inability of graduates to write reports. It seems that
graduates have learned to provide balanced arguments that explore every
nuance of a debate but are not experienced in making a persuasive case.
Reports are much more prescriptive than essays and graduates are not good at
writing them.
Unimpressed by graduates’ oral presentation ability. Graduates seem to have
had little experience of making, or being assessed in oral presentation.
Knowledge
Undergraduate education is frequently seen as developing students’ knowledge.
However as much as this may be a useful context for developing many other skills
and abilities, it is unusual, except in very limited areas, for a recruit from an
undergraduate course to provide an organisation with technical knowledge that might
provide a market edge.
Education and Employability Pack
For some employers the subject of the degree may be of little or no consequence.
Even for employers who value specialist knowledge it is still relatively unimportant
because it has a short shelf life. Rather than value specialist knowledge for its own
sake most employers:
 Consider that understanding of core principles, technical ability, potential and
willingness to learn and continually update knowledge are more important
than a stock of knowledge.
 Consider problem solving to be a very important attribute but one with which
they are only moderately satisfied because of graduates’ lack of real world
application.
 Are only moderately satisfied with the technical ability of graduates. Indeed,
graduates are not seen as particularly good at applying knowledge or
understanding to practical work situations because they are unable to improve,
lack commercial awareness and lack appreciation of the human or cultural
context within which they are working.
Intellect and Adaptability
Employers want graduates to be flexible, adaptable and receptive to change.
Employers expect graduates to exhibit a range of intellectual abilities. They want
graduates who are inquisitive, innovative, logical, critical, creative, able to think
laterally and conceptualise issues rapidly.
In summary, employers: Are unimpressed with the innovation of graduates, in part due to the
insensitivity of graduates to the implications of innovation.
 Are satisfied that graduates are analytic, logical, able to conceptualise issues
rapidly and deal with large amounts of information.
 Think that graduates’ critical ability is not quite so satisfactory. There was
some expressed dissatisfaction with the lateral thinking and synthetic ability of
graduates.
 Are satisfied with the flexibility and intellectual adaptability of graduates.
Key skills areas for employers are:
 Effective oral and written communication skills.
 IT literacy.
 Flexibility.
 Ability to work independently; resourcefulness.
 Research, investigative and intellectual skills.
 Good interpersonal skills: teamworking, people
skills, etc
Employer perceptions are:
 Graduates learn all the theories but do not have
practical experience
 Courses are not always very vocational – even those
that outwardly appear so
 Graduates have overly high expectations of a first job
 Students are more used to having fun than working
Education and Employability Pack
BENCHMARKING STATEMENTS
Students Skills Profile:
Introduction to Activity
Each subject discipline these days uses benchmarking statements to identify what in
each case might be expected of a ‘graduate of X’.
The list below highlights the skills expectations for your subject.
 Do you know what your subject benchmarking statements expect of you?
 What skills do you have now?
 Can you say how you are developing these skills
NB. This is important knowledge to have at interview, when you will be expected
to know what skills you have and how you developed them.
Education Studies:
 knowledge and understanding, its application and ability to reflect on it;
 transferable skills e.g.:
communicate and present oral and written arguments;
use communication and IT, including word-processing, data-bases, internet
communication, information retrieval and on-line searches;
interpret and present relevant numerical information;
work with others, as a result of the development of interpersonal skills, to
demonstrate the capacity to plan, to share goals, and work as a member of a
team;
improve own learning and performance, including the development of
study and research skills, information retrieval, and a capacity to plan and
manage learning, and to reflect on their own learning;
analyse, synthesise, evaluate and identify problems and solutions.
Task
Using your student handbook to identify what skills you will develop on your course,
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR ACADEMIC AND PERSONAL SKILLS
AT LEVEL 1/2?