A Labour Market Quiz

13%

Help

CMS Start of section LMQ

You are here

Consider the following statements about the graduate labour market in the UK. Are they true (T) or false (F)… or somewhere in between(?)?

1) "Graduate jobs mean rapid promotion and job-for-life security"	T ? F
2) "Graduates only work for large, blue-chip organisations"	T ? F
3) "Employers are only interested in academic performance, so a degree is a guarantee of a 'good' job"	T ? F
4) "If you have a degree you won't need to do any more studying"	T ? F
5) "Employers always look for graduates from a specific degree discipline"	T ? F

Continue

1) On the whole this statement is not strictly true, but it raises the issue of "What is a graduate job?" The distinction between different levels of jobs is in many cases becoming more blurred. Some jobs which traditionally required A-levels for entry are now predominantly taken by graduates. Often when people refer to graduate jobs they mean graduate recruitment schemes, but it is certainly not the case that all graduates go into such jobs.

The Civil Service is an example of an organisation where a two-tier or dual system of recruitment has evolved. There is normal recruitment to administrative or executive posts, and also Fast Stream recruitment for high-flying graduates, which does offer opportunities for rapid promotion. The same is true of Accelerated Promotion Schemes set up by Police forces, and many graduate management training schemes - but there are simply not enough of such positions to absorb the vastly increased numbers of new graduates since Higher Education has expanded during the 1980s.

Nevertheless long term surveys show that eventually most graduates do get into good jobs. The Working Out Report (1999) looked at what people were doing 18 months after graduation. This found that of those in work 71% had gained jobs for which a degree was required. Around two thirds of those in employment felt that their job was appropriate to someone with their qualifications. A total of 89% were in a job requiring a degree or which used graduate level skills. [Working Out? Short Report, CSU 1999 p 12]

'Job-for-life ' (like 'the career ladder') is a disappearing concept in today's labour market. It is now common for workers to sell their skills to a variety of employers over a working lifetime, rather than to sell their time to one company. Promotions and career progression are not automatic even if you are a graduate. A survey of top of graduate recruiters revealed that around 2 years after being accepted on to graduate training schemes, 25% of the trainees had left. This figure rose to 50% after 5 years. We might reasonably expect the turn over for those entering non-professional jobs, or posts with less prestigious employers to be even higher. [Should I Stay or Should I Go? - AGR 1999 p4]