Graduate skills, employment and careers

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Graduate skills, employment and careers

• Peter Elias, Institute for Employment Research,
  University of Warwick
• and
• Kate Purcell, Employment Studies Research Unit,
  University of the West of England

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Graduate transitions the last 20 years

• explore assimilation of graduates within labour
  market
• develop new typology of occupations used to
  study occupational change and graduate career
  paths
• compare experiences of three cohorts of
  graduates
• - 1979/80 grads (NCDS and 1980 Graduate Survey)
• - 1992 grads (BCS, recontacted 1999/2000)
• - 1995 grads (Moving On recontacted 2002/2003)
• explore movement of these graduates into/between
  occupational groups as they move through the
  labour market
• conduct detailed analysis of graduate outcomes 7
  years on

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Developing the new typology of occupations

• Traditional graduate occupations
• Modern graduate occupations
• New graduate occupations
• Niche graduate occupations
• Non-graduate occupations

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Sources of information

• LFS (0.5 million graduates, 1991-2001 on SOC90,
  2002-2003 on SOC2000)
• LFS text descriptions of job requirements,
  1996/97
• Development work for SOC90 and SOC2000

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Traditional graduate occupations
The established professions, for which,
historically, the normal route has been via an
undergraduate degree programme

• Solicitors
• Medical practitioners
• HE, FE and secondary education teachers
• Biological scientists/biochemists

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Modern graduate occupations
The newer professions, particularly in
management, IT and creative vocational areas,
which graduates have been entering increasingly
since educational expansion in the 1960s

• Chartered and certified accountants
• Authors/writers/journalists
• Software engineers, computer programmers
• Primary school and nursery teachers

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New graduate occupations
Areas of employment to which graduates have
increasingly been recruited in large numbers
mainly new administrative, technical and caring
occupations

• Marketing sales, advertising managers
• Physiotherapists, occupational hygienists
• Social workers, probation, welfare officers
• Architectural technicians
• Clothing designers

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Niche graduate occupations
Occupations where the majority of incumbents are
not graduates, but within which there are stable
or growing specialist niches which require higher
education skills and knowledge

• Entertainment and sports managers
• Hotel, accommodation managers
• Buyers (non-retail)
• Medical, dental and other scientific
  technicians
• Nurses, midwives

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Non-graduate occupations
Graduates are also found in jobs which are likely
to constitute under-utilisation of their higher
education skills and knowledge

• Call centre operators
• Sales assistants
• Filing and record clerks
• Debt, rent and cash collectors
• Routine laboratory testers
• Secretarial job, PAs, receptionists

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The movement of graduates out of non-graduate
jobs, males
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Movement of graduates between 1998/99 and 2002/03
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Category of job in 2002/03 by type of institution
where degree obtained
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Category of job in 2002/03 by 1995 Degree Subject
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Mean value of measure of 'how appropriate do you
think your current (2002/03) job is for someone
with your qualifications?(1 very
inappropriate, 7 ideal)
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Average annual earnings in 2002/03 for 1995
graduates, by type of job and gender, full-time
employees only
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Percentage of 1995 graduates who are not very
satisfied or dissatisfied with the way their
career has developed to date (2002/03), by type
of occupation and gender
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Percentage of respondents stating that their
current (2002/03) job is a 'dead-end' job, by
type of occupation and gender
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Key issues viz graduate skills and jobs

• What do graduates do?
• What skills and knowledge are required in their
  work and how do these relate to the skills and
  knowledge developed on undergraduate courses?
• How has the expansion of HE impacted upon the
  occupational structure and the construction of
  jobs by employers?

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Respondents use of skills in current (2002/03)
job
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The qualitative investigation

• 200 interviews with a sub-sample of survey
  respondents (-almost 100 completed)
• Objectives
• To explore How?, Why? and Why not?
  questions
• reasons for career outcomes
• opportunities pursued, alternatives considered
  and perceptions of obstacles
• the cumulative impact of decisions taken (- time
  out, obtaining further qualifications, impact of
  job moves or stability)
• the actual jobs that graduates do.
• Methodology structured telephone and
  face-to-face interviews, transcribed verbatim,
  analysed with Nvivo software)

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The intrinsic occupational classification
three elements of graduate occupations

• EXPERTISE (possession of specialist information,
  technical virtuosity and knowledge, etc.)
• STRATEGIC SKILLS (ability to co-ordinate, have
  vision, plan and manage projects and operations,
  take responsibility, etc.)
• INTERPERSONAL SKILLS (emotional intelligence,
  persuasion and counselling)

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Traditional graduate occupations
EXPERTISE
STRATEGIC SKILLS
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
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Modern graduate occupations
EXPERTISE
STRATEGIC SKILLS
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
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New graduate occupations
STRATEGIC SKILLS
EXPERTISE
INTERPERSONAL
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Niche graduate occupations
MANAGEMENT
EXPERTISE
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
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Non-graduate occupations
STRATEGIC SKILLS
EXPERTISE
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
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NEW GRADUATE Technical Expert /interpersonal
skills

• Unit Manager, large manufacturing company
• Salary 30,000 - 32,999
• Degree Electrical Electronic Engineering, 21,
  Old University
• Production systems management, emphasis on
  technical/engineering knowledge
  problem-solving, budgetary controls, staff
  management
• Interview 23, male aged 29

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NEW GRADUATE - Hard and soft interpersonal
skills/specialist knowledge

• Recruitment Consultant, Resourcing and Business
  Consultancy
• Salary 40,000 - 49,999
• Psychology, 21, 1960s University
• Client interface, candidate search, interviewing
  and recommendation, pitching for business -
  presentations, cold-calling...
• Interview 51,male aged 32

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NEW GRADUATE - Information management,
specialist knowledge, counselling and negotiation
skills

• Welfare Advice Worker, Charity - Community
  project
• Salary Less than 9,999 (p/t)
• History/Social Science, 22, HE College
• Provision of support/advice on range of welfare
  issues, interviewing, home visits...
• Interview 12, female aged 40

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NON-GRADUATE job - 1990s niche? occupations

• Grocery manager, large multinational retail
  corporation
• Salary 27,000
• Economics 2.2, old university
• Dealing with suppliers, developing and presenting
  promotional materials, development of promotional
  plans with regional clients, analysing sales
  trends, selling products and negotiating orders.
• Interview 90,male aged 28

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Other NON-GRADUATE jobs recorded on the
self-completion questionnaire

• Administrators
• Civil servants
• Countryside rangers
• Customer service representatives
• Farmers
• Detective constables and policemen
• Museum Documentation Assistant

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Implications

• In the graduate labour market there are distinct
  clusters of graduate jobs which attract a
  graduate earnings premium and after seven years,
  most graduates have entered one of these.
• The subjective perceptions of the majority of
  graduates is that they are in appropriate
  employment for people with their skills and
  qualifications.
• Career aspirations, earnings and expectations
  vary considerably among graduates, according to
  qualifications and occupational area.
• There is little evidence to support the argument
  that there is an oversupply of graduates. Over
  the past 25 years, the number of jobs which can
  accommodate graduates has increased by 3 million.
  Forecasts suggest this trend will continue.

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