The Higher Education Careers Services Unit’s (HECSU) quarterly guide to the graduate labour market launches today (21 July 2011), offering perspective on the funding cuts and a sneak preview of the Real Prospects: Higher Education study.
HECSU researcher, Holly Higgins led the research from Graduate Prospects, which asked 22,000 graduates about their experiences of working life. In the summer edition of Graduate Market Trends (GMT) she reveals some initial findings from the higher education report about what graduates want from careers services:
“Graduates feel that careers services tend to focus on traditional graduate occupations and the big recruiters, but they would like to be informed about the full range of career paths available to them such as self-employment, portfolio careers and freelancing. They are particularly keen to see that roles with SMEs or niche sectors aren’t considered as second best when compared to the ‘gold standard’ of a graduate training scheme.
“The research also revealed that students need to be made more aware of the difficulties they may encounter in the graduate labour market, preparing them for the fact that they will probably need to spend time temping or working voluntarily before they secure their first ‘graduate’ role.”
Also in the summer edition of Graduate Market Trends (GMT), Pearson Learning’s head of policy, Steve Besley, puts the changes in higher education (HE) and career guidance provision in context and Professor Roger Brown from Liverpool Hope University concludes that the new free market discourse reflects an ideological bias.
Ernst & Young and Deloitte showcase their non-classic routes into graduate-level employment and the University of Bedfordshire investigates the embedment of employability into the HE curriculum. There is also an article from the University Alliance about how universities should address the challenges ahead.
The Real Prospects: Higher Education report launches in the autumn. It follows the Real Prospects: Employer report, which launched last month.
View the summer edition of GMT for free at www.hecsu.ac.uk
