Last week I spoke to an audience of vice chancellors and senior academics fromUK universities. Not an 'easy' audience I can tell you. Highly intelligent, articulate and perceptive plus, of course, incredibly experienced and wise!
My challenge was made all the more difficult by being asked to cut the length of the presentation in half just a few minutes before the start. Don't you just hate it when that happens?
Undeterred I took a deep breath and raced through my opinions on the graduate employment scene drawing, as ever, on lots of the data in the AGR Graduate Recruitment Survey.
I think I carried most of the audience with me and when I had finished I received some positive feedback which was reassuring. However, one of my slides was a list of what graduates need to cope in the world of work today and tomorrow. One of the learned brethren suggested that the list could have been written twenty years ago inferring that things had not altered that much for graduates if at all. I was, at first, quite shaken by that thought. Had the demands of working life really not changed that much since 1989?
Unfortunately time did not permit a debate on the topic but on the train back to Leamington Spa I began to think about the statement and by the time we had reached High Wycombe I decided that while parts of my list were probably timeless,
1. Learn how to market yourself
2. Demonstrate commitment and motivation
3. Be flexible, adaptable and mobile
The importance attached to each of these requirements had surely grown as the numbers of graduates grew, the economy had become less certain (1989 was a boom time) and, most importantly, the world of work had become more demanding.
The rest of my list was about such requirements as,
4. Coping with uncertainty
5. Competing for jobs
6. Setting both short and long tern career goals
7. Developing 21st century work skills
By Bicester I had convinced myself that actually the world of work had changed. Yes, employers are more demanding, their expectations of gradates have risen and their selection practices are more sophisticated and focused. Above all else, employers are more risk averse.
Back in the 1980's employers would often give candidates the benefit of the doubt. Borderline applicants were frequently given a chance to prove themselves. There was less accountability for recruiters, the market was largely supply led with many employers struggling to fill their vacancies and, rightly or wrongly, there was less emphasis on the return on investment.
It's not that I object to progress. Globalisation has taught businesses to be lean and mean and carefully measure everyone's contribution. I reflected, as we left Banbury, on my own working life. Longer hours, multi tasking, increased customer expectations and demands, managing more with less all add up to a normal workload for me and almost certainly everyone else on the 18.00 from Marylebone.
I don't hanker after the 'good old days' because at the time we did not think of them as 'good'. What's the point anyway, you can't put the clock back. But maybe, just maybe, recruiters might reflect on whether they would have got their own career kick started if someone had not been prepared to take a chance or given them the opportunity to prove themselves.
I will leave you to reflect on this as we see youth unemployment rising to almost a million and 40,000 new graduates will spend Christmas on the dole. Next stop Leamington Spa, time to go!
