GAIN A WEALTH OF EXPERIENCE

Degrees are no longer enough — employers are looking for skills in the workplace.

Today, one in three young people enters higher education, and a degree is fast becoming the minimum qualification for any white-collar job. This is not to suggest that the value of a degree has diminished. We now live in a far more complex world and most jobs today require a much higher level of intellectual skills than ever before. Graduates enjoy higher pay and lower unemployment than non-graduates, but most employers will tell you that there is still a shortage of good graduates.

So what do employers look for in graduate recruits? Certainly, they want intellectual skills acquired in taking a degree. These include the ability to collect and analyze information, to acquire special knowledge, to solve problems, and to communicate. In the past this was enough. When graduates were a small elite, employers could afford to invest in extended training programmes lasting between one and two years.

Most graduate recruits today are expected to make an immediate contribution to the organization. This means that they need more than their academic qualifications. Employers look for a range of generic vocational skills which are useful in almost all types of work; they are usually known as ‘key skills’.

Six key skills are approved by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) for incorporation into many vocational education and training programmes. These key skills are communication, using and presenting numerical data, information technology, team-working, improving your own learning and performance, and problem solving. Graduate employers certainly hope to find all of these, but they also look for some additional qualities such as adaptability and commercial awareness. Above all, they want recruits to have already had some practical experience of applying them.

Certainly, all students should have some ‘quality work experience’ before they complete their full-time education. However, not enough employers offer suitable vacancies to provide this. Ideally, you would get vacation or part-time work relevant to your area of study so that you could start to apply theory to the world of work. But many students end up serving in retail shops, bars and fast-food outlets, or waiting in restaurants. The money is certainly useful, but does menial work (чорна робота) provide opportunities for useful learning and help your career prospects? It does.

Even in the most menial jobs you can analyze everything you see and do and what your colleagues at all levels are doing. You can try and work out why things are organized in the way they are and why people act in the way they do. What do you find motivates the customers of your business – and annoys them? The job can be used as a learning opportunity so you can tell future recruiters what skills and understanding you have gained.

Few people will find a lifetime employer. They will move between employers to gain greater expertise and experience. Many will be offered short-term contracts, others will be offered work as consultants on a self-employed basis. Graduates face more flexible though less certain futures. In going to university it is important to recognize that the future will be very different from the past, that you must learn to adapt and that you can and should learn from every experience of student life.

Unit 2

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1010