Fun, Freedom & Fulfilment at Work

First Steps Conference....Networking Dinner # 2 (31st June 2007)

Who was there? - Participants for our second networking dinner

• Stephen Isherwood - E&Y National Graduate Recruitment Director
• Valerie Bacon - Ogilvy HR Director
• Richard Tyrie - JGP
• Keith Williams - Energize Solutions
• Carl Jeffrey - Director of Rorschok Creative Partnership
• Daniel Snell - Founder Arrival Worldwide
• Emily Shenton - Arrival Worldwide
• Bokani Tshidzu - Bath University student interning at JP Morgan
• Ken Koi - Bath University student interning at Morgan Stanley
• Nick Elliott - Co-founder of www.thegradroom.com
• Zoltan Berry - Network Rail graduate
• Ze Zook - Media lecturer London Metropolitan University

What we explored

• The different sides of the graduate market
• Skills gap
• Funding sources for the First Steps! social conference

Thoughts that were expressed in the networking focus group

Graduate Market - what can students do to make themselves more marketable - what can they do to create work for themselves?

• Demonstrate that you can do high value adding work - despite the huge amount of offshoring going on, there is still a need for high value adding work in the UK - typically only jobs of the "number crunching" type are offshored. Graduates need to be prepared demonstrate that they fall into the "value adding" category rather than the "number crunching category" to become more employable
• Enterprise is needed more than qualifications on the market - the UK market needs more enterprise in order to be successful in the global market. Many employers are looking for enterprise skills and entrepreneurial skills even though they may not have articulated it in their role descriptions. Having these skills will make graduates more attractive to employers in general
• Do internships - intern experiences with different types of organisations and different industries / sectors will give students salable work experience, as well as allowing students to explore what kind of work they can be passionate about. This is extremely valuable experience to obtain - students should strive to get internships even if they need to volunteer their time to get internships in their target organisations
• Don't just consider big organisations - graduates need to open themselves up the SME (small medium enterprise) and third sector markets to open up their employment options. Unfortunately, since these since organisations are not on the conventional graduate recruitment circuit, it will be more of a challenge to identify suitable organisations to approach. On the sunnier side, these smaller organisations typically do not have fixed recruitment processes and so will be less likely to discriminate on qualifications. Generally, these organisations will be open to proactive individuals approaching them as they are always on the look out for good people to help their businesses to grow and expand. Graduates who want to work for these organisations will need to demonstrate that they are self-starting and self-learning since these organisations typically don't have huge amount of managerial time or training budgets for graduates who need their hands held
• Consider big organisations that do not have graduate schemes - many of the bigger organisations do not have special recruitment processes for graduates and so do not appear on the graduate recruitment circuit. However, like the SME market (see the point above), they are looking for proactive good people on a ongoing basis to fill graduate caliber positions that become available
• Get values - students need to develop themselves more holistically - work experience, voluntary work and other extra curricular activities are all needed to help to show employers the value system that the students are operating from
• Consider short projects to gain experience - even small voluntary projects (for charities, community groups, for the university etc) that are completed in a couple of weeks can provide invaluable work experience and skills that can be marketed
• Make volunteering the norm to gain skills and experience that employers want - in some countries like Canada it is expected that students and graduates will have done a considerable amount of voluntary work to get onto the work ladder
• Be proactive in company research - students need to be more active in their research to find organisations that would be suited them. Students should try to meet people who work in the organisations rather than just relying on the marketing literature that has been provided by the organisations
• Demonstrate that you can handle work by building a portfolio of experience - graduate employers are finding it difficult to fill their graduate positions even though an abundance of graduates have applied because significant basic work skills are missing. European graduates and students are seen as more employable because it is a norm in Europe to build up a portfolio of voluntary and internship work experience to develop these work skills
• Hunt down jobs and work experience opportunities like International students - graduates need to be more hungry for the work. Currently domestic students expect everything to be handed to them, whilst international students are actively looking for work experience. UK students and graduates are being outsmarted by those from abroad - and oftentimes the difference is like chalk and cheese in terms of enthusiasm and passion
• Sometimes it is good to wait if you have work experience to offer - some graduates wait 6 months or so after they have graduated before looking for a job. Good graduates who already have work experience will still be able to find work and be paid several thousand pounds over the market rate for positions that employers have been struggling to fill
• Raise your graduate caliber - the phrase "graduate caliber" no longer means what it meant a decade ago - the employers on the market feels that graduate caliber has dropped considerably over the past years. The time has passed where graduates had jobs handed to them on a plate. Successful graduates are the ones that have worked at being seen to be more than the "standard" graduate by demonstrating that they can perform and deliver with relevant experience and attitude
• Exceed employer expectations if you have high standards - if graduates have high expectations that they want their employer to meet, they need to make sure that they can prove that they can exceed expectations of their selected employers
• Think differently about yourself - you are more than a qualification - graduates need to determine what makes them unique as person (values, strengths etc). This assessment will help the graduate to determine the organisations which would value the whole package the graduate has to offer
• Work experience is better than backpacking experience - actual work experience has more value on the market than the experience gained as a result of backpacking trips
• Use "gap" year to differentiate yourself - working abroad in Brazil is no longer a differentiator in the graduate market because "everyone is doing the Brazil thing". This kind of working / volunteering abroad is considered the easy option by employers - finding a job in the local market to gain work experience will be more attractive to future employers. If students do want to volunteer in their gap year, they would be better off being active in their local communities (helping out charities, communities, other third sector organisations) rather than volunteering abroad
• Get the right attitude - graduates need to work at developing a proactive attitude so that they come across as having spark and passion - graduates who have the right attitude are more attractive to employers. Having a great attitude can also make up for not having all the skills that the employer is looking for as employers will be more disposed towards recruiting on attitude and training for missing skills
• Get rid of apathy - many students and graduates on the market are considered to be "too apathetic" and nonchalant by employers - apathy is not an attractive quality for employers no matter how great your qualifications are
• Use personal development to differentiate yourself - graduates will become more attractive to employers in general if they show that they have the ability for self-analysis and self-learning
• Value your education - higher education is not "business as usual" for the majority of the world who need to make huge sacrifices to gain a higher education. Students need to value their higher education more and to be hungry for the opportunities that they now have access for as a result of their degree. The current apathy and lack of care from students and graduates is making higher education a commodity rather than something to be valued
• Don't go for high pay - graduates that choose work based solely on what they will get paid will often find that they are in the wrong job
• Control your helicopter parents - helicopter parenting is now creeping into the UK - students are advised to not let their parents become too involved in their job searching activities. Parents need to be kept away from potential employers!
• Understand that employers want to work with people rather than qualification - once graduates have passed the filters that employers have put into place to reduce the number of people that they have to consider, employers will then select based on attitude, passion and fit with the organisation's culture. If graduates have not developed themselves as a unique people who are something more than their qualifications and resume, they will not get past the final round to achieve a successful job offer
• Understand you will have multiple careers - generally most graduates will need to explore several different careers to determine which career they want to focus on in the long term. This tendency can have a negative impact with potential employers if it is not managed well. Whilst graduates are not expected to stay in a job forever, they will still need to demonstrate to potential employers that they will stay long enough in the job so that the employers can reap the benefits from the training and effort provided to get the graduates up to speed
• Working for corporates will require a certain mentality - if graduates are passionate about being highly creative and innovative in their work, they will be better off with a smaller organisation since larger ones are more set in their ways. Graduates will also need to watch out for organisations that are only paying lip service to creativity - these organisations will recruit for creativity but they do not have a culture that supports creativity
• Look for intelligent organisations - all companies are not the same - there are big cultural differences between organisations. Some employers are intelligent about how to work with young people, others are not so intelligent. Some will see graduates as a cog in the machine, others will see them as a whole person with strengths, weaknesses, hopes and desires
• Use your network of friends and family to find work - 40% of jobs in the USA are filled by internal recommendation by staff. Graduates and students need to leverage their network rather than solely relying on conventional graduate recruitment paths. To be successful in this method, graduates need to ensure that they are the type of person that their network will be happy to refer to employers. This is the best route into organisations who do not normally recruit graduates and students
• Why are graduates and students so passionate in their "life" activities and apathetic about "work" activities? - Generation Y is an authentic generation. Graduates and students typically do not feel excited about work/professional life because they do not see work as an authentic avenue for expressing what they are passionate about in life. They see work as something to be tolerated so that they can live the rest of life as they like. When young people get to see that their work will help them to achieve what they desire from life, they can move from "apathetic and switched off" to "hungry and switched on" overnight...it is all about finding the right context

Graduate Market - What can employers do to make the most of student and graduate resource available on the market?

• Understand labour market dynamics more and take advantage of the graduate resource available - we are approaching a demographic challenge - there will soon be shortage of people in the UK who can work to deliver the current economy when the Baby Boomers start retiring on mass. Since this demographic shortage is also a global phenomena, the UK shortage cannot be fully solved with back-filling strategies such as offshoring and migrant labour
• Use a bottom up approach - employers will be able to get more value from graduates if they are able to assess and creatively use the skills that are actually available on the graduate market to deliver their business objectives rather than moaning about what is missing. At the moment, most employers are operating from a top down approach where they dictate what they want without taking into consideration what resources and skills are actually available
• Use technology to facilitate digging into the skills that applicants have - the technology is now available to facilitate employers to have a more bottom up approach in their recruitment process
• Even Government need to be less choosy - the Government is a large employer of graduates and even it is currently struggling to fill its graduate positions despite the large number of applicants. As a example, Government recruiters are even filtering out candidates if they do not have Power Point skills....Power Point skills can typically be gained with a one day course. Employers need to do more work to identify skills that are essential and skills that they can train for in order to expand the pool of suitable candidates available to them
• Employers need to see themselves as sellers rather than buyers - employers need to market the opportunities that can offer in order to attract the kind of graduates that they want rather than waiting to be approached as customers
• Graduate recruitment programmes need to have more intelligence - many graduate employers are just not looking for the right skills - they are looking for outdated skills and they do not take account of the new skills that are coming on to the market. This is resulting in graduates becoming frustrated because the newer skills that they have to offer are not being considered by employers
• The opportunity to giving back for Generation Y is more important than employers think - employers need to provide graduates with more opportunities to contribute back to community - Generation Y is very socially minded generation that is driven to make a difference in the world. The top graduates in the market are not prepared to "do the time" before they have the opportunity to give back - they want to do it as soon as they start and they do not see why they need to wait to do it
• CSR is not a hygiene factor - it is more than a tick box - given a choice, most graduates will prefer to choose employers who see CSR activities as an integral part of their business rather than employers who see CSR as an activity that they need to pay lip service to please the government and other stakeholders. Employers need to ensure that they walk their talk in CSR spiel that they give to graduates whilst recruiting them - otherwise their recruited graduates will walk!
• Reshape jobs to include some CSR - good graduates are looking for jobs with high levels of CSR activities. Since CSR includes running "business as usual"(business processes, supply chain, recycling, sustainable workforce etc) more responsibly as well as giving back to community, employers should find it relatively easy to reshape existing graduate roles to include CSR activities
• Realise that the ambitions of the graduate market are changing - graduates are now less motivated by the opportunity to earn lots of money. Good graduates are now starting to go to lesser brand names and smaller firms so that they can have more work-life balance. Graduates are also looking for work in organisations where they are able to gain a variety of skills in a more unstructured way that suits their personal aspirations rather than joining a fixed career track
• Design jobs better - there is a lot of potential for jobs to be designed better so that people are able to get more personally out of work and life. Graduates are more likely to be retained if their job roles are balanced and designed to suit human beings
• Make your company information more attractive - the current information packs that employers offer about their organisation are boring and just do not play the role that they are supposed to - they are outdated and not geared towards the needs of Generation Y
• The search for bright sparky people - many companies are now getting their staff to look for young people in their network of friends and family who have the right attitude and have a bright and sparky energy. In doing this, companies are acknowledging that their current recruitment processes do not fully deliver that kind of people that they are seeking
• Understand that young people are on a journey - employers need to understand that young people need to try out different things before they get a clearer vision of what they want to do with their working lives in the long term
• Provide portfolio working - many of the top end graduates are looking for portfolio working - look at providing this as an option when recruiting graduates

Graduate Market - What role can universities play to improve the employability of their students?

• Balance the skills required by industry - too many people are doing courses like media and not enough people are doing the sciences. Universities should do more to ensure that core skills that the market needs are made more attractive to potential students - they need to liaise more with the different industry sectors to do this
• Universities need to do more than they have done in the past - in the past, universities mainly concentrated on research activities with the education of students was seen more as sideline something done on the side to support research activities. This attitude worked in the past when a degree was seen then as the "key to riches" and students found it relatively to place themselves in the employment market. However, a degree now no longer has this status with employers mainly because the numbers of graduates have increased substantially over the last decade. Students need to have more support from their universities to get employed after their degrees - universities need to change with the times and get more interested in making their students more employable
• Support students to choose courses that make them more employable - students are generally clueless about what skills the world of work actually needs - they need to be supported to make course decisions that fit their personal strengths and will maximise their employment opportunities
• University is a not a "three year holiday" - university needs to be seen more than a place where you go to do an easy course so that you can have "fun" for three years
• Improve university career services - most careers advice provided by universities is considered to be "rubbish" that does not meet the needs that the students have. The focus group estimated that 90% of students do not use their University career service at all

Thoughts on the skills gap

• Close your skills gap by using selling skills - graduates can actively use selling skills to determine what prospective employers (customers) want and actively develop themselves to match that need
• Make the most of programmes that develop employability skills - there are many programmes available (including volunteering) that are designed to improve employability skills - students need to become more aware of them and get themselves onto the ones that best suit their needs as early as possible
• Get the best job you are capable of getting to gain employability skills - any work experience is a start to make students more employable. Even a lower grade job will help students to start to develop basic employability skills - the students can work themselves up to get better work experience as they progress through their university career
• Close your skills gap by going for the "right jobs" - go for roles that roles that suit your strengths - graduates that go for jobs that maximise their inherent strengths will find it easier to find work. A role that uses a graduate's strengths will ignite the graduate's passion as this will be role that they will be excited by. Furthermore, the graduate will be more able to demonstrate more solidly that they have the skills that are required for the role because they will have many examples from their life to pull from

Gallup in their StrengthsFinder book define a "strength" as a skill that a person enjoys and uses frequently when they have a choice. It is estimated that 80% of people in the UK are in the "wrong job" where they are working in roles that do not maximise their strengths and hence do not capture their motivation and passion. People in the "wrong jobs" are considerably less productive than those in the "right jobs"

• Close your skills gap by mapping your skills - most graduates have more skills than they are aware of - these are the skills that have been gained in non-work work related context (volunteering, social projects, personal activities and projects) that can be mapped to working context
• Close your skills gap by being responsible for your own learning - graduates should not expect to have their hands held in their first jobs. Graduates will considerably improve their employability if they are able to show prospective employers that they are willing to be responsible for their own learning and personal development to help support the delivery of company objectives
• Improving the specification of skills will close the skills gap - skills need to be broken up and better defined. Employers need to do this when they are specifying the skills that they need so that prospective employees can see if they realistically match what is required. Graduates who are able break down their skills in more detail will be able to sell themselves better. The low level of specification of skills on both sides of the market is causing the skills gap to be larger than it really is in many situations
• Recruitment agencies need to improve - recruitment agencies need to be more truthful - they often try to fit people into the wrong jobs to make up numbers - they often try to make a square peg to fit in a round hole
• Close your gap by gaining skills from a mentor - one of the best ways to learn skills is hook up with a mentor who has done well
• Close your gap by gaining sought after entrepreneurial skills - many organisations are looking for entrepreneurial abilities. Graduates who have developed these skills with entrepreneurial projects will immediately improve their employability.
• Close your gap by developing the right attitude - having a good attitude is a the biggest tool that graduates and students have available to close their perceived skills gap. Most employers have realised that employees with the right attitude is an extremely valuable asset to their organisation. Employers are more likely to forgive a skills gap if the graduate has the right attitude. Developing the right attitude is bigger challenge than it seems because the right attitude can only be cultivated from inside out rather than with superficial inauthentic behavioural changes. Unfortunately, the right attitude cannot be taught since it is more about "a way of being" rather than "a way of doing"
• Be motivated to close your skills gap by linking skills with passion - students and graduates will be more motivated to close their skills gap if they can link the skill that they want to improve with achieving their "secret passion / ambition". An example was given of a "D" high schools student in English become an "A" student practically overnight when the student realised that having this skill would help them to fulfil their ambition to be an author
• Careers advisers need to understand the context of "secret passion / desire" - careers advice needs to be focused more around "unleashing" passion in students rather than giving advice based on what the student has studied
• The current education system is not creating the right skills - the education model is the wrong model - it is more concerned with churning out identical people like a sausage making factory, rather than creating enterprising, passionate unique individuals that employers actually desire to have
• Employers are underestimating Generation Y skills - Generation Y are hitting the workforce and we are still not fully aware of what Generation Y are capable of. Employers are penalising graduates because they are not the same as previous generation graduates - they see more about what is "wrong" with current graduates rather than looking at how they can fully exploit the unique talents of Generation Y that have been enabled by the technology and the Internet
• Graduate social networking skills need to maximised by employers - students and graduates are on the leading edge of technology based social networking - they can help organisations to be more connected up and effective
• Resumes and CVs need to change - the current formats are not working - how can the new media be used so that individuals can express themselves as human beings as well as what they are able to do? How can resumes be more expressive of the core competencies and skills that the employers are looking for?
• Skills gap vs information gap - much of the perceived skills gap is actually an information gap due to lack of clarity on both sides

Thoughts on funding

• Having employers as sponsors will compromise the event - employers will most likely try to monopolise the event to follow their agenda
• Have employers pay for tickets rather than as sponsors - employers will find it easier to pay a ticket price rather than a sponsorship because it comes from different budgets
• Make sure outcomes are clear - for people to attend and sponsor, the outcomes for each group attending will need to be distinctive
• Price it differently for different groups - the best way of raising funds is to charge for tickets for all participants - and vary the price point for the different groups to make it attractive
• Make sure it is different from other conferences discussing graduate employability - there are many other conferences operating in this space, we need to make sure that we are different
• Focus on innovative solutions - be different by being a solutions orientated conference - show participants the innovative employability solutions that have already been implemented
• Potential funders - Dfes, LSC, Hefce

Posted by: Hina Patel

First Steps Conference.....WEF Pitch at Future Foundations Sparkle Event (27th June 2007)

Work Empowerment Foundation Pitches at Sparkle Network Event

The foundation had the pleasure of doing its first pitch at a Sparkle Networking Event run by our partners, Future Foundations, for the "First Steps!" graduate event (click here to see the post giving an overview for the event).

What is the Sparkle Network?

The Sparkle Network is a group of twenty and thirty somethings which meets on a monthly basis in London to support each other at the start of their careers. I have attended two Sparkle Events so far and have enjoyed them tremendously...typically the events consist of:

• Free form networking
• Sparkle Pitch 1 - here a small business "pitches" to the Sparkle Network for no more than 5 minutes and asks for help on certain aspects of their business from the network members...with 10 minutes of questions and answers
• Speed Networking - here you have the opportunity to meet with up to 9 other Sparkle Network members for 2-3 minutes and explore how you can help each other
• Sparkle Pitch 2 - another small business pitches to the Sparkle Network
• Free form networking

What did the Work Empowerment Foundation Pitch?

Here is a summary of my Sparkle Pitch:

"Message from Hina Patel of Work Empowerment Foundation…

“It was great to meet you at the last Sparkle event…I really enjoyed your enthusiasm in response to my Sparkle pitch on behalf of the Work Empowerment Foundation (www.WorkEmpowermentFoundation.org)  – a non-profit social enterprise seeking to help people create fun, freedom and fulfilment at work through a variety of services (online portal, social conferences, projects, consultancy etc)

As a summary, my pitch covered a social conference planned to run in November 2007 that the Work Empowerment Foundation is developing with Future Foundations. This social conference will explore the key issues that graduates are facing in the current job market…read my Blog for more information.

We want to involve both students and graduates in the development of this social conference – we are planning to pitch this to potential sponsors as an event “Created by Graduates for Graduates”.

We are looking for ways to create an active and passionate steering group of students & graduates who will work with us to (taking into account the summer vacation) to help us to achieve this.

If you are interested in participating in the steering group or have ideas to suggest on how we can create this to an impactful event, then please contact myself (Hina@WorkEmpowermentFoundation.org – mobile 0771 713 2026) or Jack Butler.”

Key Input From Sparkle Network

• People don't generally know what social conferences are...this needs to be described more clearly and concisely so that people get how they are different from conventional events
• Include student bodies in the event development (NUS, Welsh UMCA)
• Get a clear idea of what the issues that each of the stakeholder groups are facing by holding a series of focus groups as part of the event development - this will give the opportunity for the key issues to be aired so that the most appropriate people / organisations can be invited to the social conference. Also keeping the groups separately initially in the focus group phase will ensure that people are really free to speak openly about the issues that are being faced
• Use the results of the focus groups name what is really going on out there from different perspectives...this will support the development a social conference proposition that is cutting edge and addressing what really matters...this is the key USP of the event and will attract the people who are interested in actively meeting the issues face on as opposed to just having a nice discussion

Posted by: Hina Patel

First Steps Conference....Networking Dinner # 1 (20th June 2007)

Thoughts from the first "First Steps!" networking dinner

We are now in the process of developing the proposition for the graduate event which is being run in partnership with Future Foundations (click here to see the post giving an overview for the event) in November 2007.

To kick-off this development and to support the ongoing research we hosted a networking dinner with:

• Mark Faulkner - University of East London Employability Team
• Mark Winlow - LECG - employer perspective
• Keith Williams - Energize Solutions - partner for development of our Peer Mentoring Graduate Employability Programme
• Ian Nixey - Work Empowerment Foundation consultancy
• John Harper - MD SIFE UK
• Hina Patel - Work Empowerment Foundation
• Jack Butler - Future Foundations

What we explored

• Skills gap
• Graduate market
• Generation Y

The thoughts that were expressed in the dinner

Graduate Market

• Diversity tick boxes creating false expectations - it seems that some employers come to recruiting events at universities that they have no particular interest in recruiting from just to tick company boxes (to prove that they are seeking to improve the diversity of their organisation)
• Student pre selection at employer presentations - UEL have come up with good way to create a better match between employers who come to their campus and the students who meet with them - the employability department actively preselects students who have a good fit with the requirements of employers by getting students to apply to attend the events. This process has has started to change the perception that employers have of UEL students and has improved UEL's graduate recruitment success rate
• Universities need to play a more active role in the graduate job market - employers feel that universities need to provide more of a "market handshake" - they need to operate more as an intermediary to match up employers with their students / graduates
• More visibility of the graduate market is required - many employers and students are operating in the dark - we need to have a better understanding of the market (numbers that industries & employers are employing, the number of graduates available on the market and their skills, salaries that available & expected salary progression etc) so that both employers and graduates can make better decisions - this will facilitate a "market handshake" (see point above)
• UK PLC - the concept of the corporate niche in the UK was introduced - this group has been looking at why the UK is falling behind in the global  competitive landscape. How can UK PLC utilise the current graduate pool differently in order to improve their productivity?
• Employer uniqueness - just as all students are different, all employers are different as well - the recruitment process needs to allow for uniqueness on both sides. Different employers are looking for different things. Graduates need to be more aware of the uniqueness of the employers that they are applying to
• University students need to prepare early - the group felt that university students generally left it too late to be preparing themselves for employment - ideally this preparation should start pre-university
• Unrealistic expectations - some graduates in the current market believe that they should be leading projects from day one on the job - there seems to be a lack of an "apprentice" mentality - often graduates expect to be promoted four to six months after they start their first job
• "Walking into jobs" - many students believe that having a degree will allow them to just walk into a job - this has resulted in lack of preparation for work market
• Jobs have not changed - there are more and more graduates on the market but fundamentally the number and types of jobs available have not changed that much 
• Graduates are spreading bets too much - it seems that graduates do not trust the advice given that it is better to apply for fewer jobs and research / prepare well rather than playing the numbers game by making many applications across many industries and functions - this strategy results in the candidate coming across as ill prepared - candidates need to know who the employer is and the employer wants before applying - they need to make their applications more specific and be able to communicate this during the interview process
• Use of "MBA books" - most MBA schools provide a book of profiles for their MBA students - this allows employers to choose students that they want to approach. How could this concept be used with standard university students?
• Raised bars - some graduate employers are resorting to raising the bar by looking at grades achieved at the GCSE level in order to limit the applications that they receive. Typically large employers will set up "barriers" in terms of qualification levels etc to make application numbers more manageable - once candidates have passed these barriers they will need to further prove that they have the capabilities (range of skills etc) that the employer is looking for - just passing through the advertised "barriers" is not enough
• Lack of ability of graduates to sell themselves - graduates need to be more proactive in showing that they have a clear fit with what the employer is looking for. Many of the graduates on the market are lacking the ability to sell themselves - their CVs tend to lack transferable skills - they take the skills that they have for granted and do not promote them - when interacting with the employers they fail to realise that they are selling themselves as a "product"
• Getting into the "wrong" job - a Gallup poll has shown that 8 out of 10 employees feel that they are in the wrong job (a job that does not make the best use of their strengths) - only 17% of the working population is actively engaged with their work - it seems that Britain as an institution has created a job market where people end up in the wrong job. In the USA productivity is considerably better because employees can be fired easily with just 2 weeks of pay - this motivates employees to look for jobs where they are able to perform well - additionally as a constitution, Americans believe that they have the right to be happy and motivated to look for work that makes them happy
• Students need more support in making career decisions - universities should be a "non-attached" adviser - they need to take students though a path so that students are able to make choices about the jobs that are the best suited to them - students need to understand more clearly what they are good at and then be given the skills to seek for jobs that fit both their aspirations and what they are good at
• What are "graduate jobs"? - graduates should not just be looking for jobs that are labeled "graduate jobs" - there are many jobs on the market that will provide graduates a good first step in their careers

Skills Gap

• Technical skills are not enough - students and graduates in technical subjects cannot expect that their technical skills will be enough to gain technical employment...the need for basic business skills is becoming more and more important, and more and more employers are looking for this. How much are existing university curriculums catering for this? Furthermore, many current "techie" students and graduates still believe that they don't need to have a high level of social skills as they are wanting to enter a technical profession. How can students and graduates be made to realise that they NEED to have social and business skills to be success in the current market?
• "X Factor" skills - The X Factor show is full of people who really believe that they are good at something, however in many cases this does not stand up in front of an audience. This concept also applies to graduates - how can graduates really determine that they are good at something rather than how they perceive themselves to be?
• Jobs are more than a degree? - most jobs require a specific skills set rather than a specific degree - if graduates want to be successful, they need to prove that they have the skills portfolio that the employer is looking for
• Proof of skills - if an employer is looking for "strong team skills", saying you are a "strong team player" on your resume is clearly not enough - but what is enough to prove to the employer that you may have the skills set that they are looking for?
• Where "more character than qualifications" is required by employers - many of the jobs that are available on the market that are suitable for graduates require people who are more than a set of qualifications - how can graduates show that they have the "character" employers are looking for?
• Employers are reluctant to train - employers do not want to invest in graduates schemes - this is because graduates are now moving moving so quickly that the employers feel that they would be "training people for someone else". Furthermore, employers now expect candidates to have the skills that they previously trained their employed graduates for
• Is the skills shortage really a "lack of ability to find the skills"? - employers need to more specific about the skills that they are looking - the skills that are specified need to more differentiated - it seems that employers don't know how to specify and look for skills - employers need to do more tests to look for the skills that they want rather than just rely on CV and interviews
• Ambiguity of skills requirements - it seems that some employers prefer to stay general in their specifications of the skills that they require even though they know what they are specifically looking for - they want the applicants to share their, for example, experience of "strong team skills" so that they can ascertain themselves from the answers that the candidate give if he is a good match for what is required
• More soft skills are required - generally there is a growing need in the work market for "change" skills - this is because the competitive landscape is moving so fast that companies need to be more adept at change - many employers are actually looking for "change" skills but are not able to make this explicit
• It is not just about skills - motivation and the ability to demonstrate it is also a key factor that employers are looking for
• University students are missing basic English and maths - due to the increased diversity in universities many students are missing the basic levels of English and maths that employers are looking for
• Pulling out skills - graduates need to be shown how to draw out the full breath of employable skills that they have from their life and work experiences - otherwise they will just have their qualifications to promote themselves

Generation Y

• Graduates want freedom - many students do not want to work for anybody else - they want to set up their own business so that they are not treated like a "cog in a wheel" - they want to be free and not a slave to anyone
• Not looking past the first "rung" - this generation of students are typically only seeing as far as their first job - they are not looking at what they will be doing next - this need to look forward is becoming more and more important because we no longer have the situation where we have "jobs for life"
• Employers need to demonstrate opportunities more fully - employers need to be able to communicate more effectively to candidates the further opportunities that will be available to them if they take the positions offered to them - this will will appeal to generation Y who are looking for opportunities to gain a large skills portfolio rather than a specific career
• Graduates want to contribute to the social good - many students and graduates now have more of a social consciousness and are looking for organisations that are making a positive social difference in the world
• Graduates are more diverse now - it seems that many potential employers are not ready for handling and taking advantage of the diversity available from the current graduate pool
• Affluence - students are still living under the affluence of their parents and do not need to just rely on themselves and their jobs to have a good lifestyle
• Life is less predictable - in the past everything was more predicable and straightforward - life now is no longer like this - we no longer have the option of predictable career paths - there is more need now for people to actively plan their lives

Future First Steps Networking Events

We are planning to host more networking dinners and focus groups to explore the issues that could be covered by the social conference. Click here to read about other networking events.

Posted by: Hina Patel