1. How ‘work-ready’ do Moulton College final year undergraduates feel?
Alex Grantham
Supervisor: Dr Wanda McCormick
Introduction
Methods
Results
In the Regional Labour Market Bulletin May 2015, employment was found highest in the South West (77.6%) and lowest in North East (69.3%) (ONS, 2015a). In April 2015, 31.5m people aged over 16 were in work in the UK (ONS, 2015b). This number showed great importance due to the future influx of university graduates in the oncoming year. Employability skills have always been required by graduates in order to be assessed by potential employers. Enthusiasm and team-work were previously rated higher by graduates than subject-based knowledge (Saunders and Zuzel, 2010). Degree programmes must therefore prepare students for the working world (Pugh and Grove, 2014).
A survey was uploaded through SurveyMonkey using Moulton College’s Moodle website. Programme leaders were also asked to send this out to all 3rd year undergraduates. The survey was online from March 4th until May 7th Questions included what career-related activities had been received with a rank on usefulness, and whether students had started applying for jobs, and the application process. The information was collated on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and the statistical package Minitab 16 was used in order to carry out Chi Square Tests.
There was a significant association between the career-related activity given and the ranking (Fig 2) (X2= , DF= 81, p<0.05). This showed as CV writing, 1-to-1 careers advice and personal statement practice ranking higher than others.
Significantly more students who attended activities have produced CV’s (X2=6.125, DF=1, p=0.013). There was no significant difference between how many students have found a job, are still looking or entering further study (p>0.05). There was no significant difference between how many students have and have not applied for jobs by May (p>0.05).
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
CV writing
Job seeking
Interview technique
1-to-1 careers advice
Conference practice
Networking
Psychometric testing
Team building
Job / graduate fair
Writing personal statements
Extremely positive 1
Very positive 4
Slightly positive 10
Slightly negative 9
Very negative 2
Extremely negative
Aims
Identify whether final year undergraduates feel prepared to start job hunting.
Collate ideas and feedback to 3rd year course managers.
Fig 1:Student confidence on gaining a job shown as number of responses.
Discussion
Fig 2: Opinions on career-related activities. 1= Most Useful 10= Least Useful
Of 255 final year undergraduate students, 71 responses were received for the survey but only 43 of these responded past the first question. It appears from this that students are not necessarily engaging in their own employability success.
7 individual responses from 4 courses stated no career-related support was offered while this was contradicted by several responses given by students in the same course.
Students who had to fill out company specific forms, without supplying a CV, were more likely to feel negative about their confidence.
One common suggestion given was to be provided with job profiles.
Students who had stated that they had not attended any career-related support reported they were slightly negative about finding a job whereas those who had attended stated they felt positive (Fig 1), similar responses to those who have already applied.
Individual courses offered different activities but more engagement is required by students. Increased sharing best practice will improve what is on offer to students.
One individual on the Sports Therapy programme stated they were not expecting to have to show their sport performance during a job interview.
References
Office of National Statistics. (2015a) Regional Labour Market, May London: ONS
Office of National Statistics. (2015b) The Latest on the UK Labour Market. London: ONS.
Pugh, S. L. and Grove, M. J. (2014) Establishing Industrial Advisory Boards Using a Practice Transfer Model. NDIR. 15(1) pp
Saunders, V. and Zuzel, K. (2010) Evaluating Employability Skills: Employer and Student Perceptions. Bioscience Education. 15. pp. 1-15