Work placements boost employment prospects for graduates

The High Fliers study of the graduate market in 2015 predicts that recruitment will be at its highest for a decade, but around a third of jobs will be offered to graduates who have done a work placement at the firm. More than four-fifths of the UK's leading graduate recruiters now offer paid work-experience programmes for students and recent graduates, with 13,049 available this year. Two-thirds have paid internships during the holidays for final-year students, while half make industrial placements available as part of degree courses. Half the employers said that students with no work experience have "little or no chance" of receiving a job offer through graduate programmes.

Rise in unconditional offers

There were 12,115 unconditional offers made to university applicants last year, up from 2,985 in 2013. Overall, 49% were selected as a firm choice and 23% as an insurance choice. However, for universities making unconditional offers for the first time (and who made more than 100) only 17.3% were selected as the first choice, compared to 16.2% for their normal offer in 2013.  [ source: GTAssociates ]

University admissions in 2014

UCAS figures show that 512,400 people secured places in 2014, up nearly 17,000. The number of UK students rose 3% to 447,500. However, there were big variations, especially in terms of gender and area. In Bristol South only 11% of 18yr old men go on to university, compared to over 50% of female school leavers in some other areas. UCAS say that the gender gap is the equivalent of 32,000 ‘missing’ male students. Overall, however, the picture is one of more applications, more offers and more accepted places.

The figures also show the growing competition between universities to attract students. Universities made more offers than ever before, 1.8 million, with most students with high predicted grades getting four or five offers. Students without A or A* grades were more likely this year to have got into a ‘higher tariff’ university. For students with BBB, 35% got places into a top-tier university, compared with 32% last year and 17% in 2011. For students with BBC grades, 15% got places at higher tariff universities, compared with 6% in 2011. For applicants with DDE grades, 12% got into ‘medium tariff’ university and 58% found a place at a ‘lower tariff’ university. Across all types of university, 85% of 18 year old applicants from England were accepted for a place somewhere.  [ source: GTAssociates ]

Degree level Apprenticeships

The Government has said that it will part fund a new Degree Apprenticeship scheme, alongside leading industries such as IBM, BT and John Lewis. A spokesperson said that, ‘The first of the new qualifications will be available in the digital sector to help provide the skills for a wide range of careers and to help fill the estimated one million digital job vacancies over the next decade”. The Government will pay two-thirds of the costs and fees while employers will pay trainees' wages and other costs. The academic training will be delivered through universities, including Manchester Met and UCL.

Who gets paid the most?

According to the Office of National Statistics, pilots and flight engineers are the highest paid group of workers, with an average annual salary of £90,420 in 2014. The average salary for chief executives and senior officials was £81,521. Closely following were air traffic controllers (£79,874), medical practitioners (£71,141), and marketing and sales directors (£70,742), who held places three to five on the highest paid workers scale.

It pays to be a Graduate

According to the recently published Graduate Labour Market Statistics report, graduates earn £400k more over their lifetimes than those who did not go to university. The average pay premium was calculated to be £9,000pa, whilst postgraduates earn on average another £9,000. The average graduate salary in the Autumn of this year was £31,000 and for postgraduates it was £40,000. For non-graduates, it was £22,000. However, pay for graduates slipped by £1,000 in the past year, although it rose by £1,500 for postgraduates. 

Employment rates were also better for graduates, according to the figures taken from the Labour Force Survey. Among the working-age population, 87% of graduates and postgraduates were in employment, compared with 70% of non-graduates. Among people aged 21-30, unemployment is 4.7% for postgraduates, 5.7% for graduates and 9.8% for non-graduates. More than three quarters of all postgraduates and two-thirds of graduates were working in high-skill employment, compared with 22% of non-graduates.  [ source: GTAssociates ]

Advice on UCAS Personal Statements

Caitriona Woolhouse, head of student recruitment at Oxford, has said that, “When advising students about applying to top universities we typically say that about 75-80% (of the personal statement) should be related to your academic study and interest in the course. Extra-curricular activities, including work experience, are only considered in so far as they help demonstrate how you meet the selection criteria for your chosen course subject.” She said that regarding work experience, you should “focus on what you learned about the role, rather than the techniques you saw”, and that you should use extra-curricular activities and work placements to “demonstrate relevant qualities like resilience, problem-solving, leadership, teamwork, creativity and critical thinking”. 

Ms Woolhouse also counselled against using old examples of interests and said that students should make reference to what is said in the prospectus to show that you have done your research and highlight your commitment to the subject. Fatuma Mahad, director of operations at UCAS, said, “Let friends and family read what you have written. They may have suggestions you haven’t considered and can tell you whether it makes sense. “It’s also important to proofread it several times. Reading it out loud will help you to spot bad punctuation and messy wording.”  [ source: GTAssociates ]