E I P
with Graduate Skills
Interim Report
98/8
Government and Social Research Team
ACNielsen Research Services
May 1998
Higher Education Division
Department of Employment, Education,
Training and Youth Affairs
©Commonwealth of Australia 1998
ISBN 0 642 23769 7
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without permission from AusInfo. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Manager, Legislative Services, AusInfo, GPO Box 84, Canberra ACT 2601.
This report is funded under the Evaluation and Investigations Programme of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.
Executive Summary
This is the interim report to the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs concerning the satisfaction of employers with new graduates. This report covers the first stage of the project which has primarily consisted of focus group discussions with employers and graduates, supplemented by interviews with representatives of industry associations.
The overall aim of the project will be to conduct a valid and reliable survey of employers to measure their satisfaction with new graduates recruited from both the higher education and vocational education and training sectors.
The objective of this stage was to obtain qualitative information from employers. Specifically, we wanted to seek from them their own views as to the skills they seek when recruiting new graduates, why these skills are important and what skill deficiencies, if any, they perceive.
The research was preceded by a comprehensive literature review which is included in this report as an appendix.
The research itself consisted of twelve group discussions. Eight of these covered three sizes of employer, categorised as large, medium and small, and split between Melbourne and Sydney. A further discussion was held with recruiters of graduates to Federal Government departments (in Canberra). Three further groups were held with graduates themselves. Both the higher education and vocational education and training sectors were represented. All the discussions were audio- or video-recorded, and the analysis is based on these recordings and transcripts of them.
These group discussions were supplemented by one-to-one interviews with representatives from industry associations.
The research presented here is thus qualitative in nature and any conclusions should at this stage be regarded as hypotheses, to be confirmed, or otherwise, by the final quantitative survey.
Reasons for Recruiting Graduates
There appear to be three major reasons for recruiting new graduates:
These reasons may vary somewhat with size of organisation, with large companies, for example, having more interest in the need to recruit future business leaders, whilst small businesses are much more concerned to obtain skilled people whom they can use in the short term.
Skills Sought in New Graduates
The research suggests that the following skills may be sought in new graduates through the recruitment process:
Two further skill areas are sometimes, though not always, important:
Of the skills listed above, three skills would seem to be ones that should, ideally, be developed at school. These are basic literacy, numeracy and computer skills.
The majority of the remaining skills are general skills which are sought in all graduates entering industry or Government departments. However research and analysis skills are not always sought, although these skills are important in the public sector and certain professional jobs. Nor are leadership skills always important, since organisations generally recognise that they need a mix of ‘leaders and followers’.
The criterion on which employers put most weight in recruitment, other than certain personal attributes, is academic achievement. Whilst this usually needs to be in a relevant subject area, high academic achievement is taken as indicative of intellectual capability, capacity to learn, and motivation to pursue and achieve high goals.
Employers mentioned also a whole range of personal attributes which they look for in recruiting new graduates. These include: enthusiasm, motivation, ambition, maturity, and personal presentation, including grooming and dress. Also important is evidence of interest in the actual postion the graduate is being considered for—it is important for a recruit not to appear to have sent out numerous identical applications.
In the future Australian business is expected to be more international in operations and focus; and the world of work is expected to change rapidly in response to changing social and environmental conditions and technological change. The need for graduates to demonstrate adaptability and flexibility in order to cope with these future changes is important to some employers. New graduates also need to be aware of the need for continuous learning and re-training throughout their careers.
Satisfaction with Skills of New Graduates
In general satisfaction with the skills of the graduates that are successfully recruited appears to be high. We hypothesise however that it is higher in large organisations (those employing 500 or more) than in small organisations (employing less than 50), with medium sized companies in between. The reasons for this difference lie in the effort and expense put into recruitment by large companies, their more realistic expectations of new graduates, and their ability to ‘cream off’ the best graduates.
In saying that recruiters are satisfied, however, we should note that there is an apparent over-supply of graduates, and employers can pick from among them. Many graduates appear to miss out on job opportunities because of the lack of skills in basics such as literacy or numeracy.
If there is dissatisfaction with graduate skills as such, it probably lies in the area of written communication, because the majority of students are not taught to write in a manner appropriate to business communications.
In regards to course content we found very few complaints by employers, except in regards to certain more advanced areas of information technology and electronic communications.
Granted that this research has mainly focused on higher education graduates, the following comments are made in relation to TAFE colleges.
First, we think there is unlikely to be any major difference in the skills sought by employers from students from the vocational education and training sector. Second, some employers have an active preference for TAFE graduates, believing them to be likely to be more mature and ‘streetwise’. Third, some TAFE degrees are highly practical and hands-on in nature (for example, such topics as graphic arts, design etc.). Employers taking graduates from such courses may have high expectations that the graduates can make an immediate impact in their organisations. Fourth, whereas we heard few criticisms that universities were not up to date with the latest advances in industry, there was some feeling that this may not be so in regards to some TAFE courses.
Implications for Educational Institutions
At this stage we have drawn the following general implications for educational institutions.
First, students who have taken ‘co-op’ or ‘sandwich’ degrees seem to have major advantages when it comes to obtaining employment. Institutions which do not offer such options need to consider carefully how they can confer the same advantages to their students.
Second, certain skills that are valued by employers, in particular the ability to work in teams, and oral communication skills, are not perhaps well developed through traditional university teaching approaches, based on students receiving lectures as a one-way flow of information. Again institutions that rely on this approach should consider how well they are fitting their students for their future working lives.
Finally, all institutions need to give some consideraton to the skills of the future; that is the need for adaptability and flexibility in the workforce and for continuous training and learning throughout a graduate’s working life. Degrees need to be regarded as one step in the continuous learning process, not the end of formal education. This is certainly recognised by many of today’s graduates.
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