Being an academic grad in today's graduate job market

If you managed to read my guest blog post for the blog of fellow non-marketing grad Michael Palmer - who smashed down the potential barrier of his History MA to get a great position as an SEO consultant - thank you very much!

I wanted to keep that post brief, but if you've been brought here from Michael's blog, I guess you might be interested in reading more about being an academic graduate struggling to get the vocation you want in today's job market. So I might take this opportunity to have a bit more of a rant about the whole thing.

What does a degree in a traditional subject count for nowadays?

What I talk about in my guest post on Michael's blog - about the recent change in the job market that has apparently led to an aversion towards recruiting traditional subject candidates - is affecting thousands of graduates, who have worked hard in embarking on what they had believed to be the best possible start to building a career.

This change needs to be talked about, as the many graduates referred to in the press, who are out of work or unable to obtain decent job roles, are victims of it - left floundering in the wake of those who opted for more vocational subjects. As I have said in my guest blog post, it is not my place to comment on which of these types of graduates make better candidates for jobs. However, I’d like to try and offer some support for grads facing the frustration of feeling like all the hard work you have put in to getting your degree is not appreciated, if only by letting you know that you’re not alone. In order to do this, I think it’s important to start by documenting how the world had seemed to us as wee 17 year olds filling out our UCAS forms in 2007.

Why pick a traditional subject?

Everyone had had it imprinted on their grey matter throughout their childhood that a degree was the strongest path to take in order to be successful, and our small-world perspectives meant that we felt wholely unable to go against the advice that Oxbridge and the Russell Group were the crème de la crème, and where you should be aiming to attend if you wanted to make your degree a worthwhile investment of a great deal of money, time and effort.

I know you wanted to know just how a leech walks

Having slogged away for three years in an incredibly pressurised and competitive learning environment, immersing myself in topics that were incredibly fascinating but also widely irrelevant to most jobs (for example, how leeches walk), it makes this trend, of hiring based on a strict criteria that rejects non-marketing grads, all the more bitter a pill to swallow.

Last February, the Guardian reported that Oxbridge and redbrick institutions had confirmed that they hold a higher regard for A-levels in more theoretical ‘hard’subjects, such as English, Maths, Science, Geography, History and languages, stating that by choosing more recently-established A-level subjects such as Media and Business, students appeared to be ‘avoiding a challenge’. Many of us could have guessed that this attitude is commonplace amongst these elite unis, owing to the fact that they are known as ‘leading’ universities because they are long-established, and so are specialists in the older and more traditional subjects. Moreover, a lot of them don’t tend to even teach courses outside of traditional academia. 

Take for instance this quote off of the Oxford website: 

Business Studies

Oxford University does not offer an undergraduate degree in this subject, though there are opportunities to study it as a graduate course. 

However, if you are interested in a career in Business, then any course at Oxford can be an excellent preparation. 

I think this is a pretty apt summation of what has long been the established attitude (that is now threatened) to undergraduate study – that a degree, particularly one acquired at one of the top academic institutions in both the country and the world, is enough to develop you into a candidate competent enough to tackle a job role in the outside world.

Applying to jobs with an academic degree

I understand that many companies do not have the resources to train up grads; it is much quicker and easier to hire someone who has studied the subject. As I’ve said, I'm not here to comment on whether marketing grads are 'better' than non-marketing grads - this obviously varies from person to person, and also depending on the job role in question - but my problem is the droves of job roles that will only consider a graduate who has studied marketing/related. 

Peruse any job site and you will find “must have studied a marketing or business degree” or similar in a large proportion of job descriptions. I pulled this example off the Guardian Jobs website. They are asking for a ‘Marketing Assistant/Graduate’:

This famous leisure brand is seeking a confident Marketing Assistant to make a significant contribution towards their marketing activities. Candidates will be degree educated and will have obtained at least a 2:1 within a business or marketing related subject! Candidates will only be considered if they are recent graduates of 2011 or due to be finishing within 2012.

Key aspects of this fantastic role will be liaising with external client enquiries, keeping the website up-to-date, producing marketing brochure materials, analysing customer satisfaction data and assisting with the management of corporate events. The organisation in question is seeking someone with some commercial flair, someone who can adapt quickly and use their communication skills to heighten company awareness.

I’m very sure that most, if not all, of those duties could be carried out by any competent graduate. Having worked in a project management role with a focus on marketing, which seems quite similar to what they are asking here, this would be a role I would feel quite comfortable in. Employers are certainly spoilt for choice nowadays, but it’s just no help to us if we’re forbidden to even apply.

They are looking for someone who can “use their communication skills to heighten company awareness” – implying these communication skills need to come from a degree. But why discount those who may have developed communication skills from work experience? Experience that meant them applying their skills to a real-life situation which may have even brought about measurable success for a company. Job descriptions like these are no good for us graduates in traditional subjects, and their prevalence is both disheartening and concerning.

This attitude to recruitment spans not only job roles in SMEs, but graduate schemes too! (For example: Wilkinson's Brand Development and Digital Marketing programmes.) And having worked on graduate recruitment campaigns for large international clients, I can tell you that there is a definite favouritism towards marketing-related degrees over demonstrable interest and competency in the field via other endeavours, despite the fact these schemes are supposed to be training programmes.

Phew, I needed to get all of that out of my system!

Of course, there are lots of things you can do if you’re a graduate embarking on the road to a great career, even if, like me, you find yourself having to combat the obstacle of your academic degree. I just felt like I needed to make a frank acknowledgement of the problems faced by graduates of academic subjects before I got round to actually addressing them :)

If you are in the same situation as me and have any comments or experiences you want to share, please feel free to comment, or contact me if you are interested in writing a guest blog post! Follow me on Twitter @JosCanavan or connect with me on Linkedin.