Graduate salaries rise but the storm is not over yet

NEWSCIENTIST,
28 June 2011
Getting a job
Graduate
Penny Sarchet, contributor

Today, the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) released the results of a survey of 202 graduate recruiters, reporting an increase in graduate vacancies and the first rise in graduate starting salary since 2008. However, with more competition for graduate starter jobs than ever before, these statistics are little comfort to those about to face the job market for the first time.

I graduated from my biological sciences degree in 2008 - the year that everything went wrong. I had always intended to stay on for a PhD, but suddenly I was being congratulated by struggling friends for my canny plan to weather the storm in academia. Three years on, however, the storm is still raging and the signs of recovery are minimal.

Back when it first began, my peers were more concerned with not getting that City job they'd always counted on, rather than the likelihood that we could be the first generation in over a century to struggle to do better than our parents.

It isn't, however, only those wanting a top-flight corporate career that have suffered, and large numbers of science graduates looking to use what they learned in their degrees are also struggling to find a job.

A friend graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2010 with a BA in environmental science and a master's in climate change and has been looking for a job ever since. 50 applications later, she is still doing temp work.

Science graduates have valuable skills and expertise - so why is it so hard to find a use for the training that the government convinced us it was worth borrowing money to pay for?

According to the AGR, in 2008 there was an average of 31 graduate applications per job vacancy. Today's figures (which were collated during April and May this year) have hit a record high of 83. With so many applications per job, I wonder how this impacts upon the selection process.

At a recent university careers event, a recruiter from a television channel said that they looked for remarkably special graduates, not because they necessarily needed them, but because they can. With so many applicants for every graduate job, surely most recruiters will soon be finding themselves in this position?

The AGR's report shows that the bulk of selection is still done through assessment centres and psychometric testing. Another friend, about to finish his PhD in mathematics at Oxford, has been job-hunting for six months. In that time he has sat 10 online tests, some testing his ability to reason and some, his "personality". There's something very disheartening about being repeatedly rejected on the basis of your personality.

I can't help but wonder if recruiters, faced with so many applicants, are streamlining their selection processes to too great an extent. I'm no expert in human resources, but doesn't it seem intuitive that a company would benefit from recruiting more than one "type" of person? And whilst stereotypical science graduates may not be as gregarious as a company decides it would like its recruits to be, shouldn't our analytical skills and attention to detail make up for it?

According to the AGR, employers predict a 3 per cent increase in the number of vacancies this year. This hardly seems enough but signals at least that the market is continuing to recover after the increases seen last year. Accountancy and IT are predicted to offer the most vacancies, with law firms and investment banks still offering the highest starting salaries.

Science is expected to contribute only 1.2 per cent of the 2010-2011 vacancies, with a median starting salary of £25,250 - just below the graduate average. Engineering and industrial opportunities look set to rise, but my friends' preferred areas - energy and utilities, transport and logistics and the public sector - are all predicted to show a decrease in vacancies. Academia, labouring under government cuts, provides little alternative. Furthermore, only 3 per cent of post-doctoral researchers make it to tenure.

In this climate, recruiters strongly emphasise the importance of job seekers conducting rigorous research prior to interview, followed by gaining interview experience and a willingness to relocate.

Since 2008, the importance of relevant work experience as a selection criterion has more than doubled, reflecting the purgatory that most graduates now face: you must work as a temp or an intern until you can compete with older graduates who have been accruing both experience and rejections for longer.

Today's report shows both a continued increase in vacancies and the first increase in starter salaries for two years. Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the AGR, says he is "cautiously optimistic about today's findings, which provides a welcome indication that the graduate recruitment market is beginning to overcome the impact of the recession".

However, with soaring applications for every position, I doubt that this will make things any easier for the class of 2011.