Do students land graduate jobs after their degrees?

[bevelino]

Have your dc's landed graduate jobs after university?

I have 4 dd's who will be in higher education at the same time (triplets), 2 of which want to be teachers and I am confident that if they graduate they will get jobs. The other two have no idea about what they want to do and I would be interested to know whether most students eventually find a job for which a degree is needed.

It depends a lot on what their degree is in and where it's from. I have nieces and nephews who are at universities where over 90% get a grad job/masters within 6 months of graduating, and I also know plenty of graduates working on checkouts years later because they can't get a grad job. Which is depressing.

Teaching can also depend on the subject, apparently. Niece looked into a PGCE after her degree but decided it was too competitive after in her subject.

I think a lot of it depends on the subject you study. A lot of media studies and event management graduates struggle to get jobs because a lot of their course work is - IMO - useless for the real world. It also depends a good bit on the attitude of the graduate and how pro-active you are in chasing down promising jobs.

My two DCs got jobs straight from uni. Maths and science degrees. They were applying from the beginning of their final year.

Depends on degree subject and institution.

The course with the best graduate employment rate is golf studies. They go straight in the ryder cup tour etc.

Sound engineering has a fantastic graduate employment rate.

So niche courses can do well. Generic English degree is what I would want my child to avoid. Just read books as a hobby instead.

If any of your kids are considering finance/accountancy/consultancy work then I would suggest looking into school leaver programmes as well. My employer (EY) offers training contracts for school leavers that include training for a professional qualification whilst gaining fully paid work experience. Many of these qualifications also award a Bachelor's degree in the end.

Everyone I know who has graduated in the last 5 years or so who did physics, chemistry, engineering, accountancy, business or targeted courses such as nursing or law have been successfully employed in their chosen field. Anyone who did an arts subject or biology either works as admin or in a shop, or they became a teacher. So it depends on what you do.

bob I would dispute that, I mostly know arts and humanities graduates and they all walked into grad jobs. They did, however, all go to red brick unis. The students I know who didn't are mostly still in the part time jobs they had through uni with increased hours, some of them 6 years later. Mostly social science degrees.

Dd1 did, she did a BSc but it took her 6 months to get a graduate job.
Dd2 is doing Eng lit degree and had absolutely no desire to go into a grad jpb. She's had a job lined up from June until Xmas then she's going travelling with her friend, also a graduate. They also had gap years..
As long as she supports herself I don't really care. They will probably be working until their mid 70s/80s so they have decades to start a career.

Not sure I agree that people have decades to start a career actually. But nothing wrong with going travelling etc for a few years and it can open opportunities.

I graduated 20 years ago, from a 'good university' with a degree in a traditional academic subject and I have never secured graduate level employment, and neither have most of my friends. My younger relatives (in their 20s now) are finding it even harder. I am desperately hoping that my children decide not to go to university, as the crushing disappointment of my working life, and that of my friends, has had a terrible impact on most of us.

Most of my friends, all grads, are in great grad jobs. I think if you have good contacts and network your chances are much higher.

My DS has graduated from a Russell group uni (economics) and has a grad job in accountancy. He managed to get through to the final assessment stage for a couple of organisations, and he said the common factor for all the applicants who had reached that stage was that they had all done some sort of internship / work placement /gap year work. Having more than university on your CV will make you stand out.

My DD did a theology degree then after graduating took a year out to consider her opinions. She was certain she did not want to go into a big company on a graduate scheme. During this time she worked as a waitress then did a stint volunteering overseas. When she came back from that she set about applying for jobs and landed a graduate position in a smaller company in something completely unrelated to her degree but absolutely suited to her skills and personality. There are jobs out there but it takes a lot of time and determination to find them.

DD1 and DD2 both science degree subjects. DD1 works in drug testing and DD2 in forensics. DD1 had a job ready for when she finished uni, DD2 took six months. They both finished uni in the last four years

Well, since Blair decided that everyone ought to go to uni, too many folk have. This has led to a devaluing of undergrad degrees somewhat (I have taught UGs who really shouldn't even have been admitted to university at all) so the people I know with a Master's or PhD generally do rather better than others, but as Obi says, it does help to have a little more on your CV. Some jobs, volunteering, work experience. Russell Group has nothing to do with it these days. The universities in that collective pay to be members for a start. I have noticed that friends and ex students of mine from more economically affluent backgrounds have a better time of it when it comes to job hunting, which has been backed up by recent studies published in the papers. I know know at least 3 English Literature grads who have retrained - accountancy, paramedicine and engineering.

i think you need to google the answer to your question.
look on uni websites, that tells you how likely the graduates are to find work. the percentages who do

DD1 did about three months of temping and then moved into a graduate job which she has been in for three years. DD2 did a masters after her maths degree and moved straight into a job in her field as soon as she finished.DS in his second year studying English and is starting to think about what he wants to do when he finishes. He has some work sorted out for the summer and he knows when the graduate schemes he's interested in open next year so he can get his application in. He's also happy to do internships to get some experience if he doesn't get something straight away.

we cant all do accountancy.

i thought there was a call for plumbers not so long ago. plumbers Were the new assured working

DSC both studied what they passionately wanted; both got high 2:1s from good universities. Unfortunately both subjects were in lowest 10 for post-degree employment. Neither has a job paying more than the minimum wage, 3 years on.
It's a difficult decision: go with your heart & achieve great results or go with your careers advisor's head & be less happy, perhaps achieving lower results. Their bitter-sweet consolation is that they Do at least have employment, at the same level as many of their more vocationally qualified peers.
In summary - there ain't no guarantees!

Just wait until brexit kicks in ... all grads will get jobs with starting salary of 100k ... Jeremy Corbyn will be PM ... and we'll have 50 bank holidays every year.

Depends on subject and uni.

All my friends from redbrick/top unis went to graduate jobs quickly.
Friends from college who went to lower ranked unis (with the exception of those who did health courses at old polys e.g. nursing etc) tended to end up working back at the same bar/shop they were doing at 17 anyway.

My sister got a first from oxford and it took a year of doing unpaid work experience before she got onto the bbc training scheme (second attempt).

I did english lit. Im not in touch with anyone who isnt a teacher. I think thats partly because some of them were always going to make excellent teachers and others couldnt really get anything else. Those with specific degrees tend to do much better imo. Engineering, marketing etc.

I would strongly recommend them going for a course with work experience, so look for a university with strong links to industry, or as another poster suggested looking for opportunities straight from school.
I know it's hard when they don't know what they want to do but out of my circle only those that continued to postgraduate study got graduate level jobs, and this was study to a particular field rather than an MLitt. As we are in Scotland where an honours degree is 4 years this meant 5 years at uni or part time study, we were all fed up of it!

Norma most university websites claim their students have high graduate employment rates.

We recruit graduates in the organisation where I work and receive 100s of applications for the 30 graduate places. Most applicants are filtered out well before interview stage and I do wonder where the unsuccessful applicants end up.

I have a ds in 2nd year. Agree that it is really important to have more on the CV than just the degree - ds has lined up internships for summer, most of his friends have had some paid employment.
Also I think it helps to go to a uni which is highly rated for the particular degree your dd wants to study.
The UCAS site is good source of info as are the unis themselves for post grad employment figures and the kinds of work their graduates obtained.

Best of luck. 4 dc in uni at the same time is a really big deal.