Oxbridge graduates who can’t get a job

[AquaLeader]

Interesting article in The Times this morning.

Meet the Oxbridge graduates who can’t get a (good) job -
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/oxbridge-graduates-cant-get-good-job-d9ddj9dff

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the graduates highlighted all appear to hold degrees in the humanities.

Another recent successful applicant had all A star at A level and 2.1 law from a very top uni. Plus competitive sport (can’t recall if he represented just his college or uni) position of responsibility at uni, lots of work experience/vacation schemes, a decent stint volunteering at CAB plus was running his own business for several years. He was a Covid era graduate.
I’m not London or high paying legal. There are so many extremely impressive yp desperate for a foot in any legal door.

@mathanxietyYes. DH wasn’t bothered about if a dc had worked in a supermarket. More importantly, could they train on to be a fully functioning engineer! Holiday work directly related to engineering work was much better.

Stem grads are not quite the same as others: direct application of degree matters for them. For many humanities grads it doesn’t mean quite the same thing. Although in law it could.

DH was a bit ? about any obsessive all consuming hobby. Never quite sure they really wanted the job or the hobby more.

or it makes perfect sense to reject a candidate for not reading the application properly. e.g. if the JD specifies pass @ maths gcse, one of the person specs is 'detail oriented' and the application form says 'list ALL your relevant qualifications' then the person who doesn't put their maths gcse has failed at the first hurdle and therefore it's not unreasonable to think they might not be as good at the job as someone less educated but who properly reads and follows instructions when needed.

when do the non academic young people get their "blissful summers of idleness?" Or is it okay for an 18 year old plumbing apprentice to work full time bar 28 days A/L, but god forbid Jocasta does a few hours shift in Tesco over the 4 month long vac.

And it's hardly 'changing the goal posts', most uni students in the 80s, 90s, 00s, etc. worked part time or/and through their holidays. It's never been the norm for most people to never work at all until they're 22. Nobody is suggesting they have to work full time.

For lots of young people their part time job can be a laugh and a chance to meet new mates, not to mention independence and learning skills. Lots of students want to work. It's a bit insulting to assume they'd all prefer to be sitting in the garden or watching tv for 4 months.

I think there’s too much doom and gloom on this thread. I know 2nd Oxbridge humanities students (just finished 2nd year) with offers (already!) for training contracts with mid-tier London law firms, and looking to trade up to magic circle training contracts, with no paid work experience.

Also another with a Goldman summer internship without having any prior IB or paid work experience and now hoping/expecting for fast track to graduate entry recruitment.

And plenty more with a variety of internships, some properly paid and some more voluntary. None of them have done supermarket/call centre type jobs, but are building up relevant experience.

The students in this article - as many have pointed out - are just drifting and not really that bothered about it.

You do need focus and determination though which perhaps we didn’t need in our generation.

It is possible to get good grad jobs without a lot of work experience. DS did Spring and Summer internships (banking) in his second year at university which led to a grad job offer. He didn’t do any other paid work except coaching his sport each summer. DD did some STEM A Level tutoring whilst at university and worked for a couple of weeks in her tutor’s labs and
secured a grad job offer before finals. I think it is more about deciding what you want to do and planning how to get there rather getting a load of work experience.

@ofteninaspin I think you have misinterpreted what most are saying. It’s not necessarily volume. Your DS was hand picked because he got two internships! He had a cv with a very hard to get two internships that were relevant and his employers picked him. He maybe didn’t go into Tesco every Saturday (neither did my DC) but he did something very relevant and studied a stem degree.

If you read what these grads studied, it wasn’t stem. There’s a massive difference between humanities and stem. They didn’t seem to know they needed a better cv and doing something is better than nothing. My DD1 did volunteering for NT and CAB. Plus lots of other relevant law placements. All these young people could have done similar, but they didn’t.

It's never been the norm for most people to never work at all until they're 22.

Back in the 60s/70s, many people had paper rounds from 13 and Saturday jobs in retail from whatever the permitted age was - 14 or 15 - the school leaving age was 15 then.

Or you'd see boys helping out with the milk delivery - they'd be taking the milk up to the front doorsteps while the man drove the float.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/8416fdf4-825c-4daa-b419-57b6f4137102?shareToken=118b3032ee10bc13cad23c81266e3602

The Times is obviously running a series of summer puff pieces to get everyone frothing. RG humanities grads with work experience this time.

Sounds like that lad from Durham Uni, who says he "isn't picky", should capitalise on his work experience and join the Royal Navy. He doesn't say whether he tried that.

It's obviously a current theme for the Times as they seem to be running a similar article each week on the difficulties grads are having in getting entry level jobs. This week they've picked slightly more sympathetic characters.

and i could be wrong but oxford and cambridge are ment to focus soley on their studys ?

@TheTeasmaid only not permitted to work in term time. They are only there half a year as terms are short and intense. My sibling and friends worked in holidays when at Oxbridge (they also had a job lined up well before graduation)

Fab, well done them. However, Xmas and Easter are taken up with studying for exams, and they tend to be completely burnt out due to those heavy intense terms. By comparison Exeter was a doddle, long terms, and third term finished by early May. It is very dependent on course too.

You can't do any of that anymore. Many shops won't employ under 18's because if they serve alcohol or any prohibited item they have to get an adult staff member over to supervise the sale. Milk rounds don't exist in the same volume anymore and kids would never be allowed on them anyway. There is a paper round in my local shop that has a huge waiting list that my DS has been on for a year. No point going on about yesteryear and how hard kids worked 60 years ago compared to today.

Also, parents/carers or people of retirement age or other adults topping up their income to make ends meet now do many of the low status part time jobs that teenagers used to do.

We’ll have to agree to disagree @HostaCentral.
I personally think not working in the long 3 or 4 month break each summer, year after year isn’t good for them or their cv.
I’m not suggesting they should be working every hour in a fast food place. But surely a balance is good. Needing 3 or 4 months completely off each year due to burnout is a red flag to an employer who will need a yp to work with only a few weeks annual leave. Lots of legal is still a long hours culture.
My dc is 19 and has worked full time for 8 weeks, rest travelling and relaxing this summer. She did a placement at Easter. All her peers at uni work, some term time too, some just holidays. All teens I know did something at sixth form - mix of fast food, waitressing, lifeguard, junior football ref, after school club. This is recent not back in day.
I’m in an ultra competitive area of work though and would tell anyone asking for advice that academics alone won’t cut it. As others have pointed out it probably matters less in other fields with STEM degrees or only a few applicants per role.

Any of those featured grads could do Teach First and then, having served their time in teaching, have the opportunity to apply for Summer Internships with one of sponsoring organisations. That can lead to a change of direction if teaching doesn't work out - I know a young person who was recruited by Deloitte on the back of a Teach First internship.

It is far easier to get summer vacation work in areas with good public transport and plenty of tourists. And even then, ironically, whilst Oxford and Cambridge have short terms, they have three terms of equal length, whereas quite a few other universities finish as early as May, meaning their students are able to get on the temporary summer job bandwagon up to a month earlier. On top of that, if other students have been able to work during term time, they will probably be favoured for the standard holiday jobs, too, because their CVs already have more hospitality or retail work on them. All you need is one summer of not having any of your applications for pub, restaurant, hotel, cafe or retail work accepted, and you’ll look even less appealing the following year. There are more people looking for temporary work than there are openings available, even if the work is minimum wage, zero hours contract work. What is naive to think is that it is only jobs people covet that are overwhelmed with applications.

would tell anyone asking for advice that academics alone won’t cut it
And you also said that Oxbridge students who had busy summers due to high level sports, performing arts etc including international sports fixtures would also not cut it.
Firms don’t get to see who gets filtered out by the HR service. What you don’t know, you won’t miss.

@sendsummer no HR or AI sift, I see all applications for my team. An applicant like that who hasn’t done any work in 5 or 6 years presumably wouldn’t apply as they know they don’t meet one of the essential criteria. If they do apply then they wouldn’t meet essential so can’t be interviewed. It’s unusual though for a yp like that to have nothing else on CV most will have worked coaching children etc.

Unfortunately Teach First isn’t what it was and certainly isn’t a reliable backstop. Friend’s DC with 1st in a humanities subject from Oxbridge was lined up to do this on graduating only to be told in August that Teach First didn’t have a school for them, even though they had been accepted onto the programme. DC got to it and found a 1yr PGCE instead starting in the September. But it wasn’t easy and financially it wasn’t such a good option and was only possible with parental ££ support. It’s a mistake to think that teaching is always there as a fallback.

Also with falling birth rates, the teacher shortage is not evenly distributed across the country - so there aren’t necessarily jobs either once they’ve trained.

Was that for History or Classics? They are among the only subjects for which there is no shortage of trainee teachers, along with PE.

No, but that’s an interesting chart that I haven’t seen before. What are all those classicists going to do?!

@NoonehastheanswerGo into law. They have good brains!