If you work in recruitment, can you advice on university course please?

[TR888]

My son is in Y12 and is predicted AAA- he's taking Business, Psychology and Spanish. He'd really like to study International Business with Spanish at a good university. He's very keen on that but I wonder if that's too generic, especially in the AI age.

Would really appreciate your thoughts, especially if you are involved in graduate recruitment.

Bumping up 🙂

What does he want to do after university?
The Spanish might be a plus for some jobs,but otherwise he will fall into the bracket of "person with a unrelated degree" for most recruitment purposes.

Would he focus on multi national corporations with offices in Spanish speaking countries?

Or NGOs, foreign service?

Not quite what you asked, but my eldest DD (22) has just started a job in recruitment, and she studied Bio-Medical Sciences at uni 🤷🏻

He doesn't know what he wants to do after graduation beyond working in some international role for a large organisation. He's fluent in Spanish and I guess he feels it's an easier subject for him.

Could he add in another, more unusual but useful language too at university ab initio to make himself stand out rather than doing Spanish which he is already bilingual in and is more common?

I guess the "problem" there is sending the message he's a linguist rather than a business graduate. Does that make sense?

He should do what he loves and focus on career choices for his Masters.

@TR888 have a look at combined honours at Durham University

Sorry wrong thread

Thanks, everyone. It's difficult to know what to advise. I wonder if a course in management rather than business might seem less generic.

I'm not persuaded that undergraduate business/management degrees have a great deal of value. If he isn't going down the Mathematics or Economics routes, he is likely to be leapfrogged by others.

He would be better of doing Spanish, possibly with combined honours or Psychology. Once he has graduated he can start to follow career paths. Psychology leads into Marketing/HR, Spanish is a bit niche but could lead into Education/linguistics.

I would say the best uni and swerve the Business/Mgt degrees at this stage.

Thanks. That said, I have professional connections with many businesses with international operations and they often confide how difficult it is to recruit business+language graduates.

So I know there's demand now. But I guess my worry is in 5/6 years time when he graduates, especially as the labour market will look quite different due to AI.

They are obviously a bright kid - just tell them to go with there gut instincts on what they will enjoy - 3 years is a long time to be studying a course your parents want you to do. If they enjoy the course they will love it. Once they graduate it's just a piece of paper - it's their personality which will set them apart.

I'm not sure Spanish is the most useful business language (no offence, Spain!). The famous examples recently have been German speakers and grads recruited to the prized and highly paid Aldi and Lidl (and Lufthansa) grad schemes.

Languages degrees are under threat but they are hardly 'niche' ! Bath does quite interesting language degrees with a focus on business.

The additional Spanish will stand him in good stead as lots of international businesses prioritise candidates with a second language.
with a business degree, I assume he wants to do a traditional graduate training programme or something like accountancy, finance of banking when he finishes? If not, he should consider something more specific to his post graduation ambitions.