EARLY CAREERS
TEENAGE DREAMS…
In January 2013, TMP Worldwide’s Head of Graduate Solutions, Jayne Cullen presented the findings of the company’s latest research into the UK school- leaver market at a seminar kindly hosted by Grant Thornton. Here Jayne gives us an overview of those findings, explaining why some of the insights were a surprise – and why they present a major challenge for recruiters…
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When asked about “WHO” specifically had the
biggest impact on their career planning, perhaps
unsurprisingly parents remained the prime influencers for career- related advice, followed by non-form teachers and careers teachers.
T
he 2013 ‘Post-16 Pathways’ research surveyed over 1,000 16-18-year-olds across the UK from a
representative sample of schools, and split 64:36 between female and male respondents. At the outset of this research many employers of school leaver talent, including TMP, were expecting to see significant similarities in the career aspirations, influencers and decision paths of those students attending specific types of schools. But this proved not be the case with careers research being dominated across the board by “the careers centre and the web”. The most cited port of call for initial career advice was school’s (or college’s) careers centres (46%); an interesting insight given the demise of the Connexions service and the apparent gulf in ICAG (Impartial Careers Advice and Guidance) left behind. The research also highlighted the importance of the role of the web in careers guidance with 44% of students turning to the internet as a primary source. With over 60 websites featuring in where they turn to for advice, the market is clearly fragmented; for recruiters and their third party partners this provides a major challenge. Ensuring that employers exploit search marketing and understand the terms that their target students might search against was a key recommendation. When asked about “WHO” specifically had the biggest impact on their career planning, perhaps unsurprisingly parents remained the prime influencers for career-related advice, followed by non-form teachers and careers teachers. A third of students said they’d started to think about what to do on leaving school before studying for their GCSEs, underlining the pressing need for effective early career advice. Around 56% of respondents had already had some experience of engagement by employers via social media, and three-quarters (74%) of these professed to be ‘comfortable’ with it. But it was also clear that students would prefer to meet employers before any social media engagement. Ensuring that social media strategies are fully aligned within a broader marketing mix is therefore critical for this group who see social as very much their space.
8 GRADUATE RECRUITER
One of the most telling statistics was the 9% increase year on year of those students planning on going to university straight from school (78% in 2013 compared with 69% in 2012). Students still see going to university as ‘the norm’ and find it hard to identify alternative options, especially if they have no ‘connections’ or anyone to help them. One student, from a series of focus groups run as part of this research, claimed that “Trying to find out about other options is exhausting.” So it would seem that the default option is the UCAS form. Despite this, roughly half (51%) remain interested in possible alternatives to university. TMP’s research divided the 78% who said they wanted to go to university into four distinct groups: ‘followers’ (those who see university as the default option), ‘learners’ (those who want to remain in education), ‘drivers’ (those who need a specific degree for their chosen career) and ‘climbers’ (those who believe they need a degree to be successful in the future). Given the complex nature of this cohort, existing marketing messages around alternatives to Higher Education seem to be largely failing to get through. The standard “Earn as you learn” marketing materials risk missing out on two significant groups of school leavers who are motivated by other decision factors. It is important therefore not to treat school leavers as one homogenous group.
The event closed with a panel session featuring two school-leaver recruiters (Helen Barthorpe of Grant Thornton and Steve Keith of Ernst & Young) plus three students from Alexandra Palace School (Naomi Tshibola, Migena Shehu and Sian Dias-Williams). Among the issues to emerge from the panel were further confirmation of students’ low awareness of alternatives to university, the pressure on teachers to focus on university entry, the extremely variable quality of schools’ careers advice (unlike the HE sector), and students’ emphasis on employers engaging with them face to face.
To find out more about this research, please contact Jayne Cullen on
jayne.cullen@
tmpw.co.uk
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