May 30th, 2008
Job vacancies rise as UK graduates “lack the right skills”
This is an interesting one – how would you feel about spending around £30,000 ($58,000ish) over 4 years, working blood, sweat and tears, having constant stress but also the time of your life, not to mention a degree at the end of it… and nobody wants to employ you? It’s something most of us would have worried about, but it’s an increasing problem.
Some say that it’s easier to get the entry requirements to start studying and some believe universities are becoming more lenient on people to fill more places. Those same people are most likely civil servants sitting behind huge mahogany desks twiddling thumbs and staring out the window to a rainy London skyline, who haven’t the foggiest about how the world really works. According to the Association of Graduate, vacancies for UK graduates have and continue to rise but there’ll be a difficulty in filling them.
“Over half the employers surveyed (55.9%) said not enough candidates held the right skills, while 43.4% said there were not enough applicants with the right qualifications.”
Yet the most worrying factor of this:
“…two-thirds (67%) envisaged difficulties in filling all vacancies, because graduates are becoming increasingly selective and applicants lack the right skills.”
Even though it seems that graduates may not have the relevant skills for certain jobs, the bar of standards won’t be lowered to simply fill places. Nevertheless, graduate places are still increasingly competitive (I’ll be writing about Microsoft at some point in the near future offering undergraduate positions).
Zack Whittaker, the youngest in the ZDNet network, is a British student at the University of Kent, Canterbury, where he studies BA (Hons) Criminology and Social Policy. His insight into the next-generation is unique and first-hand, sharing his knowledge of the here and now but more so what's next and how to get there.
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