Hi All,

Thanks to everyone who took the time and trouble to read and reply to me first email.

These replies reinforce my view that there’s lots of hard work as well interesting new initiatives (e.g. Fanny’s involvement of a diverse range of externals) all striving to prepare those graduating get that all important first job. 

As Anne Hillary points out the idea of having some commonality in the recruitment process is not new (I recollect Standard Application Forms were around when I graduated in ’74) but I also importantly emphasises the scale of the problem by suggesting that Government might be interested.

Anne Nortcliffe emphasises the scale even more when she talks about the deepening recession and revoking entrepreneurial spirit.

Perhaps it’s worth reminding ourselves here that universities are suppliers of a service to many sectors of society but that two key sectors of that market are employers and their students. As Anne Nortcliffe reminds us universities need to understand employers’ needs, but in addition they need to meet the needs of the students who may either choose to make their way in the world through employment or by developing their own individual ways to contribute to society. They are the universities’ customers and it is their needs that have to be met.   

Jane / Ian: I appreciate your offers of further discussion: I’m based in the Leeds/York area but I’m travelling at the moment. I’ll be back in the UK at the end of October if you’d like to discuss the ideas further. It is just possible that I might be able to attend the 4th November meeting…... perhaps direct contact to my email might be best? 

I’m not sure however that any of the replies take me any further with the real thrust of my suggestion, which in essence could be boiled down to a standardised graduate level qualification in applied soft skills developed in conjunction with a broad spectrum of stakeholders still sounds exciting but a very long way off.

Any more comments would be valued……

Thanks, Martin
P.S.
Two other contributions may be of interest:
I hadn’t told my son that I was going to send my original email to this group but I sent him a copy along with your replies last night. This was his immediate response, which I’ve chosen not to edit in any way…. 

He wrote

Graduate job app

interesting responses I thought although the majority don't seem to get the point

- the issue is "Assessment" not requirement for skills

I had a good degree from a good university, my CV was written well and was full of extra curricular activities, I'm able to speak well and actually the majority of applications were written rather eloquently. By the end of it I was hitting 90% of assessment centres I was applying for.

The ideas the respondents are coming up with are around training the applicants but actually none of these things would have helped me particularly much - the reasons I wasn't getting a job were as follows

a. Competition
b. the assessment centres spent so much time focusing on a lot of competencies which:
 1. I couldn't properly demonstrate in that situation and
 2. are mainly used because "Shit we've got 3000 applicants we need some objective criteria to cut it down to 5, let's do it by competencies" and the assessment isn't done properly
 3. have bugger all to do with whether the person is going to be good at the job. (mike, my housemate is applying to be a pilot - they want, like every other company, teamworking and leadership. I think a pilot should have "attention to (and driven by) detail, high boredom threshold, professionalism, calmness in a crisis. 
c. Enthusisam counts for everything. After 12 assessment centres I didn't have any.
d. it was testing by numbers, everything else was lost.
e. there's far too much focus on examples- me giving an example of doing something proves that I had the opportunity to do it (or at least know what the examiner want to hear/see). It doesn't prove I was good at it.

Consquently the people who know how to play that particular game fly through very easily and everyone else is stuffed. 

What you need is a long course which covers a range of activities in as many areas/situations as possible where the every action of the participant is observed and recorded (not judged!) then objectively discussed with the participant. (by people who know how to do it!) Then the assessor should then review the observations against the requirement of a range of careers and pass feedback back to the participant ("laddie you sat there without dosing off for 12 hours, you ever thought about becoming a pilot?"). Finally everything (all of the observations not just any assessment) should be put in a nice big pack and passed on/ recommendations made to potential employers. I would also recommend having a second nice big pack of how to use the information.

So many people lose out because they don't posess the skill to convey their ability. This is why dyslexics get extra time in exams –( My son is by the way registered as dyslexic) they are equally intelligent but in the current educational system they are penalised because they aren't able to convey this intelligence through the medium or writing. This leads onto to a philosophical point - the world is far too driven by "results (things easy to observe and judge)" as opposed to "intent and action (things impossible to judge but far more important)". I turned up to my goldman sachs interview without a tie not because I thought I was better than the interviewer but because I didn't know that I should have a tie. Or on several occasions it was commented that my answers sounded rehearsed and false - this was because I'd given them a hundred times already and they couldn't be anything else not because I was insincere. 

A more hard hitting real work example - A man driving 50mph in a residential area will get a maximum sentence of 2 years. If he then hits and kills a child that now has a sentence of 14 years. And yet the persons actions and intent are identical, the only difference is he was unlucky.  Worse the reckless alchololic driver could get 2 years whereas the mother rushing home to her kids music rehearsal gets 15 and is scarred for life.

Sorry I get rather passionate on the issue

Hope it made interesting reading    

                                                                  and then just 8 minutes later:

I also think they should assess the organisation to find out what they actually want! I'm certain most of them don't know

                                       And contribution two: yesterday I received an email from a good friend of mine 
                                                whose been out of work for almost a year. It contained this:

 The job search continues, but I am becoming more and more fascinated ( or is that frustrated ) as to how employers deal with the issue of recruitment and communication with potential employees. Last week I attended an 'interview' for potential tutors within the sport sector. There were only eight of us and people had travelled to …… (name of well respected university deleted) ......  for the five hour event, which included a presentation. Now I know that my presentation didn't go well (I struggled with the content and the prep - don't really know why... ) and subsequently have not secured an offer. My observation is that with just eight candidates having spent some time with the panel, I would have hoped that someone could have picked up a telephone to relay the 'negative' message. Instead, a badly composed email! It seems that candidates can go to some effort and cost ( there was someone there who had flown in from Glasgow ) but the candidate employer relationship ceases immediately. It seems that this is the norm even when there are so few candidates?

On the flip side, this Monday, I completed an online application for Christmas casuals at the post office! The following morning I received a text to say I had been invited to an interview and needed to check on line. I looked at 1130am and saw that York interviews concluded the same afternoon, so booked the last appointment time of 3pm. I then read the small print which listed all the documentation you needed to take with you along with photocopies... put together the info, drove to York and secured a months work in December! It seems that just by turning up in the right place with the right documents meant that you were given work. Absurd!! I've so much to learn about recruitment!