Ignore work experience at your peril

On Monday afternoons, I take my turn in manning the reception area of my service. Yesterday, with winter's arrival and a torrent of sleet and snow falling outside, I was expecting a quiet afternoon with relatively few students walking through the door. True to form, the office was pretty dead, and those brave souls who had ventured outside looking distinctly damp and chilly.

In amongst the typical queries regarding part-time jobs, CV checks and booking appointments was a guy who informed me he no longer wanted to do a placement year and would like to know the process for changing his course registration over to the three year full time course. I duly obliged in providing the information that he requested but made a point of asking him what it was about placements that had put him off. His reply, and I paraphrase here was 'Nothing really. I just want to finish my course and get a graduate job instead.'

This wasn't the first time I've had a response like this and I'm sure it won't be the last. However many times I hear it, I still find myself wanting to ram my head through a structurally sound brick wall.

The view from my desk

I don't know if it is just youthful ignorance or whether some students wilfully choose to disregard the information that is put out there by placement officers, employers, academics and the more helpful sectors of the media. Either way, I felt the need to challenge the student over the importance of work experience and offer some facts that I hoped would sway his decision back in favour of placements.

I quoted a statistic from our Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey, which reveals that on average a sandwich placement leaver from his university earns a salary that is almost £5,000 higher than students who complete a full time course without a placement. I pointed towards the fact that students who undertake a placement on average achieve one degree classification higher than their full-time counterparts. The student barely battered an eyelid, thanked me for the information and said he was off to his undergraduate office to switch course mode.

You can lead a horse to water but can't force it to drink. I don't think of my students as horses before anybody sends me a fidgety email, but the proverb holds true in this example. Shortly after this interaction, I noticed that High Fliers had published their annual review of The Graduate Market. Had I'd seen it beforehand, I'd have run off a copy and given it to the student as it makes such a strong case for work experience.

You can download the full PDF report from here but here are some key quotes from the executive summary.

Whilst the total number of graduate vacancies is set to increase in 2013, recruiters expect that over a third of this year’s entry-level positions will be filled by graduates who have already worked for their organisations – either through internships, industrial placements or vacation work – and therefore are not open to other students from the ‘Class of 2013’.

Three quarters of the graduate vacancies advertised this year by City investment banks and half the training contracts offered by the leading law firms are likely to be filled by graduates who have already completed work experience with the employer.

Over half the recruiters who took part in the research warn that graduates who have 
had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations’ graduate programmes.

These aren't statements put out by placement officers who are touting for business. These are research findings based upon a survey of leading graduate employers. I don't think anything could spell out the importance of work experience in clearer language. A large chunk of graduate opportunities are only open to students who already worked within that organisation, be it a placement, internship or vacation scheme. If you have not already got work experience within an investment bank, you've little chance of getting in as a graduate.

I know that finding a placement is not an easy task. I know it is a painstaking and time consuming activity. I know that people don't like the taste of rejection. I know how disheartening it can be to spend hours in front of an online form only to have an automated thanks but no thanks message bounce back moments later. It is hard, it is tough and there will be times when you may find yourself questioning why you are putting yourself through it all. But I also know how many graduates struggle to secure jobs when they leave university. I know how many come back to talk to careers consultants and regret not paying a little more attention to what their placement officer tried to tell them a couple of years earlier. And I know just how competitive it is to get onto a graduate scheme.With 'no previous work experience' there is 'little or no chance of receiving a job offer' for 'graduate programmes.'

If that doesn't convince you of the importance of work experience, quite simply nothing will.

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