A rewarding experience?

With employability high on the agenda at pretty much every university across the country, it is no surprise that there is a degree of out of the box thinking taking place. 'How can we improve our student's employability?' is the question that everybody wants to find a solution. Employers, well the AGR most publicly, make the case for work experience, talking about how competitive the graduate market is. The High Fliers report concurs pointing out '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'.

I'm not somebody who needs convincing. I work with placements day in day out and know just how much value they add to a student when leaving academia. I wouldn't write this blog or actively promote placements through #PlacementChat with Rate My Placement if I thought I was flogging a dead parrot. The vast majority of the students I have helped to secure a placement over the last few years would agree it was not only a great choice to have made, but also provided a boost to their early career prospects compared to their peers who did not take a placement year.

But what about Careers and Placement services themselves? I'm not going to pretend that everything in my domain is perfect. Personnel should always be looking to improve themselves and resources should meet the changing needs of our clients in the modern era. I'm on one side of the digital divide, I know many brilliant people who are on the other. Tweeting and blogging ultimately doesn't bring home the bacon, it is the results that count and in my business we tend to be judged on the numbers. Are more students getting placements? How many are getting into 'big' companies? etc

It was with considerable personal interest that I read Professor Zahir Irani's comments in Guardian newsletter yesterday, under the section Guardian Higher Education Network.To stave off threats from the private sector, Irani suggests 'Career centres should start thinking and acting more like recruitment companies with dedicated consultants, motivated and, indeed, rewarded for placing students and graduates into jobs.'

Reward for placing students into jobs? That is certainly an interesting proposition. I currently earn a fixed salary, without bonus or incentive. Would my mentality change if my income became partially performance-related? Rather than trying to help all students to secure placements, would I turn my focus specifically upon those who I know have a greater chance of success? Maybe I would offer less support for roles at companies where I know there is little possibility of pushing up the numbers. Why for example would I agree to sit down with a student with a poorly composed application for one of the big 4 professional service companies, when my time could be more lucratively spent with a straight As student applying to a company who genuinely wants to hire from my university? Certainly an interesting ethical dilemma. 

Putting the moral maze aside for one second, let's focus on the reality of placement and careers services. Even with the employability agenda, lots of services are under resourced. Throughout HE, there has been a tightening of budgets and Careers services have not been immune from this. Just because employability has been flavour of the month in recent times, it doesn't necessarily follow that the pursestrings have been loosened to hire more staff and expertise to help make these ambitions a reality. More likely, an increased burden of responsibility has been placed upon consultants and placement officers to deliver the goods, without the reward and incentive that Professor Irani mentions. You only have to scroll through the vacancy pages on jobs.ac.uk these days to see that job security in HE is not what it was. You might find a role that you like but the chances are it will be on a fixed term contract. Short term fixes rather than long term planning.

Then there is the issue of governance within an organisation. From talking to colleagues at the PlaceNet conference, there were many who have found their jobs at risk. Some have had to re-apply for their jobs. Others have had their jobs re-evaluated. During such process, it is not likely to see a role scaled upwards. I myself have been operating under a cloud of uncertainty since the fabled word Restructuring was introduced at my university in recent months. I've had a hand in 123 students (and counting) securing placements during this academic year, yet my 'motivation' and 'reward' has not been financial incentive; it has been to not know (and still don't) if I or my role will have a place within the new structure. 

Interesting times afoot then. Hard work and endeavour don't always bring reward, as many students know only too well as the slog through placement application after placement application. The concept of incentive and reward creates a juxtaposition for staff performing their duties with an axe hovering above. Does that make for a rewarding experience? I guess only time will tell.

Update - full article from Prof. Irani now published on the Guardian website