commenting on "overeducation" and "oversupply" of uni graduates

[maelorin]

a recent comment i made over at catallaxy

the 'overeducation'/'undereducation' palaver is all in the () minds of employers and policymakers.

in some sectors, certain 'qualifications' have been reified to excess - so much so that the person gets blamed if they're 'unprepared' for the job offered, not the so-called 'qualification'.

apparently, we seem to have slipped back into an early industrial factory mentality with regards to what education is, and what it is for. 'education institutions' are supposed to pop out 'employment ready' bods. no longer are employers expected to train their own workforce. if you don't already have what the employer wants, you have little chance of getting it.

even if you 'go back to school', you have to pick the 'right school' and the 'right qualification'.

on the other hand, if you come to the table with a big bag of skills and qualifications, the employer gets scared off.

for example, what job would you apply for if you have honours degrees in science and law, postgraduate studies in computer science, law and education, and an emplyment history that looks like the list of job titles at a company now exempted from all that unfair dismissal nonsense?

more to the point, who would you expect might employ you?

Comments

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

The unfortuneate thing is that most University degrees don't actually prepare you directly for the workforce. They can give you the skills to learn the job quickly, but they don't neccessarily give you the skills to do the job. It was actually the old Institute that directly supplied industry. I remember interviewing for programmers for a project; the candidates from Adelaide & Flinders usually couldn't write a simple test program, although the ones who did usually had innovative solutions to the problem, whilst the University of South Australia (the old Institute of Technology) could write code (which, while generally not brilliant, did the work). Guess who we hired. Unfortuneately, in the modernization that's been occurring in Commonwealth Universities since the Thatcher era, these vocational educational institutions have been "upgraded" to the more academic institutions, usually by seriously downgrading the practical aspects of the education. For example, a third of the practical experience in the old radiotherapy courses here was lost when it was upgraded to a degree course, in favour of academic subjects not related directly to radiotherapy, but considered to enhance the degree nature of the course. Similiarly, I won't repeat the comments that most of my mother's old friends (who usually occupy CNC positions these days) have concerning the uselessness of degree nurses (especially when it come to getting their hands dirty). As to overqualifications, there are a number of reasons this may affect you. The public sector is (was, soon) required to pay you according to your qualifications, regardless if your qualifications are directly applicable, and even if you want to work for less. However the budgets for government departments are usually set for the lowest possible qualifications for the position. Thus you can get in trouble with HR if you hire someone overqualified for a position. I've encountered this a number of times. Many employers without experience with university graduates will think they are brilliant and creative individuals who will be bored doing manual labour. This is generally more of a student summer vacation problem, but it still exists. Even if you do like working with your hands. The individual doing the hiring might be insecure in their position and feel you might be a threat. Of such things are office politics made. Which is why I avoid them like the plague. And once you reach a certain level of paper, employers will begin to wonder why you haven't got the matching job experience. Perhaps there is a reason he is still unemployed. Where is his stick-to-it-iveness. Finally, most jobs at the level you are looking at (with your qualifications) generally require the applicants to already be known to the employers (or their aquaintances). There have been a number of times where I have had to give my resume to the secretary on the way in to the job interview. It's not a question of what you know so much as who you know. And whether your selection of appropriate blackmail material is capable of landing you the position. <grin> Another advantage of actual volunteer work (as opposed to paid volunteer work) is that it enables you to make the contacts you need to spring into a career, although a career these days is getting harder and harder to find. I don't think I'll ever escape from soft-money contracts (it's not quite as bad as it was when I was a researcher in science, but it's still there. I'd suggest going into business for yourself, but I gather you need more practical time before you are qualified. Still, there is always conveyencing... <evil grin>

[velvetink.livejournal.com]

More to the point too is that half the courses out there do not prepare one. The Business Admin III course I'm currently doing {just to get the qualification} is pretty much basic office work. It's what I picked up in jobs along the way - except it leaves a fair bit out - but if you were coming straight from school to the course it wouldn't make you qualified at all - particularly re; the supervisory experience bec you are not in a real situation!

The quals I've got - c'link said {before I went on disability}that I was overqualified. & since then through tafe/open learning picked up a few more. And none of them can get me a decent job. :(

This could open up a rat's nest

[(Anonymous)]

Disclaimer: I have a ubiquitous BA LLB, allowing me to be gainfully employed. So I speak as one who hasn't had trouble getting a job, who has sat on the employer's side of the fence and who has friends running small businesses (employing between 5 and 25 people).
(1) Universities have always proclaimed that their brief is not to prepare people for jobs, except in the overtly professional degrees like Medicine, Dentistry, Engineering, Commerce and Law - given the preponderance of privately educated sweet young things from the middle classes (are we allowed to use "bourgeois" these days?) in Arts/Law courses, I wonder about applying the professional label to present day Law courses.
(2) In these days of high taxation (not withstanding recent cuts in company tax rates) and the cult of user pays, both individuals and companies often ask what are they getting for their money and expect that one thing will be school/university leavers who are equipped for jobs. "If we are expected to hand our money to government, then the least government can do in return is pick up some of our training costs by supplying employable people through the education system".
(3) In the 80s and 90s, when things were not so good (according to private industry), companies cut their scholarship, graduate and apprenticeship schemes, as cost reduction measures. "Why should we give out apprenticeships, because they leave us and join our competitors after they have finished their apprenticeship?". In the case of apprenticeships, companies are now reaping the rewards of those measures - hence the lack of sympathy from many quarters when, for example, the mining industry bleats that it is being hampered by a lack of skilled labour and that it is all the fault of short-sighted governments.
(4) Most graduates are not ready for direct entry into the work-force - not into the globalised, "look out for yourself" workplace of 21st century Australia. Recurring complaints from employers are that new graduates "have excessive expectations/ambitions", "lack appropriate skills", "can't write/communicate to save their lives", "expect a recipe for everything", "want a computer program where they can click some check-boxes and hey-presto, there's the answer", "expect to be paid just to turnup", ad nauseum ...
(5) Some professions recognise that fresh graduates are unready for employment, so they put in place post-graduate training, eg PLT, CPA courses, residency in Medicine, IE membership.
(6) Lots of graduates end up working in areas far removed from their fields of study, eg. political science graduates as receptionists in hotels, environmental scientists in retail ...
(7) In 21st Century Australia, 17 is too young to make a decision about a future career, even if there will be 2 or 3 major changes/reskilling in career during their working lives. That may have been ok 40 or 50 years ago, but not now.
(8) In 21st Century Australia, 20 is too young to be entering the workforce as a graduate.
(9) Universities and employers should 'fess up and admit that 3 year degrees are next to useless for professional employment (it may be ok to have a 3 year BA if you are going into door to door mobile 'phone sales, ...).
(10) Universities should admit that many degrees will not lead to a "good job" - they are not employment prospect enhancers.

OMG, what a grab bag of points - I think I'm trying to say something here.

The BBs could assume that a degree (of any kind) led to enhanced employment prospects. We Gen Xers and Gen Yers do not have the luxury of that assumption. In 21st Century Australia, it is disturbingly easy to waste 4 years and accumulate a large HECS debt on a degree which will do nothing for your employment prospects. Since the Whitlam reforms of the early 1970s, it has been assumed that getting a degree is a "good thing" and necessary for career advancement, thus the push to make degree courses available to everyone and anyone who wanted to get one. The validity of that assumption is questionable.

Ok - I've used enough of your (and my) bandwidth.

mary