The need of the hour

With a continuously changing labour market, the issue of graduate employability has never been more important. Today, universities are not just expected to produce graduates with specialised subjects, but also a wide range of other practical and 'soft' skills to carry out their jobs effectively in the workplace.

Higher Education makes a major contribution to the UK’s national and regional economies. The sector supports 715,000 full-time equivalent jobs and is responsible for operations worth a total of £43 billion.

It has already been estimated that 17,000 more lecturers will be needed to teach the extra students the government wants to see going through higher education. The Institute of Research forecasts that a further 1.5 million jobs will be created as a result of this growth between 1999 and 2010.

At present, the new growth areas of higher education are student services, marketing and information science. This has made the sector attractive to a new breed of professional, many of whom have developed their skills in other sectors or who previously would not have thought about higher education as a careers option.

However, graduates considering careers in higher education should use the research skills developed during their time at university to engage in some fact-finding.

All graduates need to find out as much as they can about the culture of an organisation they are applying to. This can be more difficult in higher education as there is usually no one single culture across a whole institution. Even departments in the same faculty can prove to be very different places to work. Good way of finding out about the ‘feel’ of a particular department is to talk to members of staff or check out departmental websites.

Use contacts at your own university or college to investigate career opportunities. Ask lecturers in your department if they could spare ten minutes to tell you about their careers and offer you advice on the best ways to get started. Or see if you can arrange for a short piece of work experience or work shadowing, for example in the library or the finance department.