Where Do Graduates Go?

"What Do Graduates Do" (see recent post) also contains a breakdown of the likely areas of the UK in which graduates are likely to find their first job, with some interesting analysis according to job sector.

Unsurprisingly, just over a third of all graduates ended up working in South East England and 21% went to jobs in London, although many were concentrated in the City of London and Westminster, a very small geographic area, whereas under 7% took up jobs in North East England and Northern Ireland.

But a look at destinations broken down by career sector showed up some other happy hunting grounds for graduates looking for jobs outside the centre of London:

• Marketing graduates also found work in the London Borough of Camden, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Manchester.
• Science graduates were most likely to start work in Oxfordshire or Cambridgeshire but Merseyside, Surrey, Norfolk and Aberdeen (also the main centre for oil and gas engineering) were popular destinations.
• Outside London, Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Belfast and Tyne and Wear took on IT graduates in considerable numbers.
• Similarly, graduates in Art and Design subjects also found opportunities in Merseyside, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Manchester, Kent, Glasgow and Edfinburgh.

Of course, many career areas (e.g. retail management, energy, public sector jobs) offer a wider geographic spread of opportunities but the overall message is that graduates in less affluent parts of the country will struggle to find graduate jobs locally - and of course none of the areas mentioned fall within Cumbria or North Lancashire.

Incidentally, you can find an online version of "What Do Graduates Do?" 2012 on the HECSU website

What Do Graduates Do?

Although graduate employment levels for 2010-11 were slightly down on the previous year, there were considerable variations between different subjects of study, according to "What Do Graduates Do?" (WDGD) 2012, based on the annual survey of Destinations of Higher Education Leavers that takes place each year.

One career area that clearly bucked the downward trend was Computer Science and IT which showed an 8.5% rise in graduate employment and e-skills UK have forecast that growth in IT employment will grow at twice the UK average until 2020.  Of course, not all entrants into the industry will have studied IT as a main subject at University.

Less good news came unexpectedly from the public sector with a big fall in entrants and the trend extended to include occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiographers, teachers and probation officers.  These areas each offered over 100 posts less than 2010-11 but the biggest drop was in the number of social work entrants, which fell by 420.  This is certainly not great news for the University of Cumbria, which offers courses in all the professions listed except probation.

The report once again showed the importance of self-employment to graduates from performance arts, media production and art and design. 64.6% or artists and 85.3% of musicians were recorded as being self employed or freelancers six months after graduation.

The Business Studies area is one that exemplifies the "mixed message" theme identified in the WDGD report.  Although it shows up with a higher level of unemployment than average (10.1%) and a sharp drop in the numbers going on to further study, each of the key disciplines of Accountancy, Business Management and Marketing showed high levels of graduates going straight into relevant employment.

They were also some of the subjects that produced less graduates working as Retail, Catering, Waiting and Bar staff, a denomination which covers a large number graduates yet to find a suitable career opportunity by the date of the survey - although longitudinal studies show that many succeed in doing so over a longer period of time.

Business start-up workshops in North Lancashire

Sharon Jackson freelance web designer, is working with Enterprise Nation to bring their Start Up Saturday workshops to the Morecambe Bay area. Holding the workshops once a month, she hopes to help local people in their quest to start a business.

What you can learn at Start Up Saturday?

· How to uncover your BIG Idea and research the market

· 5 points to include in a business plan

· The must-do’s – register the company and protect your brand

· Straightforward finance and easy budgeting techniques

· Set-up tips on office tech, furnishings and fashion!

· All things web – building a home online

· Simple sales roadmap and cold-calling made easy

· Make some noise! Successful marketing on a budget

· 5 essential social media tools and how to make the most of them

· Teamwork – how to grow the business without outgrowing the home

· Happy Customers and Balanced Business – you can achieve it all!

Where can you book?

Currently the workshops are being held at Trust Medical offices on Marine Road, Morecambe. The next workshop is Saturday 27^th October 2012 and you can book online via Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/event/4488741948

The cost is £35 for a 5 hour workshop jam packed with information that will get you going with your business.

New Trends in CV Writing

A paper for careers professionals produced by a group calling itself the Career Thought Leaders Consortium has suggested amongst many other things some new developing trends in the use of CVs.

Apart from some interesting comments indicating for example that 50% of hiring managers no longer read covering letters and have an "almost-universal dislike" of functional CVs, there are some interesting tips that you may find useful when compiling your CV:

• It is still vital for the CV to make a strong impression "above the fold" i.e. in the first half page 
• 'Hybrid resumes that combine an amplified profile (the “functional” component) with abbreviated reverse-chronological detail on jobs can work for those with less experience, employment gaps, or other challenges.' Translated into more normal English, this basically means: Skills-based CVs can still work for the groupings mentioned.

• For online CVs it is becoming important to ensure a good match of keywords between any person specification and the CV text, e.g. by using software like Wordle
• It can be useful to include endorsements in the form of brief testimonial statements. LinkedIn recommendations can provide a useful source of quotes for testimonials.

If you are looking to try some more innovative approaches to CV writing, there are some emerging ideas suggested in the full report. You could look at producing a CV in a series of ten 140 character tweets as a #twesume on Twitter, an infographic CV in the form of a diagram, a popup CV that appears on your website, or a pocket resume that you can leave at networking meetings and careers fairs on the back of a business card.

Perhaps what needs to be added at this point is that many of the Career Thought Leaders Consortium are US-based and it may take some time for the likes of twesumes to establish themselves this side of the pond.  But in a situation where candidates are routinely urged to put out large numbers of CVs, it is easy to see that there may be a need to go for more innovative approaches.

Please let us know whether you have heard of any of them being used in the UK (and with what result) by adding a comment below.

New Jobs at Gretna Gateway

According to the local press, there are fifteen new shop jobs coming up as new stores move into the Gretna Gateway Retail Village.

Molton Brown (beauty products), The Perfume Shop and The Gift Company are all recruiting for new staff as they prepare to open up later this month.  This follows on from new openings by Clarks Shoes, Berghaus, The Body Shop and Pagazzi Lighting at Gretna Gateway, which already provides work for over 400 people.

More details on the opportunities are available at gretnagateway.com or by email from recruitment@moltonbrown.com, tpsrecruitment@the-perfume-shop.com or lynn933@msn.com (for The Gift Company).

Source: Dumfries and Galloway Standard.

P.s. This could be excellent news for our Carlisle students. Shop jobs were hard to find in Carlisle last autumn and Gretna Gateway is just a train ride away.

Interested in volunteering abroad?

 Interested in volunteering overseas?…then come and “Meet VSO”

Local teacher Sue Ryding will be among those sharing their experiences of volunteering with Voluntary Service Overseas at a Carlisle event organised by international development charity VSO on Saturday 20th October.  Sue volunteered in Namibia and is now back teaching in Cumbria.  She will be joined by other local returned volunteers Hilary Pickup and John Dawson. They will be sharing their experiences of working in the world’s poorest countries and providing an insight into what it's really like to volunteer.

 The  “Meet VSO” event, will be held from 1030 to 1200 on Saturday 20 October at the Old Town Hall , upstairs Assembly Room, Carlisle, CA3 8JH. Also present will be members of the local VSO Cumbria Supporter Group  (www.vso.org.uk/act/supporter-groups/cumbria.asp).

VSO is now recruiting young people from 18-25 years old to take part in the International Citizenship Programme.

VSO also needs experienced, older, skilled professionals with agriculture, healthcare, education, and business backgrounds and is currently recruiting  doctors, midwives, teachers, business advisors, managers, fundraisers, and many more. The organisation works in 34 developing countries and delivered half a million hours of volunteer work to help fight poverty last year. It focuses on health, education, HIV/AIDS, increasing political participation and helping people in poor and marginalised communities to secure a decent livelihood to work their way out of poverty.

The Meet VSO event aims to bring volunteering with VSO to life, and will cover the role of a volunteer, what volunteers can do, and how to get involved.

Anyone interested in volunteering, or finding out more about VSO, will be very welcome at the Meet VSO event in Carlisle on Saturday 20 October.

The event is free. Book your place at www.vso.org./events or just turn up on the day.

Impressive careers information

Have you had a look at the National Career Service website lately?car
No? Well as a self-confessed careers information nerd I have!
And it's pretty impressive.
Careers information databases like this one and Prospects (the UK's official graduate careers website) are a great starting point for researching your job ideas.
Not only do they give you a summary of what the job involves, skills and qualifications needed, routes in as well as pay, but the further information section is great at taking your research that bit further by giving you links to industry bodies and key organisations.
This sort of exploration can lead you to ideas for work experience, key job vacancy sites, interesting courses and application and interview advice - for the job area that interests you.
Much better than Googling!

October Teaching Careers Workshops

Now is the time to start thinking about Teacher Training applications especially for Primary PGCE courses - and Secondary as well if you are thinking of applying for in-demand subjects like PE.  The deadline for Primary applications is 1st December.

With this in mind, Careers Adviser Joanne Watson will be delivering two sessions at Brampton Road campus this month for those who are or may be interested in teacher training.

You can find more details, dates and times on the University website