Postgraduate Study - What Are the Benefits?

The answer seems to be "precious few" according to work recently undertaken by the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) Postgraduate Students Task Group, as reported recently in AGCAS' Phoenix magazine (October edition).

In a depressed labour market, many graduates hope they may increase their chances of landing a good job by obtaining a postgraduate qualification but the work of the Task Group suggests that many of the benefits they are anticipating can often prove illusory. Their investigations suggest that:

• Only a few employers have recruitment programmes that specifically target postgraduates
• There is not much evidence that acquiring a postgraduate qualification leads to higher salary offers
• With the exception of problem-solving skills, employers do not believe that postgraduates offer a better set of skills or progress faster than graduates in their first job
• A postgraduate degree seldom compensates for failing to achieve a 2.1

Overall the message is that a postgraduate qualification brings few benefits in its own right unless also accompanied by significant professional work experience.

So what price "Education, Education, Education"?

It's interesting to speculate what sort of postgraduates the Task Group, whose work is acknowledged to be anecdotal rather than scientific, had in mind in coming to their conclusions. Many University of Cumbria students pursue careers in Teaching, Social Work, Psychology, Nursing and the Health Professions where it is required or at least very desirable to take a postgraduate qualification, albeit alongside extending their experience in the workplace. There are also many career areas where a Masters qualification is needed if you do not hold a degree in that particular subject.

Could it be that the Task Group were perhaps thinking more of postgraduates pursuing non-vocational or obscure subjects, and then trying to break into the 'blue chip' graduate trainee market?  Quotes from Ernst & Young, PwC (Price Waterhouse Cooper to the rest of us) and RAND Europe indicate that may be the case.

Research Your Course

So where does this leave the would-be applicant?

As so often with careers, it is a "horses for courses" type of situation.  There are a great many postgraduate courses - some that offer no vocational benefits at all and do not even pretend to do so, a few that are effectively essential career stepping stones, and others that come some way between.  The onus is on you to quiz postgraduate course providers about the career outcomes of previous students if you are definitely hoping to choose a course that will advance your own career.

A Guide to Pocket Resumes

Having mentioned pocket resumes in an earlier post, I thought it might be useful to provide some information on how to make one. The following is an edited extract from another blog post with the same title from Six Degrees Recruitment, Carlisle:


This Autumn, we are thinking small. Shrink your resume and take it everywhere you go.

It’s called a pocket resume and whether you print it on a business card or plop it on your iPhone with an app, it’s a great way to share some of your strengths. Because of its diminutive dimensions, you won’t give most of your credentials when you give one away, but you will provide new connections and hiring managers with an appetiser size of your talents.

Whether you’re in the thick of a job hunt or just tip-toeing into a stealth search, a pocket resume could be a crucial piece for marketing yourself. Why? Because it’s concise, discrete and easy to use at both career fairs and professional networking events.

“It’s a great networking piece” and a way for people to be “clear, precise and memorable,” said Mark Connor, Managing Director of Six Degrees Recruitment. “It really forces you to think what is absolutely critical,” he said.

Your pocket resume needs to dovetail with your elevator pitch, and may even have some of the same elements and phrases. But because it is the size of a business card, it really must be concise.

So how do you create a pocket resume? Here’s a quick guide:

Here’s what we feel should be on the list:

• Your phone number and email
• Web address for personal website, or social media profile
• Three titles that describe you and what kind of work you’re good at – and are seeking
• Standout traits: bilingual, ability to create web apps, others
• A short memorable summary, for example: “a one-man geek squad”

So what do you take off? Plenty. “You’ve got to cut, cut, cut” to make it concise. That means you skip your work history and university degrees – unless of course they will open a lot of doors.

Make sure the type size is at least 9 point so 50-something recruiters and others can read it. We prefer a one-sided format so the recipient can jot down something about you on the flip side. Other experts say using both sides to sell yourself may be a good idea. If you’re in the arts or creative professions, you may want to express that a bit with the design or a tiny illustration. It may be a good idea to test yours on a variety of people with different perspectives to make sure it works and really captures your essence.

At upcoming networking events, you want people to realise you’re an expert, and “put an impression in that person’s head” and hands with your pocket resume.

Thanks to Mark Connor for permission to use this material.

Careers in Marketing - Free Careers Talk at Carlisle

The Institute of Marketing is providing a free careers talk at University of Cumbria's Fusehill Street, Carlisle campus on Tuesday 4th December, 12 noon - 1.00 p.m. in the Learning Gateway (Room LG105).  Main speaker will be the Institute's Regional Director, Diane Earles.

Although recent graduate destination statistics (see recent post) suggest that Marketing graduates do well at finding relevant job opportunities, my contacts tell me that competition for graduate traineeships in marketing remains intense...  So it's advisable to be seriously clued-in if you are considering this area of work in the future.

You can get more information about the local Institute of Marketing branch from their dedicated webpage

New Postgraduate Business Courses at the University of Cumbria

The new University of Cumbria Business School is offering a series of postgraduate courses that will be starting at the University on 14th January 2013. They are:

        · MBA - full time (Lancaster)
        · MBA - part time (Fusehill St, Carlisle)*
        · MA Business Management (Lancaster)
        · Certificate of Management Studies - part time (Fusehill St, Carlisle)*
        · Diploma of Management Studies - part time (Fusehill St, Carlisle)*

Also on offer from the same date are:

        · BA (Hons) Business Management (Lancaster)
        · BA (Hons) Business Management - top up (Lancaster, Fusehill Street, Carlisle and Energus, Whitehaven)

Interested candidates can get more information at www.cumbria.ac.uk/newstart or from our course enquiry centre on 0845 606 11 44.

Alternatively you can visit one of the School's open evenings in early December.

* All on Tuesdays

FAQ - Can Someone Help Me Fill Out an Online Application Form?

Some of our students clearly think that online application forms are a pain in the back end, and many Careers Advisers partly share this view. This is because it is actually quite hard for us to see what is going on in the world of online applications without starting to apply for the jobs ourselves!

As such online application forms are a bit of a Pandora's Box - you never quite know what will spring out next. But the main answer to this FAQ is that we are always pleased to hear from University of Cumbria students and graduates by email if they would like a meeting to discuss online forms.

A look at the dim and distant archives of this blog shows that I took a look at online application forms nearly four years ago.  So what follows next is bit of an update on the information offered there:

Copy and Paste

One standard piece of advice is to prepare answers to questions offline and paste them onto the relevant screen. But the most popular tool for preparing drafts is Microsoft Word, which has sometimes been known to cause problems because it generates a good deal of spurious html code.  Assuming the online form isn't clever enough to weed out the unwanted characters, the applicant can be left finding that they have exceeded the word or character limit on the form for no apparent reason.

If you find this is happening to you, a better way might be to copy and paste the answer into a text editor like Notepad first. If you then copy and paste from the text editor into the form, the extra code will be eliminated and 'what you see is what you get' again.  Note however that you may need to re-insert any formatting (e.g. bold, italics) that you want to keep.

Deadlines

Deadlines can cause an extra problem for applications in cyberspace that does not really exist with the paper equivalent.  The scene is that many people decide to apply at the last minute, the company's server gets clogged up and some applicants in Cinderella-like fashion fail to log on before the clock chimes and the system closes down the vacancy.

So the clear moral of the story is: set your own deadline a good bit before the deadline.

Extra Questions

Online forms often have more detailed questions than paper forms, which may simply ask for "Comments in Support of Your Application".  Competency-based questions are a common favourite, so it is useful to swat up on them - for example using the simulator produced by the University of Kent.