Working abroad: tips and insights

Working abroad is a popular idea. A recent survey by Tredence suggested that 22% of graduates expected to go abroad to find work, although some would argue that this is more of a reflection on UK employment prospects than a fully formed strategy.

Certainly international experience can be a great asset to your career as this global outlook is a characteristic many employers look for. Networking internationally is useful for sharing ideas and information and can pave the way to more advanced projects once back in the UK.

However there are barriers for UK graduates when seeking career success abroad. Some may not be as globally focussed as those from other countries, who may have already had international placements while at university. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is skills as most international positions require language proficiency as well as technical skills. Although America and Australia have always been popular locations, career mobility across Europe is now highly desirable for graduates and companies. This means that graduates who can speak a second or third language are in a particularly strong position.

Where are the opportunities?

There are worldwide skills gaps which present opportunities for those who can fill them. Countries such as India and China are hot markets with strong growth in GDP. Mexico and Brazil hav skills shortages, particularly in engineering, life sciences, finance and oil and gas. Singapore and Hong Kong are also attractive partly because it's relatively easy to hire from overseas but also because English in widely spoken.
The hardest to fill positions across the globe are generally in IT, engineering, sales, production and research and development, although this differs between countries so it is worth researching if you have a particular location in mind.

How do I get started?

Structured graduate schemes with multinationals are one way in to an international career. Many international companies have a base n the UK and advertise jobs to start in London. Look for companies where you can relocate after being taken on, rather then holding out for an international position straightaway.

You could also consider taking up international work and study placements such as the Erasmus programme which allows you to study in EU universities for set periods of time.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters carried out research with the Council for Industry and Higher Education to explore what businesses need from global graduates. The most prized skills were the ability to work collaboratively with people from diverse backgrounds and countries and excellent communication skills. Stress these, as well as your adaptability, flexibility, resilience and self-awareness in your applications.

If you need any further information or advice on the idea of working abroad contact the careers service on careers@cumbria.ac.uk


(Taken from an article by Clare Whitmell in Guardian Professional, May 2013)

Career Ahead - University of Cumbria's Employability Award

Career Ahead is now coming to the end of its first year and it is with great pride that I have seen the accomplishments of our students developing their employability skills through an amazing array of activities. From bar jobs and shop work to volunteering with St. John's ambulance, student ambassador work and student mentoring while successfully continuing with their academic studies.

The Award has provided students who participate in extra-curricular activity the opportunity to pull all their experience together, providing evidence of attending workshops, coaching, voluntary and paid work to develop an e-portfolio which show-cases their skills to prospective employers.

The Award enables students to make the most of their university experience, to increase their employability skills and provide a method of evidencing their activities outside their university course. Consequently, students are not only developing their skills but also they are learning how to promote themselves through practical experiences such as paid/volunteer work, training, workshops and sports etc.

Elements of the Award consist of personal development - reflecting on what skills you have and what skills you need to develop further in order to get the job you want. Developing 4 key employability skills while taking part in 100+ hours of extra curricular activity throughout your time at university. Job searching, completing a job application form, developing a CV and attending a mock interview are all elements of the Award that develop skills helping students find their ideal job when they graduate.

We now have students that have completed the Award and it really is inspiring to see the dedication and effort that these students have put in to developing their e-portfolios. These students are the ones's that will be ready when they graduate to tackle the jobmarket, they will have all the skills that you need to get the jobs, they will stand out from the crowd because they put that extra bit of effort in while they were at university. I therefore want to applaud those students and congratulate them for completing the Award and hope that other students realise not only the importance of developing their employability skills but also realise their own potential to achieve their career goals and realise their dreams.

Well done and congratualtions!

For students interested in knowing more about career Ahead taking please email me, Libby, at careerahead@cumbria.ac.uk

Application Howlers

The last few posts on graduate prospects, etc. seem so serious, perhaps it's time for something a little more light-hearted!

This was taken from a circulation that went round UK careers advisers a few years ago, but is still worth its weight in gold.  It's a series of 'howlers' that candidates have, so we are led to believe, put on their job application forms:

"I am someone who knows my own destiny, but I have no definite long term plans." 

"I was closely involved in every aspect of my former company, right up to its bankruptcy." (would-be Trainee Accountant)

"Excellent memory skills, good analytical skills, memory skills..."

On an application for a position requiring considerable people skills - "My hobbies include watching television, computer chess, philately (especially first day covers) and walking my 2 spaniels."

"I have a criminal record but I am not in jail at the moment." 

"I have a desire to work with commuters." 

"At secondary school I was a prefix." 

"Hi, I want 2 get a job with U." 

"I have a 100% attendance at work, except for the seven days I have taken off sick." 

"Size of employer: about 5’ 10” " 

"Here are my qualifications for you to overlook." 

"Suspected to graduate early next year..." 

"My health good, that of my parents not so good."

"Like one of your coffees, I am designed to be opened, savoured and enjoyed." 

"Finished eighth in my class of ten."

"I enclose a tea-bag so you can enjoy a cuppa while perusing my form." 

"I loathe filling in application forms so much that I'll give you details at the interview." 

"If called to interview I would like to discuss the salary, pensions and sickness benefits." 

"Place of birth - A London hospital." 

"Being a Virgoan, my sense of assertiveness and resilience has prompted me to continue with my ambitions to be a solicitor in a major city law firm…I am also a seventh generation descendant of a Chinese princess and a Sulawesian warrior, which makes me…both an amiable and energetic person." 

"I do not have any major achievements that I would consider to be of interest to this application."

"...dealing with fear and being able to follow orders under terrifying conditions." (from a student member of a sky diving club) 

"I believe in helping other people and so I am a blood and organ donor."

"Up until a little while ago I used to compete in British-Eventing competitions on my horse, from which I got a real kick." 

"Working on a farm has...improved my communication skills which are especially important when working with large livestock." 

"My life-long love of chocolate biscuits, is the main reason for his interest in the company." (United Biscuits)

 And the morale of this cautionary tale is of course: proof read your application carefully before you send it off!

If you have any other application howlers you would like to tell us about, please send them in to careers@cumbria.ac.uk (ref: UOC Careers Blog).  All submissions that are decent and legal WILL be published. Look forward to hearing from you shorty...

Can Things Only Get Better? The Futuretrack Survey

Following on from the broad brush but optimistic approach of the last couple of posts the Futuretrack survey reported in "Graduate Market Trends" offers some contrasting insights as it studies the development of a group of students who started University in 2006.  In other words, most of them graduated at the time when graduate unemployment was at its highest (8.9%).

Unenployment and Under-Employment

Over 30% of those studied were still in what is classed as non-graduate level employment by the time of the latest survey in February 2012, although with considerable variations according to degree subject.  Looking on the negative side men, those aged 21-25 on applying to University (interestingly) and those from ethnic minority groups were found to be at most risk of unemployment after graduation, whereas (unsurprisingly) graduates achieving First Class Honours were much less likely to be on the dole.

There are also clear suggestions that those students who got involved in extra curricular activities, and especially those who held roles as a student representative or official were more likely to be in 'graduate level' jobs by 2012.  The interesting point here is that first generation graduates from poorer backgrounds are far less likely to have found the opportunity to take on this kind of function.  The same group are also more likely to be put off considering postgraduate study, which the survey finds has become less popular following the introduction of tuition fees.

Job Satisfaction

One of the tables in the Stage 4 Futuretrack report provides an insight into the degree-related skills used by graduates in their current job.  This is a subjective measure but suggests that the - by employers - much vaunted skills of spoken communication, teamwork and time management came out bottom, whereas the more academic sounding skills of research and critical evaluation made up the top two.  It would be fascinating to compare this finding with the original adverts for the jobs these graduates were actually doing at the time!

As well as providing some of the highest levels of graduate employment, students of engineering technologies and subjects related to medicine also recorded the highest levels of job satisfaction in their current roles.  bottom of the pile were architecture, building and planning with creative arts and design - so perhaps it's only two cheers for hopes of creative satisfaction in the longer term.

From Futuretrack Stage 4 Report p. 92

Gender

It's also only two cheers for gender equality as research into the respective earnings of men and women show that they remain strikingly uneven, in that women were much more strongly represented than men in the £15 - £24,000 range. Men were far more likely to be earning more, even though there was no substantial gender difference in the UCAS points held by those surveyed.

Almost 40 years after the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act, there were only two silver linings for women in the research:

• In the not-for-profit sector alone, reported salary levels were roughly equal with those earned by men.
• The minority of women who were earning salaries of £40,000 plus actually recorded higher levels of job satisfaction than their male counterparts.

But the researchers reserved their most forthright comments on the subject for the Law sector: "Compared with the Education sector, female law graduates seeking a professional career should be aware that the profession remains some forty years behind the times with respect to the elimination of gendered career paths."

Strong words indeed!

But Are Things Getting Better?..

The work of Futuretrack shows some aspects of individual choice (degree subject, extra-curricular activity) that can affect future job prospects but you cannot unfortunately choose the year you graduate.

Since 2009, prospects for graduates have been getting better and more recently Careers Advisers are noticing an increasing number of vacancies, for example coming in to the University of Cumbria Jobshop

Even the public sector is starting to recover, with evidence of increasing numbers of vacancies for newly-qualified teachers and something of a shortage of qualified nurses.

More Jobs for Graduates!

A recent Skills and Employment Survey by researchers at the Institute of Education shows that graduate jobs are at a record high and unskilled jobs at a record low. The full results will be launched on 20 May and last week the BBC published the first report on this change in the UK labour market.

According to the report, more than a quarter of jobs are now available solely to graduates – this seems to indicate that many more employers in the UK are recognising the skills and qualities a Higher Education degree gives people the chance to develop.

The change is indicative of a shift in the country’s economy towards a more skills based economy and a move away from unskilled jobs. This is a major shift from the situation for example in the 1980s where only one in 10 jobs required a degree level qualification.

This change doesn’t only affect full time jobs, in fact part time workers have seen the proportion of jobs available to unqualified workers fall by more than half since the mid-1980s

The report also shows that the number of people who are ‘under-employed’ i.e. graduates in non-graduate level jobs is falling year on year, meaning that more people with degree who find employment are likely to find it at the right level.

What this report does not address is those who do not find employment in the first place. It only looks at those graduates who are in a job at the moment.

Overall this is good news for graduates, it means less chance of under-employment, it means employers understand the value of a degree better, it means that there is a growing availability in jobs for graduates, and it means that your degree put you in a great position for jobs that come up. What is doesn’t mean is that there are more jobs out there. It shows a positive development for the future of the UK economy, but competition is still fierce, therefore it’s very important to think about your skills from an employer’s perspective, what is it about you that makes you a good graduate? How have you made the most of your University experience? How can you demonstrate the skills that you have developed and how they transfer to this particular post?

Those are just a few of the question to ask yourself when starting an application process, and don’t forget if you need any help with applications, interviews, CV writing and making the most of developing your Employability during your degree, contact the Careers Team on careers@cumbria.ac.uk with your questions and we’ll be happy to help!