Right now most of the popular graduate employers are accepting applications from students - but only those with outstanding A-levels. Several of the top employers demand UCAS scores of 360 (3 straight As) to even read your application. Which, for academic underachievers and vocational overachievers like me, proves a little problematic.
Rather than studying for my A-levels, I was busy running large-scale gaming events at Earl's Court, ExCeL and Sheperd's Bush, and travelling around the world writing for gaming magazines, or managing a £100k AMD marketing initiative to crack the early adopter market. And, at the expense of coursework, growing huge online communities and social hubs for various companies.
In short, my teachers weren't too keen with either the quality or promptness of my work. I always assumed that this was a worthwhile sacrifice as it would give me a huge advantage when trying to get a job.
Only it doesn't.
After a frustrating browse through many of the top business/marketing student employers in the top 100 graduate employers, i've found UCAS scores are used for the purposes of applicant-screening. And by this I mean several companies even have signs specifically to draw attention to the required UCAS score needed to apply.
Are the links between A-Level achievement and corporate talent really so clear? I've read several studies which beg to differ. So, what is the solution? Is there one?
Help appreciated.
21 November 2007
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7 comments:
I recently had a long chat with the head of graduate recruitment at a large company (I'm withholding the name for now as this info will end up in an article in our website). He said that they had 26,000 applications for 500 graduate jobs last year.
The answer to your question is simply a matter of numbers. How do you get down from 26,000 to 500? You start with class of degree and only accept 2:1 and above, you then have to find other ways to whittle the numbers down and for some companies UCAS scores are an easy way to do this. Other companies use online numeracy tests or psychometric tests.
I totally agree that too many employers are obsessively focusing on UCAS and indeed a 2.1. The truith is they typically use it as an blunt tool to reduce the huge numbers of applicants they receive. We all know academic achievement does not guarantee work based success, but in a 'game' partly of numbers their counter arguement is that there are likely to be more individuals who will be successful in work who have good UCAS points than those who don't. So in short the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few!
Importantly whats to be done...? There are a number of options, here are just three.
(1) Contact the company direct and tell them why they should accept your application.
(2) Carry out an internship / placement with the company you want to work with as a graduate - this typically means you can then shortcut the process (provided you do a good job when you are with them!
(3) Take that great experience to a small and medium sized compnay who are much less obsessed about UCAS points and let them reap the benefits of you that their bigger competitors missed out on!
Comment by Simon Reichwald, Bright Futures National Team
Sarah, I understand why companies do it, but I still think it's terrible (yes, i'm obviously biased). Considering so many of today's business leaders and innovators are academic deserters or underachievers it just seems rather tragic that this is the method being used.
My recollection of A-levels may differ from others, but those that achieved the best grades were often those with less proper work experience, and often social skills, than others.
Like Simon says, it's too blunt a tool. It's a tool that excludes all but applicants from the top-tier Universities.
Thanks for your comment Simon, I was going to hear you speak at the Uni today - but was too busy with some work.
Point 2 is the easiest route in, but it has drawbacks that the work will be unpaid at a time when money can be a big issue. It's all a big numbers game, and if you don't get a job afterwards you might still find the route blocked by UCAS results at other top companies.
(3) is probably where I will end up, or launching my own company, if I don't find an opportunity I like at a larger organisation. But at my age I'm very eager to work at the highest marketing levels possible.
You could always become a contributor to our website and get published material Richard, or one of our bloggers for ££ ... I shall email you...
Now there would be a bit of work experience for your CV.
I handled graduate recruitment for a number of years at my old agency so understand where you are coming from. My approach was always to look at applications as a whole, balancing academic achievement with real life experience and above all potential.
If agencies only interviewed people with PR work experience they would have a tiny pool of applicants to choose from. As you note this is partly the industry’s own fault in offering so few opportunities for work experience. This is why I started a summer internship programme to support our Graduate scheme. (It’s worth noting that everyone on a work placement legally has to be paid the minimum wage unless it is officially part of an academic course.)
So, when it comes to assessing the hundreds of remaining application forms, there needs to be a system of filters to select the best candidates. It is a fact of life that academic success will be one of those filters. As PR aims to move up the food chain to board level it needs candidates who would not be out of place in a management consultancy so the emphasis on academic achievement is set to increase in my view. The critical point is that this needs to be coupled with the skills of a great communicator and the former doesn’t automatically equal the latter.
My guillotine always fell on application forms where the candidate couldn’t string an interesting sentence together or where there was a complete lack of understanding of the media and PR as a discipline. Any HR team which doesn’t have an application process which assesses applicants in the round runs the risk of losing amazing candidates to agencies that do!
This is a good discussion (your post and the comments). In the end, achievement trumps everything. But graduate recruiters are used to assessing on potential, not achievement.
It might be that you're not a big company team player (I don't know whether this is true of you or not, but I know that it's true of me). So missing out might be a blessing in disguise.
There are other routes to success than working for a large company.
I know you're busy, but an article on this theme would be excellent for Behind the Spin (Daljit is writing on this topic too).
Excellent post as always Rich.
Academic achievement v extra curricular is certainly a debate I am familiar with, after an almost unsuccessful year of trying to find an appropriate placement.
I feel I'm perhaps at the opposite end of the spectrum to yourself - my academic record has always been pretty good at all levels, but I'm perhaps missing the fluffy bits around the outside: I've never started my own PR company, for instance, never worked in a country other than the UK, and certainly never run an event at Earls Court.
(I'd like to think my social skills are not lacking too much though, thank you very much!)
Despite my decent academics, I still found it very hard to WOW employers.
Perhaps, like Hovis, they're after the Best of Both?
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