Job-ready graduates? Bosses think so

Employers’ esteem for higher education qualifications consistently exceeds graduates’ regard for those qualifications, according to a long-running Australian survey.

And notwithstanding claims about employers prizing soft skills such as teamwork and sociability, bosses appear more preoccupied with graduates’ disciplinary knowledge and technical ability.

The Employer Satisfaction Survey, now in its seventh year, has revealed intriguing differences of opinion about the value of degrees. While supervisors and graduates alike tend to rate qualifications as “important” or “very important” to the graduates’ current jobs, bosses are approximately eight percentage points more likely to offer such a judgment – a gap that has prevailed since the first survey in 2016.

And employers are consistently about five percentage points more likely to believe that higher education has prepared graduates “well” or “very well” for their current work.

This year’s questionnaire captured the views of more than 104,000 working graduates and nearly 3,500 of their supervisors. Almost half the graduates whose employers responded to the survey had been in their jobs before completing their courses.

In some disciplines, supervisors’ and graduates’ judgements of qualifications’ value diverged by as much as 20 percentage points. Judyth Sachs, chief academic officer with educational services company Studiosity, said employers’ higher regard for degrees could reflect their comfort with the familiar.

Having also been to university, some supervisors instinctively trusted that pathway. Leaders often “put people around them that are like themselves”, Professor Sachs observed.

But another possibility was that the supervisors had personally witnessed students’ development during internships or practicums. “With many fields, employers have been deeply involved in the education journey," Professor Sachs said. "Some of them have seen the growth from first year through to graduation.”

The report speculates that employees’ comparative disdain for their credentials could reflect perceptions of “over-education”, with graduates feeling trapped in jobs that do not require their skills. Professor Sachs said some might instinctively blame their qualifications if they failed to “progress quickly” in their careers. “It could be around expectations about what level of performance is expected.”

Asked during the survey for comment on the main employment-related benefits of degrees, supervisors nominated “domain-specific skills and knowledge” as the biggest contribution. Employability, enterprise, technical and professional skills also rated highly, while teamwork and “personal attributes” earned scant mention.

Similar themes emerged when supervisors were asked where universities could lift their games. Again, “domain-specific” attributes were raised most, followed by employability, technical and professional skills.

Professor Sachs said the survey results broadly offered “a vote of confidence” in universities, notwithstanding claims that traditional degrees risked being supplanted by “short Google” courses. “These data suggest that there’s still a place for universities, according to students and employers.”

But managers appear to have some reservations about master’s degrees, with taught postgraduate qualifications consistently rated less highly than bachelor’s degrees or PhDs throughout the seven years of the survey.

And employers appear almost universally more satisfied with graduates who do not speak English at home than those who do – potentially reflecting a wider pattern of second-generation migrants outperforming their Anglo peers.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com