Top Employers Encouraged To Cast A Wider Net

In the wake of a report carried out by Prof Sir Tim Wilson

, former vice-chancellor of Hertfordshire University, into the links between higher education and business, the Universities Minister, David Willetts, has expressed concern that leading employers are prioritising just the top 6 universities in the country when it comes to graduate recruitment. Furthermore, he thinks that these same employers are missing out by focusing too narrowly on exam results and grades achieved with anything less than a first class degree being regarded as unsatisfactory.

Mr. Willetts clearly feels that employers need to take account of overall academic achievements rather than prowess in the exam room and of other extra-curricular contributions made to life on campus. To this end, he is enthusing about a more advanced alternative to the 200 year old system of first, second and third class degrees. This is known as the Higher Education Achievement Report (Hear) and, at the moment, it is being trialled by thirty universities. It is planned that all graduates are to be issued with them within two years.

Reading between the lines, it sounds as though the minister is particularly worried that employers tend to offer the top jobs to people from well-to-do backgrounds who tend to populate Oxbridge and the other top four favoured destinations by which presumably he means Imperial College, the LSE, University College London and Warwick. He clearly feels that employers may be missing out on talented graduates simply because they come from less privileged backgrounds.

Sometimes you find employers who complain that they cant find the graduates theyre looking for and how incredibly difficult it is to track them down, Mr Willetts points out. You talk to them and discover theyre looking at about six universities and they dont spread their gaze beyond that. That is to miss out on a large amount of graduate talent he continues.

Impartial observers might conclude that there must be something wrong with a system in which many large employers bemoan the lack of suitable new talent and yet tend to ignore the tens of thousands of young people graduating from many extremely good universities outside the top six.

Its small wonder that many frustrated companies and professional firms are now beginning to rely on the more creative solutions provided by specialist recruitment agencies who have both the time and the expertise to trawl through much greater numbers and filter the best talent available regardless of where they studied.

by: Brendan Wilde

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