Do parents or careers services support graduates in finding jobs?

When graduates return home - then what?

David Kernohan is Deputy Editor of Wonkhe

I don’t usually pay much attention to the kind of random surveys that people email me in the hope of coverage, but every once in a while I spot one that piques my interest.

Careers firm Invicta Via commissioned Research Without Barriers to survey 1,003 UK parents of children aged 18 and above who live at home on the way they support their child into employment.

I’m not a huge fan of the structure of the questions – the “headline” finding is that parents are pretty evenly split as to whether or not university was the best option for their child, but at the top level this doesn’t take any account of what the child in question actually did. You have to drill into the tables to find that 87 per cent of parents of children with a degree as a highest qualification thought university was the best choice, rising to 95 per cent for parents of holders of higher degrees.

The parents who feel that not applying to university was the best thing for their children tended to be those with children who held either very vocational (for example apprenticeships or BTECS) or Level 2 (such as GCSEs) qualifications as their highest qualification.

In other words, people tend to believe that what their child chose to do was the best thing for them. Which is not unexpected, but kind of lovely given that parents likely fed into that decision.

What’s more interesting to me is the evidence of support for graduate children living at home in applying for work. Some 50 per cent of parents of graduates living at home reported helping with putting together a CV, nearly 40 per cent helped in the application process itself, and 44 per cent picked out what their child should wear for a job interview.

And 49 per cent encouraged their child to apply for a job vacancy the parent had found.

This all rather feels like stuff that university careers services should have covered, or be offering active support on. I know in many cases careers services are looking to offer post-graduation support, which makes me wish that these parents had been asked about encouraging engagement with these.

To be clear this is a sub-sample of 198 parents (the proportions are similar for higher degrees, but the sample size there is just 58). Again, we are brushing up against the survey design and sampling issues – 26 per cent of parents were financing or subsidising their unemployed graduate child, rising to 28 per cent for parents of young people with masters’ level or above qualifications.

Here’s the data if people are interested.

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CareersRish
22 days ago

Hmmm… obviously as a University Careers Practitioner I am biased, but it feels to me as though a key question is whether or not the student actually engaged with their careers service (by which I don’t just mean asking their personal tutor); as a supplementary, did the parents in question suggest that the students/graduates actually contact their careers service?

Otherwise, it is akin to a parent saying “What’s that thing on your skin? Don’t worry about asking the doctor or pharmacist, let me just stick some Savlon on it”.

mantlewithaplomb
22 days ago

I think this tells you more about student behaviour rather than what support universities offer. According to AGCAS, 94% of universities offer graduate support beyond 2 years. The Prospects early careers survey shows that university students are more likely to seek support from websites, lecturers, and family rather than from careers professionals. That’s not to say there isn’t more to do to engage with graduates (and their parents), but if Universities are serious about getting graduates into jobs they want to be in, then the work needs to start much earlier, and happen across the student experience, not just within… Read more »

pgwhitby
21 days ago

I graduated from a former 1994 group institution in Berkshire in 2010. With nothing immediately on the table in that Summer’s post credit crunch economy, I opted for a second stint teaching English in Germany with the British Council. When that came to an end nine months later and I’d decided the PGCE and teaching route wasn’t for me, I spent nearly a year burning through hundreds of pounds travelling to dozens of interviews and assessment centres in Dundee, Eastleigh, Worcester, Rotterdam (thankfully the company did pay expenses for that one!) and many places in-between from my parents’ home in… Read more »

Caroline
3 days ago

David, as an Editor of WONKHE, I’m a bit surprised that you don’t seem aware that this is exactly the ‘stuff’ that university careers services DO cover and offer active support with

Caroline
2 days ago

This all rather feels like stuff that university careers services should have covered, or be offering active support on.

I think it was this line which gave me that impression, possibly taken out of context but it did stand out to me