Postgraduate Study and Training – Why?

The Information Age; The Learning Age; The Knowledge Economy; ‘Working Smarter’; Phrases for the 21st Century. What unites them is their implication that education has a key role in driving our society and our economy. And yet most of the literature written by Careers Services, like ours, on postgraduate study is shot through with cautions and caveats.

Why should this be so? And in particular why should this be so when we Careers Advisers, are all employed by Universities which naturally have a vested interest in marketing their programmes of study?

There are a number of reasons. One of them is that Careers Services are professionally committed to the needs and priorities of the student. Call us ‘old fashioned’, but we want you to win. Therefore we would like you to have the full facts before making decisions to enrol on postgraduate courses. Our Universities have marketing departments to persuade you to the particular benefits of particular courses, but that is their job not ours.

The second reason follows on from the first.  You need the full facts so that you can make an appropriate judgement about how you spend the next phase of your life.

Helping you in the making of that judgement is what we are interested in. Most professional Careers Advisers are committed to a notion that has come to be     known as ‘Career Management’. The more cynical of my student clients tend to dismiss the as some kind of corporate-speak. I do not think it is. It is about you using all the intellectual, emotional and spiritual resources you have to exercise some sort of control over your working life.

Career Management implies a conscious building up of skills and knowledge. Its aim is to make you more effective in your current role and also to prepare the ground for the transitions you will need to make as your career, your aspirations and your needs change.

Postgraduate study is potentially a powerful agent in your mastery of Career Management.

About 1 in 5 of UK university students do a course of further study in the year after graduation. Many more take up courses in the subsequent years. So why do they do it?

They feel it will improve their job prospects

Although this sounds common sense there is no data that I know of, that demonstrates that Masters students do better than honours graduates in terms of employment in the UK. It is true that in some European countries and in the United States there is a more developed sense of the employment value of masters level study – though in my view it relates more to vocationally focused courses in business, technology and social science. No, the value of a Masters is all about the value that the student places on it. It may about the depth of study, the focus or the opportunity to conduct a piece of extended research.

What is the pass rate for my psychometric tests?

This question was posed recently by a student to a Careers Adviser at Salford University. The Careers Adviser did not know the answer so he contacted all the other University Careers Services to gather the thoughts of Careers Advisers from all round the country. Of course, the real answer to the question begins: ‘It all depends…’ but the views and experiences from all around the UK make interesting reading. Thanks to the collected wisdom of the Careers Advisers of AGCAS (Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services), and only read on if you are able to cope with deeply ambiguous data.

Whatever you make of all this you can get a strong predictor of your own performance in psychometrics and a chance to discuss what your results might mean by signing up to one of our practice sessions.

Views of Careers Advisers
1

A Tale of Woe
’I think the reason that this question has provoked interest is down to the lack of transparency within this aspect of the recruitment process. Many test developers will say that the tests that they develop are normative tests and that there is no pass of fail in the exam sense. All well and good but in terms of selection they are in effect being used in this manner (or at least that is how the student/graduate sees it – “They said that I failed the tests” is one oft-quoted line) i.e. the applicant has failed to reach a particular standard.

Now you can bang on about the nature of the tests being normative but at the end of the day an applicant will “pass or fail” on the basis of falling below a particular percentile or scoring above. This of course may vary from company to company and from job to job, so why can’t a recruiter just say that we are looking for individuals who score above this or that level in the tests, particularly those who test at the very beginning of the selection process?

I know that the response to this will be, “well it depends”  for all the reasons listed below but I think you can see the point of the graduate who says they “failed” the tests and don’t actually know what their results were/are or received feedback on their performance – it all seems a bit mysterious.

If this bugs me – think about it from the graduate’s perspective! Feel free to disagree with this if you will but I’ve heard too many tales of woe from graduates for it not to.’

 The question I asked was:

“Does anybody out there know if there is a typical cut-off score that recruiters use to select/reject applicants applying to graduate positions?

I realise that the answer is probably “Well that depends on the employer”, but does anyone have any concrete examples to offer just to get an idea of the range?

Apologies if the question sounds a little simplistic but I’ve just seen a graduate who has sat a number of selection tests and has asked the question of recruiters and got no answer.  In fact, I’ve asked the question myself of some recruiters and received no answer. So…wouldn’t it just be nice to know?”

2
Pre-screening versus Assessment Centres
“I guess, as you say, it depends on how they are used.
If used prior to an assessment centre to reduce the pile of eligible applicants a cut off may be applied consistently e.g. anything less than a C on SHL numerical reasoning for an accountancy role would be rejected…………  I would have thought C on SHL for any job would be typical, and for some roles it would be higher.

However, if used as part of an assessment centre, the cut off might be waived if the candidate had performed well in any other exercises measuring the same ability/competency.”

3

Top Half? Top Quarter? Bottom Quarter?
“I did a testing module as part of my CIPD (Chartered Institue of Personnel and Development) and it really does vary. I think a number use it to cut off the bottom half / quarter, some about the middle and some use it to cream off the upper quartile. SHL may be willing to provide a rough idea, but employers tend to want to keep it confidential how they are using the tests.”

4

City Firms
“I have worked as a graduate recruiter and yes it does depend on the employer. Both City businesses I worked for used the verbal and numerical tests (MGIB) and acceptable scores ranged from 40%ile to 60%ile. However, the scores in some cases were used in conjunction with feedback from interviews and assessment centres. However, in my experience they have also been used for pre-selection (i.e. don’t pass don’t get an interview)”

5

One Firm’s Practice
“I know a couple of years ago Hilton International were using Gap3 SHL tests,numerical reasoning and verbal reasoning and had a cut off of 30% on one and 50% on the other, but didn’t mind which was which.”

6

Commercial Confidentiality
“My own view is that any cut offs should be absolutely individualised to the Company/organisation’s needs. That being the case differing cut offs say in SHL material could be regarded as commercially confidential, although I do
recall seeing someone who had allegedly failed a Maths test with a large firm of accountants because he hadn’t achieved the 95th percentile!”

7

Case Law

“Most reputable firms who understand testing will base their “cut-off” point, at least initially, on performance against norms.  The “pass mark” therefore depends as much on the norm group being used for comparison as it does on the employer. So if you are applying, say, to a firm of actuaries that is using norm data specifically from trainee actuaries, you may be competing with a much more able norm group than at a firm where very general graduate norms are used.  Whilst eventually a “pass mark” may emerge, for reputable firms it normally has its basis in performance against a norm.

The stage in the selection process that tests are used is also
significant.  If you are applying to firms who only test at final selection stage, tests will be a far less significant part of the process than when tests are used to “screen” applicants early in the process (however, even in this situation, employers are often only looking for average scores).

How norms are used, varies enormously from firm to firm, but on the few occasions when I have managed to find out about the policies of individual firms, I have found that most firms are only hoping that candidates will perform at about the 50th percentile level  - referring to the earlier point, this obviously depends hugely on the norm group being used.

I have found that where tests are used only at final stage, employers will often bend over backwards to help candidates who have performed well in all other aspects of the process.

I have dealt with several (at least six) candidates for jobs with big accountancy firms who have been sent away to practice, having performed appallingly in the tests but well in everything else.In all but one case, the candidates did lots of practice, retook the tests, did just as badly (as you’d expect them to!), but were offered jobs anyway!

8

Bank Recruitment

“In a prior life I used to be a graduate recruiter for a major clearing bank. Although that was some 5/6 years ago, at that time, we did not impose a cut-off point for psychometric tests – the tests were merely part of the process and results were looked at alongside other evidence, application
form, performance at first and second interviews etc.

There was no pass/fail mark for the tests themselves but the results were used either to raise queries about candidates with the interviewers or were looked at for confirmatory evidence for issues that became apparent in other parts of the assessment process.”

9

More Confusion
“If its any use I can tell you that I used the 20th percentile as the cut-off when I was recruiting, but I heard one employer recently say that they looked for a minimum of 60th percentile.”

10

Variations in same firm between functions
“Don’t know if what I’ve been told is ‘typical’ and they might vary across function and each year but three examples I know of were all at 40^th percentile for verbal and numerical.

These were big graduate recruiters using SHL tests or very similar to GAP series 3. All general business functions and three different industries so seems to be a good guide though I do stress to students that the same companies may look for higher scores for some specific functions. And that
I’ve never heard what investment banks and management consultancies use for their cut-offs so I’d imagine they’d be higher or hard to compare as the numeracy tests are often harder than GAP series.

Of course also depends on when the tests are used and the candidate. When I visited a confectionery company a couple of years ago I don’t think they revealed the level they look for, though gave impression above average, but they did say they’d taken one candidate in the 15th percentile for numeracy. This wasn’t common of course but the tests were at the assessment centre and the test results didn’t match her performance in other tasks which was outstanding across the board. So in her case they made an exception and took the risk, which shows that unless the tests are online at an early stage, the cut-off maybe flexible.”

11

Engineering Versus Finance
“I’ve been on a number of employer visits in recent months, mostly in the engineering sector, and the general concensus in the companies I have visited seems to be that the cut off point is anything below the 50^th percentile.  As recruitment of suitable engineering graduates into training programmes seems always to create a few difficulties, this figure may well be lower than that for, say, business or finance graduates competing for commercial training, but I have no direct experience to back this suspicion up!”

12

Top Whack
“I know that recruiters I have spoken to who are happy to divulge this information tend to look for people at around the 90^th percentile though most insist that they take a wider view of the applicant than aptitude test results alone.”

13

Retail Bank
“Before becoming a careers adviser I used to work
in graduate recruitment for a retail bank.  We used ability tests – verbal and numerical reasoning tests – alongside first interviews, after an initial screening on the application forms submitted.  This was for recruitment to a generalist graduate training programme.

We used a cut off point that was not too demanding.  It was based on research and analysis that had been done previously that indicated people performing in the tests below a certain point would subsequently struggle in the professional banking qualification exams that were an integral part of the graduate training programme.  The norm group that we used was based on previous applicants who had sat the tests (as such
these were people who had already passed initial screening) as part of our recruitment process over the previous few years (we, via SHL whose tests we used, updated our norm groups every couple of years).  The cut off point we used, if I remember correctly, was the 16th percentile, or
a STEN score of 3.  Candidates had to get more than this.  Anything less and however well the candidates had interviewed they would not progress to the next, and final, selection stage which was the Assessment Centre.
We did the tests and the interviews on the same day.  Each year it was only a relatively small number of people who were affected in this way, but there were some.

I’m sure, as you suggest, different employers use different norm groups and cut off points, and use tests at different times in their selection processes.  No doubt some are taking those scoring in the highest percentiles.  Others will perhaps have a minimum cut-off point.  Others may well retain the tests scores and use them, probably in a weighted form, alongside all the other evidence they collect during the selection process.  Knowing how the tests might be used can perhaps help candidates, but even knowing what the cut-off score was for a particular employer wouldn’t really help a candidate applying for them as there are so many ‘uncertainties’ in the process – what the norm group is, how many questions you actually need to get right, how many you have actually got right!

What I would say is that anyone who had interviewed really well but was borderline on the tests I would go back and look at the test answer sheets themselves to see the percentage they had got right, out of how many they had attempted.  Where, say, the cut off point was 13 questions
correctly answered if the candidate had only attempted 14 and got 13 right, whilst another had got 13 out of 35 right, I would be tempted to give the former one the benefit of the doubt and put them through to the next stage on the basis that they had adopted a strategy of going slower, but concentrating on getting the ones attempted right.  For us that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.  For other employers it might be!?!

I couldn’t really comment much on other employer strategies and processes, but I’m guessing that they are probably pretty similar to ones I have highlighted.”

14
How long is a piece of string?
“There are not officially ‘cut off’ scores for psychometric tests. Different tests are measuring different kinds of aptitudes and abilities ,in the case of personality tests then there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ test results at all.  In the case of aptitude or ability tests, individual’s test results are compared with a set of norms, which indicate how that individual compares with a group of people that fit the profile the employer is keen to employ.  If they fall within a given range, then the result should indicate that they would be able to do a particular job.
However, test results should not be used in isolation – they should make up only a part of the selection process. It is unlikely that an employer would employ someone based on test results alone, although they may reject someone on that basis.  An ideal selection test should be objective and be able to discriminate between candidates on the basis of their ability.  It should also closely match the key elements of the job.  All tests have different scoring methods and different norm values, so it is difficult to generalise.

BPS good practice guidelines suggest that all test takers should get feedback on their test results, so perhaps the student in question could ask for written or verbal feedback on their performance.

For more information, have a look at the BPS site www.psychtesting.org.uk “

“I’m currently filling out the Bank of England form and it says to upload a personal development plan if I did one at university. Is there a standard format for these – do you have one that you send out to undergraduates – and do you think it’s important that I should do one?”

This is the first time I have heard of an employer requesting one.

An evening at Zizzi with the Accenture recruitment team. It included 2 Kings War studies dept Alums. They had just run an event attracting 300 students and were reflecting on what they thought were some bizarre questions. They had some interesting comments about Work Experience – laying less emphasis on it that some other employers. Their line was, “tell us what you have done and give an account of what you have learned from that activity.” So maybe we CA’s overdo the paranoia about work experience – WITH THIS BUSINESS! It seems that they differ from IB and City Law firms in this respect.

Jonathan and I did our first in a series  employability sessions. I was only able to arrive after the ice-breaker and experiential activity. J tells me it did not go very well -so we need to improve our way of relaxing the students into the activity. Only 10 students -which was around our expectation (this is King’s and not UCL) but 18 signed up so I suggestedwe e-mail all the sign-ups to encourage them to stick with the programme.

A historical report on a a consultancy job abroad.

In April 2005 Terry Jones was asked by the British Embassy in Sofia and the USAID Labour Market Programme to conduct a study into the status of Internships in some major  commercial and public sector organisations in the Capital.

The study involved a series of meetings and interviews with companies running internship programmes, agencies and consultancies who had an interest in promoting internships. Also included was a visit to a University Careers Centre and a ‘Centre for Professional Orientation’ run by students at another major Institution of Higher Education.

Other sources included discussions with the staff of the Labour Market Project and the British Embassy.

It seemed important to collect together the problems as recounted by many of the parties to these discussions.

The problems described were numerous, serious and complex. Below is a summary of the kinds issues identified by Employers, Universities and Students. The ‘views’ of Universites were transmitted through the eyes of employers and students as well as the staff of the LMP, so they may be partial. The purpose of the lists is to present the full spread of what was said. It does not mean that every individual would agree with every statement

Employers

Complain of the poor preparation of students for the contemporary world of work

Find that University syllabi are antiquated and no longer fit the needs of the labour market

Find it difficult to communicate with Universities. They do not know who to contact and/or find that their communications are ignored.

Are subject to arbitrary, inconsistent and unexplained charges when they to put up posters or give presentations on campus.

Think that standards of education are deteriorating

Prefer to take on experienced Hires

Find it hard to get experienced hires with the right skills

Are reluctant to take on the expense and trouble of training new staff

Do not have the human resource infrastructure to support induction and training (including internships)

The historic internship programme has no credibility

Universities

Do not see preparation for employment as part of their role.

Are actively against preparing students for employment.

Have no structures in place to facilitate liaison with employers.

Do not compete for student enrolments.

Have not  considered that post EU accession, there will be Europe wide competition for their students.

Students

Are cynical about the chances of getting a good job without ‘Connections’

Are unable to afford to do extended unpaid internships in the summer

Work part time in casual employment in order to fund themselves through college

Do not know what they want to do

Want to live and work in Sofia

Are not proactive in preparing themselves for careers

The USAID Labour Market Programme has been critically examining the mechanisms in place for Bulgarian business to recruit and develop the talent coming out of Bulgarian Universities.

In their report ‘Investor Perceptions of Bulgaria’s Competitive Opportunities and Constraints.’ published in autumn 2004, they recommend the following:

“Reforms need to b introduced to higher education and training organisations to allow for much greater responsiveness in providing students and businesses with practical skills and experiential learning needed to enhance their value and employability in the evolving economy.”

A number of initiatives were proposed by them including:

“Development of internship and experiential learning programs in which participants get practical experience in a business and receive academic credit.”

Businesses were reported as complaining about “the small pool of people with the skills and experience needed in service and knowledge-based industries as well as the inability of the education / training establishment to meet their needs.”

This concern in the USAID report struck a chord with staff at the British Embassy in Sofia as one of their current priorities this year is to look at the linkage between Education and Employment in line with Lisbon Agenda priorities across Europe.

At the time of the visit LMP had set in train a range of activities and initiatives that had begun to address the problems identified above. For instance Collaborations with the JobTiger Employment Agency, the Bulgarian Business Leaders’ Forum were producing promising result. The problem was how to build these initiatives into a sustainable programme of Employer / University co-operation. I t was felt that there were significant voices on both side of the debate who were and would be resistant to change. How could institutions be incentivised to change?

One Director of a Human Resource consultancy had become involved on a pro bono basis with a series of careers events and business master classes at a University. These had some parallels with the presentations programme and the skills development session conducted by businesses in UK Universities. Excellent initiatives though these were one had the sense that there was a frustration at the difficulty of setting up and sustaining such work. From this director came a firmly held view that Senior managers in Universities felt that bridging the gap with industry was not part of their role, and that as leading businesses began to change in order to compete internationally, the gap was actually getting wider.

I

The JobTiger recruitment organisation has been working with USAID LMP in promoting liaison between business and Universities. Its website carries vacancies and job advice geared to the needs of University students. In some ways it seems to perform some of the functions of  the Graduate Prospects organisation in the UK (www.prospects.ac.uk) Despite being highly proactive and energetic, there was a sense that their interventions at Universities would be hard to sustain without more resources and partners. They too reported a sense of cynicism among students who felt that the only way to get a job was through personal connections

Drivers for change

A number of organisations in the public and private sector had inaugurated internship programme over the last few years.

The reasons for setting up an internship programme were various. For a large technology company we visited the reasons were straightforward. The programme was a response to business needs. Department heads were clear that they needed high quality technical graduates in order to complete specific projects. They had ideas about what interns could do. The wanted technical students to perform technical roles. They were clear that the internships were an opportunity to assess the trainees’ knowledge and potential to work for the company.

Another major international company had started an internship programme which co-existed with a structured Graduate development Programme. They recognised the need for long term planning for their manpower needs  For them the internship was part of that integrated strategy. They were able to offer a wider variety of specialisms than the technology company.

Business needs can trigger the start of internship programmes, but so can Government policy. The Bulgarian Dream programme started in 2001 by Deputy Prime Minister was explicitly aimed at creating close co-operation between the academic and the business/public communities. Opportunities were created principally in the Ministry of Transport and Communications but they were able to use that influence to persuade private companies to take part by offering placements to students. One issue about a policy driven approach to internships is that there can be a fissure between senior and middle management. What can and does happen is that departmental heads regard the student as an imposition and have no clear view about how to use them. Under-employed students switch off or actively complain. Staff who manage internship programmes can quickly get into situation of being squeezed between unhappy students and unhappy managers.

Financial support can galvanise firms into devising a programme. One company received some funding from the EBRD and decided to develop a niche scheme focussed on their credit business. This co-exists with another programme in the business. The interesting point here is that it is possible for 2 separate departments in an organisation to run separate programmes which respond to their different needs. 

Internship programmes seem to co-exist with other links between the business organisation and  Universities. Internships were one element in the relationship or had grown out of other activities. In 2 organisations there were employees who had previously worked in Universities who promoted internships. The organisations had linked up to sponsor or participate in Careers Fairs, had communicated with Student Societies. Other companies had set up scholarships or contributed equipment to academic departments.

Managing programmes

The successful programmes all showed evidence of strong, committed and skilled management.

There was a champion to push the idea and guide the implementation of the programme. In the examples we studied most (but not all) champions were human resource managers. They were persuaded of the benefits of internships and set out to persuade other department s to get on board.

The persuasion would include strategic demands such as the need to develop staff and tactical arguments such as the benefits of having extra staff during the holiday  periods.

Typically departments are sceptical. They can see that an intern needs to be looked after. Everybody is busy and cannot afford the time to supervise. Often HR needed to coax department s to overcome their reluctance. They need to help them with palnning how to use the suytdent most effectively.

Organisations were able to be open about the problems in running internships. Students were very ready to complain if they were being underused or inappropriately used. They vote with their feet. At the same tiem we see evidence of students who stay on beyond the internship

Offered a session on writing skills to the writing group last week. Some people liked it  -though I don’t think it met the needs of everyone in the room.

Anyway, my eye has fallen on a dreadful bit of writing in our current CEP series:

Covering Letters

“Rather than being a hastily written note to accompany your application form or CV, a covering letter is an important document that can be a significant determinant of success.”

Hanging participle. Booo.

Important document. DOCUMENT!

Is it important? or a significant determinant? Pleonasm? Look it up.

Can be – don’t hedge your bets, love.

Determinant ??? Whats a ‘determinant’ when its at home?

Significant? How significant? Vague!

Significant determinant too many ants

Success    What success? Success in getting an interview? being appointed to the job? being promoted? becoming chief executive? 

Jones the Advice’s prescription sentence remedy goes like this:

A covering letter is not a hasty note to go with your CV, it could be the difference between the success or failure of your application.

I was going to offer to do Guidance Forum this week but Hilary got there first. My topic would have been: bring your guidance dilemma, which we would run in an ‘action-learning’ manner. One CA would describe a guidance issue – the rest of the group would ‘question’ them. Not to be this week, but I will include on another occasion.

Is not Railtrack

Employs 37000 people

Is bringing engineering projects back in-house

Is the largest recruiter of technical graduates in the UK

Has a strong people development agenda

Recruits 200c graduates p.a.

Is not reducing its intake

Runs an MSc programme with bursaries

Offers internships – but only in Civil engineering

ENGINEERING

Are running the biggest Civil Engineering project in Europe

Looks for graduates with personal drive

Who can wok out different ways of doing things

Who are practical

Who enjoy verbal interaction

Not a state-run company

Not a not-for-profit

But have no share price to worry about

In Engineering divisions run a 4 year graduate programme

Length matters – for thoroughness

Offer ‘Environmental Engineering’

Work out and about – not tied to computer screens

Proud of being in top 100 graduate employers list (76)

Recruit for ‘character’

RUNNING TRAINS

Operations and Customer Services

9 month training programme

Manage the ‘Cathedral stations’

And the contracts with Train Operating companies

Wants people able to make quick positive decisions

Waterloo Station

400,000 passengers a day

Managed by a woman who graduated in 2004

£28 billion Government money guaranteed

Tough targets

93% success rates for trains in July

RECRUITMENT

Has 9 separate graduate programmes

UCAS points bar on Information management (220)

And Finance (240)

7000 hires last year

Will look for early engagement strategies in school

Employee referral strategies

Will exploit mobile technologies

Had 6000 graduate applications last year

Doubled from the previous year.

Graduate trainees liked the public service ethos

And the public impact

The good employment package

The variety of the work

www.networkrailgraduates.co.uk

Terry Jones

21/9/09

A few things about Network Rail. They are amzingly good and their graduate schemes are really something.

I am not sure if people have registered how effective this organisation is. We remember BR (this is the age of the train), the political football of privatisation, the Demise of unloved Railtrack, Clapham, Ladbroke Grove and most appallingly, Hatfield.

But this is an organsiation that has a lot of guaranteed income for the next few years – with tough targets to meet. It is actively recruiting to fill gaps at management level left by the aforementioned organisaational and political changes.

It wants leaders but it won’t be engaging in the UCAS points / degree class inflation that others are doing.

Thier engineering programmes are 4 years long -much longer than is common.

Operations and Customer Services was a 9 month programmes – includes timetables, the management of stations, linking with Train-operatin companies.

Other programmes includes finance, information management, commercial property  and procurement.