More than half of all graduates and students in the UK plan to look for work with no relevance to their degree study to ensure they get a job, with 42% expecting less pay than they originally hoped for, a new survey has revealed.
In a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, 81% of graduates and students said they were more concerned about their job prospects than they were this time last year, mirroring the pessimistic outlook for more experienced recruitment in the UK.
The joint top concern for respondents post-graduation was job certainty, with a third believing employment conditions will not improve for two years, while over a quarter believe that it could take between three and five years.
Of those graduating in 2007, 60% had debt between £10,000 and £20,000 and 45% of those graduating in 2008 expected their debt to rise to similar levels. Another concern was that many companies that students wanted to apply to were now no longer recruiting. Despite this, and recent market turmoil, banking, insurance and finance sectors remained the most popular choice of industry destination for respondents, followed by accountancy and professional services.
Respondents were divided on the potential impact of the downturn on their salary expectations, with 43% saying they were unchanged, and 42% expecting less. The majority of female respondents expected a starting salary £6000-£10,000 lower than their male counterparts.
Sonja Stockton, head of student recruitment at PricewaterhouseCoopers, emphasised that in such a tight job market, students have to examine how their non-academic skills can combine with a good-quality degree to make their application and experience distinctive.
She continued: “In the past, accountancy and professional services may have played second best to City careers. But with 50% more applicants than at this time last year and the fantastic response to our employability events on-campus, we could see a renaissance for the profession. This is almost certainly because people who may previously have chosen City jobs are now looking elsewhere for finance-related positions, which in the long term is good news for the skills needed by business.” n
