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  1. Life in the graduate graveyards: exploring graduates’ experiences of underemployment and evaluations of career successTracy Scurry Newcastle University Business School, UKJohn Blenkinsopp Hull University Business School, UKResearch Seminar, Centre for Lifelong Learning, Warwick University, 22 May 2014

  2. Context • Increasing expansion of UK Higher Education (HE) • Increased emphasis on individual and societal gains from HE and economic growth • Higher level of individual investment • Expectations of returns

  3. Context

  4. Increasing graduate underemployment • Centre for Economics and Business Research warned that 55% of graduates in 2012 will be either working in non-graduate jobs or will be unemployed six months after university. • The number of underemployed graduates over the past four years rose from 30% to 42% http://www.cartoonaday.com/college-graduates-face-bleak-future/

  5. Not just the UK! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o01x4j6ycEs

  6. Graduate Underemployment • Debates surrounding nature of graduate employment. • Acknowledged that increasing number of graduates are entering ‘non-graduate’ occupations and finding themselves in positions of ‘underemployment’. • Objective and subjective measures • Consequences of underemployment for individuals, organisations and society • Response to Underemployment: • Increased job search activity (Feldman,1996). • Redefining expectations (Jones Johnson and Johnson, 1995). • Disengagement and sense of hopelessness (Borgen et al. 1988). • Failure to launch (Feldman and Whitcomb, 2005). • .

  7. http://www.graduatesyorkshire.co.uk/graduates/blog/228

  8. Theoretical perspective • Relative deprivation theory - individuals desire and feel entitled to ‘better jobs’, comparing their personal employment situation to a referent standard • Graduates: prevailing expectations of type of employment outcomes, distinct cohorts to measure ‘progress’ or ‘success’. • Call for career theory lens (Scurry and Blenkinsopp, 2011) • Career success perspective (e.g. Heslin, 2005) - • Objective-subjective duality of career and career success. • Explore the ways in which individual graduates frame their underemployment and implications for their reactions.

  9. Research Project • Debates regarding definition of graduate employment (Scurry and Blenkinsopp, 2011). • ‘side-step’ - data from graduates in ‘McGrad Jobs’ (Purcell et al., 1999) • Call centre operatives – low levels of discretion, autonomy and control, limited opportunity for career progression • Majority of existing work cross sectional and quantitative • In-depth qualitative approach :Interviews/observation over 12-18 month period • 17 Individuals - 12 from one employer, ages 21-27, 5 female

  10. Phone monkey • I say the same crap to the same people. I know you get a small sense of satisfaction if you sell it, but I still know that a trained monkey could do my job. • Acknowledged underemployment • But the framing changed over time and in different ways

  11. Referent others • I was surprised at how many of us [graduates] there are, one of the managers always laughs about it and says [these places are] like graduate graveyards. • Referent other was central • Selective – choice and features • Challenged by others – real and imagined • Time • The previous referents no longer a flattering comparison • Not conforming to expectations for graduate • Nor others expectations of bridge employment

  12. Taking control Made and pursued specific career plans. Refer to length of time and how others would view this. Physically distancing ‘moving on’ and ‘breaking the cycle’. Losing control Questioned credibility Did not engage in job search or other career related activities. Negative response: withdrawn from work, negative behaviours Surrounded themselves with individual’s in similar situations, Responses

  13. Concluding thoughts • The underemployed graduate as a referent • Objective similarities • Subjective difference • Similar objective careers, but their subjective careers – the way in which they framed their situation and engaged with work – became progressively more varied over time. • The subjective career perspective helps understand how and why a period of underemployment may have lasting effects on attitudes to work and career.

  14. Considerations • Importance of referents – illustrated in trends for unpaid interns • Objectively underemployed • Subjectively ‘suitable employment’ –temporary stepping stone • Lost generation effects • Underemployment has negative consequences for career • Exacerbated by annual fresh crops of graduates • Reference points for graduate careers • Appropriate in the context of mass higher education and heterogeneity of HE and student populace? • Denial – despite ‘everyone knowing’ • Notion of a ‘proper graduate job’ remains intact • Perpetuated by various stakeholders – policy makers, universities

  15. Next steps? • How are student/societal expectations being managed in terms of the realities of the graduate labour market? • What are the realities? • Changing nature of labour market generally and graduate labour market outcomes more specifically • SMEs, Micros, start ups, new graduate occupations • What are the expectations? • How to manage expectations? • Challenge - particularly as the personal cost/investment of HE rises • Who to manage expectations? • Involvement/responsibility • How to prepare? • Career management behaviours

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