Are you being short-changed?

Scottish colleges and universities, like their counterparts in other western countries, are doing a poor job of preparing graduates for today’s workplace. The biggest weakness in the post-secondary education sector in all countries is the lack of experience in today’s workplace by those who are responsible for education policy, funding, administration and delivery. There’s a huge disconnect between these bureaucrats, administrators and educators and their students in terms of their own work environment and the workplace their students are entering. How do these people who live in the land of the steady paycheck and traditional benefits relate to the challenges graduates face in trying to make their living from contract, temporary and part-time employment with few, if any, benefits including a pension? In terms of relating to what the graduates are up against, they may as well be living on another planet.

The fundamental challenge for colleges and universities is that for generations they’ve been turning out employees. Now, increasingly, they will have to turn out entrepreneurs or students who have an enterprising approach to finding work. Currently, we continue to turn out graduates who expect that someone is going to offer them a job. When that doesn’t happen, many give up and end up in jobs they could have got without attending college or university.

We’ve become very complacent about this issue and we need to end that complacency. If the best and brightest of our young people who have the brains and fortitude to graduate can’t find meaningful work, we need to address that now.

Graduates can’t afford to wait for the colleges and universities to enter the 21st century. They need to learn how to find hidden work opportunities since at least 80 percent of the employment opportunities today are never advertised. They also need to learn how to market themselves effectively to employers, create tools beyond the traditional CV that will get the attention of employers, be open to part-time, temporary and contract work, and seriously consider creating their own job.

We keep waiting for the Great Recession to be over and lots of jobs to come back. It’s not going to happen. Forget also the promises being made by politicians on this issue. They’re just as out of touch as the colleges and universities.

Graduates should organise themselves and come up with creative ways to connect with employers, especially small firms, where most of the action can be found. According to John Wright, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, over 50% of the UK population are employed by small firms. Yet only 1% of the graduates choose to join this sector.

Going forward, graduates should demand that colleges, universities and the government do more to adequately prepare them for today’s workplace. And demand is the key word. Given how ossified these institutions are in their thinking, change will only come if it is driven from the outside. In the meantime, graduates must take charge of creating their own success. And, with a little bit of help, they’re absolutely capable of doing that.