London calling

The onset of fourth year heralded a new generic start of term question this semester. No longer was one’s greeting phrase simply “How was your summer?” but it was now accompanied by the increased pressure of: “What are you going to do next year?” It’s bad enough trying to elaborate your summer holiday into an adventure-filled brochure of relentless fun, let alone trying to sculpt an inspiring answer to your chosen career path. The summer question hits the air and evaporates, the questioner never being particularly interested, but the career question requires some thought. Despite a range of professions, the answers are linked by one common denominator: London. We have all been educated in a culturally rich city, but few of us want to stay in it. To an outsider this could seem odd. Edinburgh salaries may be lower, but then again so are the living costs. Still, we happily surrender spacious flats for the London shoe-box. Why? Because we all want to fit the shoe. Edinburgh’s own careers fair is particularly centred on London. Perfectly reasonably, we want to be at the heart of Britain’s commercial nexus. I have no qualms about admitting that I too, will be one of the herd hoping to hit the conveyer belt to the capital. However, is it the most effective means of securing a job?

There is a huge amount of graduate investment for those wishing to pursue careers in management consultancy, banking or the legal sector and these are predominantly London-based. Everyday students receive a new email from Barclays capital or PwC, but what about the arts? Taking a look at Edinburgh’s career statistics for graduate destinations in history and English literature, many of the job titles are followed by a comma and then London. But closer inspection of these jobs reveals a different story to the one you might expect. Just over 24 per cent of 2008’s history graduates in employment are working as receptionists, sales assistants or bar staff. For English literature, the number is 19 per cent. Of course, there's nothing wrong with these jobs, but isn't it a bit of a waste having gained such an analytical degree?

The statistics also show a significant proportion of Edinburgh graduates doing master's degrees at a range of highly respectable universities. The proportion of graduates going on to postgraduate education stands at 26 per cent for history and 19 per cent for English literature. But are they merely becoming more and more overqualified for what jobs they will be able to attain? And how does the university help guide them to employment in the first place?

Edinburgh provides a busy careers fair, once again engendering the London ethos. This year’s event had a queue stretching out behind Adam House to rival the launch of the iPad, but I can’t help but suspect that at least half of the people going in were about to be immediately disappointed. The fair essentially offered two options: law or finance. For everyone else it was merely an opportunity to pick up some free stationery, to nod and seem interested when the man from Deloitte corners you helping yourself to a free biro. Personally, I gathered an eclectic array of highlighters and a Credit Suisse-branded water bottle. The latter has yet to move from my desk, and serves as a casual reminder of two facts: first, that my own career outside of the banking sector will likely offer a very low salary; and second, that it's now the end of week four and I still haven't set foot in the gym.

Still, while the fair may have been a flop in terms of the arts, there were some insightful lectures as a consolation prize. One speaker had founded an extremely successful advertising agency in Edinburgh, but like most it was in London that he took his first steps in the industry. However, this was back in the 1970s when, as he put it, "you could still have a company Mercedes by the end of your fourth year."

Nowadays such things are not only unlikely but also delusional. Instead, he offered an interesting alternative. He described how he’d taken on interns at a low level, how they had risen through the company at a fast pace and after four years moved on to head up accounts for some of the largest agencies in Europe. So there could well be more to Edinburgh than meets our jaded eyes. It may not be as immediately appealing as the teeming metropolis but surely other cities are food for thought - and perhaps potential stepping-stones to better London jobs in the long run?