Background to the Research

• This research is a continuation of past research into the employment lives of graduates in the period just after they leave full-time education. It especially wanted to ascertain the skills and abilities the graduates felt they had attained and how relevant they found them to be in the workplace, as well as looking at whether employers used the full capability of their graduate employees.
  

Research Approach

• Two approaches were used; firstly, a survey of graduates who had entered higher education in 1991, most of whom graduated by 1995, and secondly, in-depth telephone interviews were conducted with a small sample of the questionnaire respondents.
  

Main Findings

Higher Education Experience

• At sub-degree level, 60% of entrants had A-Levels and 36% had BTEC qualifications, as opposed to degree level entrants, where the vast majority had A- Level qualifications.
• 60% of sub-degree and degree entrants studied in NI. Choice of location was connected to their community and social class. Manual class groups where more likely to remain in NI, as where Catholics, while those from professional groups, and Protestants, where more likely to study in GB.
• 41% of sub-degree level entrants studied business studies, with engineering and technology based subjects also proving popular.
• 93% of degree entrants and 80% of sub-degree entrants completed their courses.

Labour Market Experience

• 83% of respondents were in full-time employment, with only 2.5% unemployed. Full-time employment depended to some extent on the subject studied at University; those who studied the arts had 50% employment, while graduates in medicine had 95.5% employment.
• More than 30% of graduates experienced unemployment but the period was relatively short, typically less than six months. After six months, there was a steady decline in unemployment.
• 76% of respondents were in professional type occupations. Men were predominant in science-based professions, women in education, welfare and health, and clerical related occupations.
• 50% of respondents felt that they were employed at graduate level. 57% entered jobs where a degree wasn't required. The likelihood of having a graduate level job was reduced if a student had initially studied at sub-degree level.
• 78% of respondents in full time employment were working in small to medium sized enterprises.
• The respondent's average income was just over £18,000. Men earned more than £2,000 per year more than women, with the lowest paid occupations being in the clerical and secretarial sector. Those working in NI earned less than those who worked abroad.

Skill Utilization and Development

• Respondents were most confident about their skills in 'traditional academic' abilities, and least assured about their entrepreneurial and numerical skills, although this was to some extent dependent on the course they studied.
• Those who studied outside NI rated their skill development higher than those who remained in NI, especially in areas such as self-confidence and independence.
• Respondents felt that their skills were not consistently used in employment, those that proved most useful were interpersonal skills, teamwork, and the ability to prioritise tasks.
• Interviewed graduates said that skill development post graduation was dependent on the employer; their training, their perception of how to make the most of the graduates in their firm and the extent to which they supported the graduates.

Geographical mobility

• Of those who studied in NI, 21.7% left. Of those who left, more were male. The results showed that more Catholics were likely to leave than Protestants.
• 67.1% of those who studied outside NI continued to live elsewhere.
• Patterns drawn from those who leave NI after study show that the typical 'leaver' is Catholic, male and under 26, while those who return after studying away from NI are typically Protestant, female and also under 26.