This summary of the Annual Report covers the period from April 2003 to April 2004 and also includes tables on the destination of Cambridge first-degree graduates and postgraduates who completed their studies in the academic year 2002-03.
The full report is available as a pdf from our website at http://www.careers.cam.ac.uk/ or as a paper copy, on request from director@careers.cam.ac.uk (tel. 01223 338294).
Cambridge graduates have continued to enjoy success in an employment market which was difficult for some sectors. The overall percentages of first-degree graduates entering full-time employment (51%) and vocational training and further study (39%) are similar to last year. The number of first-degree graduates unemployed six months after graduation was 3.9%; for M.Phils. the figure was 2.7%; and for postgraduate students, 1.4%. We worked closely with the University's Student Records and Statistics section, the Development Office, and the Management Information Services Division to gather the destination data from over 7,000 students, and I am grateful for their support.
The Higher Education Bill and national debate on the introduction of student fees brought the Careers Service centre-stage to many local discussions. To meet the needs of any students in debt, we have enhanced our service to include marketing ourselves more to first-year students and to gathering and promoting more paid vacation opportunities.
2003-04 was another busy year for us all, with new initiatives, reaching more students and offering more events. I am, as always, grateful to my colleagues for taking on the additional work and facing these challenges with their usual enthusiasm and willing spirit.
Gordon Chesterman
Director, July 2004
Confidential one-to-one student interviews with a Careers Adviser still form the backbone of the service we offer to Cambridge students, while more advice and information is now being provided, on a personal basis, to students by e-mail and by informal conversations with those Careers Advisers on duty at our events. Over the year, 2,000 students attended an individual appointment with Careers Advisers, either for twenty to thirty minutes or for longer 45-minute appointments. Careers Adviser replies to personal e-mails from students more than doubled from 850 to 1,850. While we accept that some students may have an urgent concern that e-mail allows them to pose immediately, we still try and encourage them to visit us for a personal discussion: so much more can be achieved in the time that it takes us to draft a substantive written reply. Devised to meet the need for immediate help, our 'Quick Query' sessions, which allow a student to see a Careers Adviser on the same day, have proved popular, and 150 students took advantage of them.
In response to the Higher Education Bill and debate on student top-up fees, we sense that students' expectations are changing and that they are taking an earlier and active interest in career paths. We are making a more concerted effort to market our service to first-year students, letting them know what we offer and how they can access our Service. Our reach into the first-year population has more than doubled this year with 34% of all first-year undergraduates now registered on our webite.
Last year we ran two new events, arranged five additional Careers Evenings, and put more emphasis on promoting employers' vacation opportunities of interest to our penultimate-year students. In total we ran ten major events and 15 Careers Evenings. Nationally, there was a sharp decline in employers attending Careers Fairs, some universities suffering a 40% drop in bookings. We experienced this too, but fortunately, to a much lesser extent. We have noticed a marked increase in the marketing efforts of research universities here and abroad offering postgraduate courses. We also provided more opportunity at our events for one-to-one conversations with Careers Advisers, relieving some of the demand for booked appointments at Stuart House. Our main Careers Information Event this year was held in the University Centre, and we were most grateful to Tom Walston, Manager of the University Centre, and his staff for making us so welcome and for assisting us in making this important event a success. We were also welcomed to the Centre of Mathematical Sciences, where we hosted our new Actuarial Event.
| Events | Organizations | Student visitors |
| Summer Event | 9 | 270 |
| Banking | 26 | 695 |
| Consultancy | 20 | 600 |
| Actuarial Work | 10 | 110 |
| Information Fair | 95 | 2,400 |
| Law | 83 | 620 |
| Industry | 9 | 65 |
| Media | 84* | 590 |
| The Works | 80* | 1,100 |
| Cam Connect | 18 | 300 |
| Totals | 434 | 6,750 |
* Includes individuals not representing any one specific organization but there to talk about their own career.
In addition to enabling students to meet employers at our careers events and employer presentations, we run Careers Evenings which offer a smaller, more informal, gathering of representatives (usually recent alumni) from specific sectors to talk to students in a relaxed setting. Building on their success, this year we ran 15 evenings, five more than last year. Briefing sessions are one-hour talks, usually delivered by a Careers Adviser to student audiences ranging in size from eight to 80. We ran a similar number to last year, on topics such as specific careers, vacation work, time out, postgraduate study in the UK and abroad, and the skills necessary to apply for and secure a job.
Our weekly printed and online vacancy lists carried vacancy details for 1,148 employers for the Michaelmas and Lent Terms compared with 1,050 for the similar period last year; a pleasing increase and an indication of some signs of economic recovery and, we hope, a result of our active approach to employers who may not have considered advertising with us. The vacancy list carries a variety of opportunities and organizations (see left) and, by not charging any employers to appear on this list, we can attract and publicize opportunities with small, occasional, or unconventional employers - a benefit not offered by commercial recruitment agencies. This vacancy information appears on our website and has received over half a million visits from our registered users since May 2003. The printed version remains popular, with a print-run of 1,200 during the Michaelmas Term.
CLICK is our e-mail news service and registered users of our website sign up on-line to receive regular e-mails from a choice of over 40 career and information areas. We have added new categories: postgraduate study; research opportunities for post-docs and Ph.D. students; science careers; minority ethnic groups; and disability and careers, giving information from any organizations specifically targeting, or of general interest to, these groups. All CLICK messages are now archived, allowing students to view all messages over the year. The total number of CLICK e-mails sent last year was 1,280,504. Being aware that students do not want to be overwhelmed with too many e-mails and by giving each category an in-house 'editor', we ensure that only important, useful messages are sent. In addition to our CLICK e-mail service, we also support and promote the national TargetedGRAD student e-mail service run by Manchester University, with a consortium of 22 leading UK and Irish universities.
Half of all current students at Cambridge University have now chosen to register on our website. They come from all years and all courses. The majority register in their final year, but we have seen double the number of first years beginning to take an interest in their future after Cambridge by registering on our website. During our busiest month, in October 2003, we saw a third of a million page requests. Changes and enhancements to the website include adding all our Guideline publications; building a section specifically for first-year students, which is updated on a weekly basis; adding to the sections for those considering postgraduate study; building new sector specific career information sections; indexing all the material on the website; and bringing in changes to aid navigation around the site using a student 'needs-based' approach. However, while over 14,000 students, staff, and alumni use our website, visiting the 5,400 pages, there is still a strong demand for all our other offerings: traditional paper publications, advice in person, visits to Stuart House, and attendance at our events. The Web has replaced very little of what we traditionally used to do only five or six years ago before its introduction.
Registered users of our website
Showing % of total student population
| April 2004 | April 2003 | |||
| First year | 1,224 | (34%) | 561 | (16%) |
| Second year | 1,932 | (53%) | 1,797 | (51%) |
| Third and final years | 2,779 | (80%) | 2,645 | (76%) |
| Postgraduates | 2,635 | (50%) | 2,785 | (53%) |
| Alumni | 4,669 | 3,738 | ||
| Staff and others | 788 | 534 | ||
| Total April | 14,027 | 12,060 | ||
The Information Room saw its first increase in student visits for a number of years to 28,631: a 2% increase in the Michaelmas Term and a 6% increase in the Lent Term. That roughly equates to one student visiting Stuart House every four minutes, every day, throughout the year. The contents of all occupational files, work overseas files, and vacation work files have been catalogued, and linked to a new facility on our website enabling students to see a list of all new material appearing in the reference files at Stuart House. All Information Room staff manage sections of the website and are beginning to provide a seamless, integrated information service combining paper and electronic information. The basement area of Stuart House has had some minor refurbishment. It remains inaccessible to students with impaired mobility, and we are exploring ways to redress this problem.
These popular and useful 30-minute sessions give individual students a practice selection interview, conducted by a Careers Adviser, which is videoed, allowing us to proffer the student constructive advice and tips. Demand is great and we increased the provision to serve over 360 students, a marked increase from 200 for the same period last year. By using the adjacent Mill Lane Lecture Rooms with the equipment permanently set up, we have been able to offer more sessions, many at short notice.
Employer-led skills sessions bring valuable skills training at first hand from the employers to our students but within the 'neutrality' of the Careers Service. We are grateful to visiting employers who delivered 29 employer-led skills sessions during the Michaelmas and Lent terms. This was a similar number (31) to last year. Topics included the skills required to apply and be interviewed successfully, and also 'transferable' skills, such as communication skills and team-working.
In the Michaelmas Term 2003, there were 117 employer presentations, a slight drop on the previous year (133), with fewer Investment Banks and Management Consultancy firms attending. This still meant that five or six presentations were running on the same evening, and competition amongst employers for students' attention and attendance at their presentation remained intense. There were 24 employer presentations in the Lent Term 2004, twice as many as the year before. The improvements to our website, introduced last year, promoted all employer presentations in a clear, equitable and informative way to all students.
GradLink, our alumni contact system, can trace its roots back 100 years when the Appointments Board started a list of 'honorary correspondents who were willing and able to offer advice on professional and industrial work'. The GradLink system allows our users to contact any of the listed alumni for information about their career, employer, or field of further study. In addition we use GradLink to invite volunteers to attend our careers events and careers evenings. Every one of the 1,200 GradLink volunteers has been asked to confirm and update their contact information and we will do this each year. Users can access the searchable GradLink database only at Stuart House; there are no plans to place this sensitive personal information on the Web.
Our list of 45 annual, termly, and weekly publications has remained much the same for several years. To check on their relevance and value to the current readership, we met with students to seek their views, then circulated a questionnaire to a wider group. Our weekly vacancy lists, the termly Diary, the CVs and Cover Letters book, and Careers Service Guide were all popular and well used. Overall, students prefer direct, relevant, and impartial information and are not impressed with 'spin' and 'gloss'. Our belief that our current publications met their criteria was confirmed by this survey. In addition to our own in-house publications we also stock supplies of commercially produced magazines, directories, and booklets produced by AgCAS, Graduate Prospects, gti, Hobsons, Inside Careers, and other reputable publishers.
In addition to the sessions we offer at Stuart House, our staff continue to give careers-related talks and briefing sessions to groups of students in their Colleges, Faculties, and Departments. 40 different sessions were run at Departments and Colleges at open days, induction days on career choice and making choices for Part II subjects. We have contributed to more induction days for M.Phil. students - important for one-year students, some of whom may need to start planning their career search immediately after they arrive.
Over the last year we monitored student use across three main components of our service (Web registrations, CLICK e-mail service, and Careers Advisers interviews), in order to check the overall use by ethnic groups and by gender. The percentages of students across these three main elements of our service show a balanced take-up by gender and ethnicity.
The number of organizations having some contact with our Service over the last year has, by most measures, increased. We saw 606 organizations approaching us for the first time, a good increase on the 401 in the previous year, and 434 have attended one or more of our events, compared with 428 the year before. Our vacancy lists carried entries by 1,148 employers in the period from the start of the Michaelmas Term 2003 to April 2004, compared with 1,050 for the year before. Employers still appear keen to target Cambridge students, even if some have reduced their recruitment numbers.
Our service to employers is free. This allows us to present a full and varied range of organizations and opportunities to our students. We offer the same service to a bookshop in Ely as to a global investment bank.
In addition to promoting their vacancies and presentations, stocking their recruitment material, providing links to their website, and inviting them to our events, we also assist many employers by offering advice on developing and implementing their recruitment campaign at Cambridge.
We continue to conduct our own research on behalf of employers. Last year we looked at the effectiveness of employer recruitment presentations and some of the recommendations were adopted by employers to improve their presentations. Other ad-hoc surveys have been on application rates, salary levels, student views, and opinions.
A room has been allocated for careers use on the ground floor at the Computer Laboratory, known as c@cl (Careers at the Computer Laboratory), where we have displayed our careers reference material and that offered by employers and postgraduate course providers and other items of interest to the Computer Scientist. The Director and members of staff contribute to, or are members of, assorted University Committees and working groups. Examples include providing information to the General Board for their internal reviews of five Faculties and Departments, providing careers data and advice to CMI researching pedagogy and contributing to the Engineering Faculty Board. The Development Office has used some of our 'depersonalized' destination data for fund-raising purposes. All Colleges and Departments have been offered, and most have accepted, careers reference material for their libraries. We have attended the Introductory Conferences for new staff, introducing them to the Careers Service so they might refer any students on to us for careers advice and information. Perhaps coincidentally, since our attendances at these conferences, registrations by University staff on our website have more than doubled. We have provided detailed destination information to several Departments for a variety of purposes.
We continue to enjoy working closely with a number of student societies: helping them to approach employers to raise funds through sponsorship, offering advice on developing their relationship with external organizations, and attending their meetings and events. The Cambridge University Industrial Society and Cambridge University Engineering Society both ran their own careers events and we helped by promoting their events to both employers and students, and by attending on the day to offer careers advice and information at first hand. This co-operation benefits all Cambridge students by bringing them a wider range of organizations and more opportunities to meet potential employers, and we are pleased to have been asked to help. We help support both Varsity and The Cambridge Student newspapers by making their advertising details known to employers.
During the last year (April to April) we welcomed four new colleagues to Stuart House. Sue Carr joined in August 2003 as Information Room Assistant and Jean Turney joined in July 2003 as part-time Assistant to Angela Dinham. Ann Hill retired, after a total of 21 years' service with the University, and her role as Assistant to Peter Harding was taken by Kathy McConnell. Mihaela Damian joined us in September 2003 on a temporary contract to work as Assistant to Alison Walsham and Computer Officer.
At the end of 2003, Dr Richard Jennings of the Research Services Division retired from the Syndicate as a Council appointee. For ten years, Richard Jennings has been a close friend of the Careers Service and brought a useful link between the Research Services Division and the Careers Service. Dr S. Alfold, Mrs S. Fennell, Ms D. Lowther, and Mr B. Headley retired by rotation as College representatives. We thank them for their contribution, advice, and support in the running of the Service. I am pleased that Debbie Lowther, Bursar of Girton College, remains with the Syndicate but as a Council appointee. We also welcomed Ms M. Gildea (Rolls Royce), Mr G. Kendall (NHS Confederation), and Ms H. Manley (IBM), as co-opted mem-bers representing three active recruiters at Cambridge University. The Careers Service Syndicate met three times last year: for the Annual General Meeting in May and for two 'informal' Syndicate meetings.
The Joint Committee is a consultative committee comprising first-degree and postgraduate students, elected officers from the Graduate and Student Unions and members of Careers Service staff. Membership is open to any current student with an interest in helping the Careers Service and we welcomed several new student members acting independently. The Joint Committee provides a constructive forum to discuss and resolve matters of common concern, and to help plan and develop the overall service we offer our users. Over the last year the committee has met five times and discussions have tended to focus on the Higher Education Bill, considering the implications for student life at Cambridge, and the effect on career choice and on the work of the Careers Service. Members have also discussed promoting the Service to students, publications, and events.
The Careers Service, in addition to serving the interests of students, academics, and employers, also has a role in the wider local, national, and international community.
Careers Advisers at Stuart House have contributed to national business and specialist press with attributed contributions appearing in the Times Higher Education Supplement, the Sunday Times, the Financial News, the Financial Times, the Guardian, and other quality broadsheets, and the BBC's Radio 4 'The World Tonight' programme.
On a national level, members of staff contribute to our professional body: the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AgCAS). Chris Michaelides is a member of their Careers Information Specialist Group and the Information Products Classification Group. Peter Harding is Secretary of the Research and Innovations Group and also delivered a training session at the AgCAS biennial conference on effectively using alumni as another resource for Careers Services.
With the support and encouragement of the i10 group (a regional collaboration of all ten Universities in the East Anglian region - details may be found at http://www.i10.org.uk) and colleagues in the Corporate Liaison Office, we have been actively helping to establish a regional graduate placement website. Currently our region is one of very few in the UK not offering a service to promote local opportunities. Our Cam Connect event brought 19 local employers from a variety of sectors to the Judge Institute of Management to meet 300 students.
The commentary and statistics in the main Report and in this summary are derived from the annual Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey which we undertake for the Higher Education Statistics Agency and Higher Education Funding Council of England. This survey replaces the old 'First Destination Survey' (FDS); the complexity of the survey has increased greatly, with significant changes being made to the coding categories. Working closely with the Student Records and Statistics section and the Development Office, questionnaires were sent to 3,668 first-degree graduates, 919 M.Phil. graduates, 861 Ph.D. postgraduates, and 1,654 other Cambridge students completing diplomas, certificates, the P.G.C.E., etc.: a total of 7,102 forms. We then attempted to follow up all those who had not replied with repeat mailings, e-mails, and telephone calls. We received replies from 85% of the first-degree graduates, 65% of the M.Phils., and 59% of the Ph.D. postgraduates - overall a higher return rate than last year, despite a more demanding questionnaire.
The number of first-degree students entering employment remained similar to last year at 51.2% (53.2%). There was an increase in those still seeking employment from 3.0% to 3.9%. This reflects the difficult market conditions in late 2002 and early 2003 when many first-degree students were applying for positions starting in the Autumn of 2003. Another reason for this increase may simply have been a result of achieving a higher response to our survey (up from 76% to 85%), as forms we received after persistent chasing were more likely to have come from the unemployed. All those surveyed were reminded that they could use the Careers Service for whatever help they might still require.
The large increase in 2002 of the number entering employment held at a similarly high level this year at 44%, with just over half, 52%, continuing with further study. There are perhaps three reasons for this. We sensed last year that employers were targeting M.Phils. (including the international students) more than they had done previously. We have brought forward our publicity for recruitment activities and Careers Service events to reach M.Phil. students immediately after they arrive in Cambridge. The main reason, however, we suspect, is that scarcity of Ph.D. funding has deterred many from continuing from the M.Phil. to the Ph.D. The percentage of those embarking on a further research degree has fallen from 71% in 2001 to 48% in 2002 to 43% in 2003.
With a response rate of only 59% from the Ph.D. population caution must be exercised in drawing any conclusions from the available data. Of the majority who did reply, 96% were in employment, 486 people. Of these, 215 entered careers in research and 84 went into teaching and lecturing. Seven people were unemployed out of the 508 who replied.
The formal reporting period for 2002/03 post-M.B.A. destinations was 7 November 2003 - 6 February 2004. In that period (within three months of completing the M.B.A.) over 82% of those responding (95% response rate) reported being in employment. Although the continuing world-wide downturn in the M.B.A. recruitment market did not provide ideal conditions for those looking to leverage the M.B.A. to make a career change, a third of Cambridge M.B.As. reported achieving a change in employment sector and job function, and over 40% reported a change in either sector or function. The biggest switch was into the consultancy sector (20%) and into consultancy focused roles (22%) with trends towards business development and, to a lesser extent, strategy development and planning also evident. Post-M.B.A., 40% of respondents were working outside their home country and 30% reported that they were working in a country different from the one they were working in before the M.B.A. Overall 33% of respondents were working in the UK post-M.B.A. compared with 23% of the class prior to the M.B.A. The M.B.As. are not included in the tables on pages 20 and 21, post-M.B.A. destination information is available from careers@jims.cam.ac.uk or http://www.jims.cam.ac.uk/.
The student fees debate has already begun to reshape our service provision to meet the needs and concerns of students facing personal debt during and towards the end of their studies. We will closely monitor our service provision to ensure we help meet the needs of this group.
The Matrix Quality standard is being awarded to many Careers Services throughout the UK and we are due to undergo a formal and thorough inspection by an external assessor in Michaelmas 2004. By engaging all staff, we are systematically reviewing our operation, and have already started to identify a few areas requiring some attention. We welcome this opportunity to take a fundamental look at our work, and are keen to ensure that this costly and time-consuming exercise yields some useful dividends and concrete improvements in all that we do.
We envisage a continuing shift in the methods which employers use to attract applicants and recruit students. Although evening presentations remain popular, they are an expensive and haphazard event for employers with greatly varying levels of success. We see a growth in popularity of our own careers events as an effective means for recruiters to visit Cambridge to meet students. We have plans for two new events this coming year: the Financial Services Event in October and the Advertising Event in November.
Technology continues to be applied as a means to assist us to manage a good, productive relationship with all 2,000 organizations who approach us each year. The on-line vacancy database will allow employers to enter their own vacancy information, which we can edit, for students to search it using a variety of search criteria: job function, location, type of industry, degree required, etc. This should greatly improve the matching of students to their desired vacancy yet still allow the browsing student to see the full range of opportunities on offer.
The requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act require all users ease of access to Stuart House. The building has undergone a full access audit, many recommendations being made, some easy to implement immediately at little cost, others major, requiring structural alterations to the interior of the building. This, combined with changing patterns of use of Stuart House by our student users (more use of on-line resources and also an increase in personal visits, a similar level of confidential one-to-one interviews but less hard-copy takeaway material) and many more staff working part-time, has led us to look closely at how we utilize our available space.