Career development

Section 2.3.2 discussed the current issues relating to graduates’ career development: in particular the balance between individuals’ and organisations’ responsibilities for career management and the changing notion of the meaning of career. In a small business context, the literature highlighted that there may be some differences in aspects of career development between small and large businesses, in particular the differences in types of training, with smaller businesses being less likely to use formal training courses, more likely to use informal on-the-job learning and socialisation, and having more limited internal labour markets compared to large businesses.

75 Career development was investigated in the qualitative phase of the study through

interviews. I was interested in graduates’ accounts and experiences of career development with reference to their employer and their overall experiences of work, which was not possible to analyse in a quantitative way using the Futuretrack survey. The Futuretrack survey responses could be and were used as a comparison with interview participants’ accounts of their career development in the qualitative phase. The emphasis was on career development as a dynamic process (Bimrose et al., 2011), which was not captured in the Futuretrack survey, as explained below.

The Futuretrack survey offered some limited possibility for looking at the effects of business size on career development. Although Futuretrack did collect respondents’ work histories, business size was not included for previous jobs, only for the respondents’ current main jobs. 68 _{This omission precluded an investigation into the differences between} the work histories of graduates who started working in small and in large businesses.69 _The survey did ask some questions relating to perceptions of career development, but not specifically about the career development at their job or their experience of career development to date. These questions may be viewed as aspects of career clarity – the clear perceptions of career possibilities open to individuals and the ways of attaining them (Scholarios et al., 2003, Arnold and Mackenzie Davey, 1994). These questions were:

(Q19) Why did you decide to take your current main job? Please select ALL that apply. (7) To gain experience in order to obtain the type of job I really want

This question could be a proxy for career development, but only in relation to the reason why the respondents took the current job, and not why they decided to do previous jobs.

(Q34) On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means ‘completely satisfied’ and 7 means ‘not satisfied at all,’ how satisfied do you feel with the following aspects of your job?

(a) Promotion or career development prospects (b) Opportunity to use your own initiative

68 _{Futuretrack work history information included job title, employer name, qualifications required,} and whether the respondents used the skills and knowledge they developed on their degree at the job.

69 _{Business size was included in graduates’ work histories in the Seven Years On and Class of ’99} questionnaires, which could be used to conduct such a study, for example looking at occupational mobility and investigating whether the size of employers mattered.

76 These questions are really about satisfaction with career development rather than

experience of career development. Option f (opportunity to use your own initiative) could be used as a proxy for the ability to take initiative and make decisions at work, which may include taking responsibility for career development, although the link is tenuous.

(Q37) On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means ‘strongly agree’ and 7 means ‘strongly disagree,’ where would you put yourself in relation to the following statements?

(a) I have a clear idea about the occupation I hope to have in 5 years’ time and the qualifications required to do so

(b) I am optimistic about my long-term career prospects

(c) I have the skills employers are likely to be looking for when recruiting for the kind of jobs I want

This question focused on respondents’ career plans and prospects in the future, but did not ask what these were, nor did it ask about the extent to which respondents considered their current (or previous) job(s) helpful towards attaining these career goals.

(Q42) As far as long-term personal values are concerned, how important to you are the following? (1-5 scale, 1 = very important, 5 = unimportant)

(a) Career progression

(c) Doing a job where I am able to develop my capabilities

This question does look at the extent to which respondents valued career progression and developing their capabilities, but these were not linked to the job the respondents were currently doing.

The interviews generated data on qualitative dimensions of career development by asking graduates about how their job has changed since they completed the survey (in most cases the graduates changed employer), the evolution of their main tasks and responsibilities in their job, their experiences of promotion and of career development (no definition of these terms was given), and respondents’ reasons for deciding to change jobs. It should be noted that the interviews contained an element of flexibility as well as having a question

schedule, so the research contained a mix of anticipated and unanticipated questions and findings. The interview design and analysis is discussed in more detail in Section 3.5.4 and the interview findings are discussed at length in Chapters 8 and 9.Before the final research

77 methods are discussed, Section 3.4 below presents a discussion of alternative methods considered but not pursued.