Work Experience

Of the students surveyed approximately half have worked full time, just over a quarter have no work experience, and the remainder have worked part time.

Work experience Full time

Work experience Part time

No Work Experience Total

216 113 121 450

The overall picture of work experience is captured in Fig. 21. Of the total population, 73% claim to have some work experience, of these 48% males and 51% females. Of the students who claim to have no work experience 42% are male and 57% females. Thus, the data reveals a higher proportion of females with no work experience than males, while the proportion of males to females with some work experience is more evenly distributed.

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Having some experience of work is a crude measure since what that means can vary considerably. The survey drills deeper into this area, given the nature of the study and included a number of questions around work to gain a clearer insight into the nature of work students have undertaken. Thus, the survey explores duration, mode and type of role, which may be viewed in conjunction with key characteristics to determine whether any notable themes emerge.

4.3.6.1 Changes in employment status

As noted, some students were surveyed a second time. Where a student was participating in the research project for the second time, responding to the same question “do you have any work experience” has enabled changes in employment status to be determined for the group whose answers are tracked. This is clearer to see, summarised in the following chart:

Students participating in the survey for a

second time

Number whose employment status changed ‘yes’ to ‘no’

Number whose employment status changed ‘no’ to ‘yes’

159 32 5

What this suggests is that while engaged on a postgraduate programme, more are likely to cease work, than to start. The students who started work during their programme described their roles variously as ‘teacher’, ‘telesales’, ‘manager trainee’, ‘salesman’ and ‘inventory auditor’. Thus, this suggests roles which are more than low level – though it should be noted that this is the students’ description of their job/job title.

However, while it is tempting to make assumptions about students relinquishing work to focus on their studies, the data is this instance is too sketchy, and it may be too contrived to make much of this without further information, (though there is some reference to this theme in the interview

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findings, later in this chapter). What this does suggest is an opportunity for further research since the literature has shown the value placed on work experience by employers.

Further, it is possible to look in more detail at the picture of work experience of the research population as a whole, since the data shows that a high proportion of students work throughout their programme.

It should be noted that questions relating to work experience were worded ‘do you have any work experience’, with subsequent questions asking students to describe their current or most recent job. The ethics of probing this were considered in the research design hence the question ‘are you currently in employment’, was avoided. The reason for this was to avoid any potential anxiety on behalf of participants who may have been in receipt of financial benefits or grants, from whatever source, which may have precluded their right to work. Equally, some students may have felt such a question intrusive, given that the majority were engaged in full time education, hence social desirability may have distorted an honest response (Weightman, 2004; Taylor, 2001).In other words, despite assurances of anonymity students may have felt it would be seem to be wrong to be working and studying simultaneously, when engaged on a full time programme.

Thus, when examining the survey responses, the assumption cannot be made that a student who responds in the affirmative is currently working, rather that they have some work experience. One of the ways to review the data around work experience is by looking at the breakdown by gender, and by nationality. It makes sense to explore the working patterns of the nationality groups since a student population dominated by those mainly with, or mainly without, work experience may have an impact on perceptions of employability of the cohort.

4.3.6.2 Nationality and Work Experience

Fig. 21 presents a breakdown of nationality groups by work experience and gender. Of the total population of the nationality groups approximately three quarters have full or part time work

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experience. This may be further examined to establish differences within nationality groups, and gender.

All nationality groups, other than the Chinese, reflect this trend of a higher proportion of students having work experience than not. The breakdown among Chinese students shows 46.5% of the Chinese students have some work experience, while 53.5% do not. This compares with 73% of the Asian/Asian British having some work experience, while 27% not. Leaving out the very small groups (mixed and other) the remaining nationality groupings show even higher proportions of the those with work experience compared with those who have none, specifically, Black/Black British 89% with and 11% without and White 90% with and 10% without.

Breaking this down further, Fig 21 depicts the gender/nationality/work experience split. Earlier analysis shows the gender split within the Chinese group to be 66% female and 34% male. Within the Chinese group, of the 46.5% with work experience 65% are female and 35% male, while of the remaining those 53.5% with no work experience 66% are female and 34% male. Thus, the data shows a higher proportion of females than males with work experience among the Chinese students. Among the other nationality groups, of the Black/Black British students with work experience 46% are male and 54% are female, which reflects the overall gender distribution. The White group shows of the 90% with work experience, 35% of these are male. When compared with the overall gender distribution within this group (69% female: 31% male) this shows a very slightly higher proportion of working males than would be expected given the gender distribution of the whole group.

The only group which has a higher proportion of males to females (58%male, 42% female) is the Asian/Asian British category. Within this nationality group, of the 73% with work experience, 58% of these are male, which reflects the gender distribution within the group as a whole. What this analysis shows overall is that the gender distribution within a particular nationality group broadly reflects that of work experience from the perspective of gender.

130 4.3.6.3 Duration and Type of Work Experience

As noted, the survey questions relating to work experience initially start with a simple ‘yes/no’. Clearly this cannot express the range of what that may mean. The survey solicited information regards the duration and mode of experience, as well as asking students for the job title. The latter saw a wide range of titles. In some cases students had noted a function rather than a job title, for example ‘finance’. To further complicate analysis some responses were vague ‘manager’, some obscure ‘head of talent’ and some very precise with little clue in the title ‘SAP SD Consultant’. In addition, some responses identified a place of work ‘garage’ and ‘pizza counter’. In order to make some sense of the data job titles were grouped as far as possible into recognisable sectors/functional areas:

Groupings of job titles/functions Including Administration

Advertising Marketing / PR

Voluntary work / Charity

Education Tutor / teacher

Engineering Manufacturing / production

Financial Insurance / statistics / accountancy

Management Creative arts

Healthcare Nursing / carers

HR

leisure Sport / tourism

Retail Buying / selling / shop assistant

Transport Logistics

In order to gain an insight into the extent of work experience, the duration and mode of work experience (see Fig 22) was compared, since it could be reasonably assumed that someone working in administration, part-time for less than 6 months would have less experience of work than someone working in administration full-time for the same period. The survey asked students to

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note whether this was their current/most recent job to avoid losing valuable data around work experience, since these are, in the main full time students who may have given up work to enrol on the programme.

Fig. 22 Mode and Duration of Work Experience.