Teaching graduates to mind their own business

Citation

(1999), "Teaching graduates to mind their own business", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 31 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.1999.03731gab.001

Teaching graduates to mind their own business

Teaching graduates to mind their own business

Keywords: Graduates, Entrepreneurs

One in three graduates would like to be self-employed or start their own business, an aspiration that has stayed with them since beginning their degree course. Only half of them make it. According to a new report from the independent Institute for Employment Studies, their experience in higher education is not equipping them to become creative, risk-taking entrepreneurs with business skills.

The graduate labour market has changed. Fewer large employers offer fast track entry, and fewer graduates have stable long-term careers within a single organization. Graduates are opening up their options and seeing self-employment as an alternative way of forging their own career.

Commenting on the report, Graduates Mean Business, principal author and IES Research Fellow, Nii Djan Tackey, said: "Self-employment is developing into an important career destination for some groups of graduates.

"The aspiration for self-employment or starting in business is high; a high proportion of the graduates we studied had a business idea they would have liked to pursue. Their stifled aspirations raise questions about how to stimulate and nurture ideas to translate them into businesses. Extra-curricular support currently provided in higher educational institutions for aspiring graduate entrepreneurs is very patchy indeed. But, even more fundamentally, it raises another question, about whether self-employment and other entrepreneurial activities should be reflected within the HE curriculum."

Self-employed graduates choose self-employment principally for the independence and flexibility it offers. They are not overly motivated by the financial rewards or, certainly, by the security of employment.

As Nii Djan Tackey commented: "What is striking is how focused the graduates were on taking control of the creative processes themselves, and wanting to be taken seriously. The satisfaction was in being part of a business idea, getting people with a high level of skills on board to work with and, together, controlling how successful the enterprise could become. But this is not to deny the fact that the potential for earning considerably more than in a salaried job was very much evident from the type of businesses some of the graduates had established."

Skills issues are important to self-employed graduates. Although they are highly qualified people, they do not necessarily have the skills needed to survive in business. They rely extensively on their innovative and creative skills, which they also believe develop considerably at university. Other than this, there were significant gaps in acquiring and developing generic business skills such as accounting, book-keeping, product pricing, selling and, importantly, business planning. These skill deficiencies presented significant constraints to business start-up.

The issue of whether self-employment should be reflected in the curriculum in higher education was an important aspect of the study. If it is accepted that self-employment is becoming an important career destination for graduates, then it may also be considered important to improve awareness of this fact in higher education institutions, and to build expertise among those who provide career guidance and support for graduates during their time at university.

The report Graduates Mean Business was commissioned by the UK's Department for Education and Employment (DfEE). It is one of the first in a series of development work being undertaken by the DfEE's Higher Education Quality and Employability Division, focusing on the preparation of graduates for work whilst in higher education, and the transition from higher education to the workplace. A "Good Practice Guide" is being developed in partnership with the University of Sussex Careers Development Unit and the London Institute Careers Service.

Copies of the report may be purchased from Grantham Book Services Ltd, Isaac Newton Way, Alma Park Industrial Estate, Grantham NG31 9SD. Tel: 0147 541080.