Bosses question value of degrees as they search for talented recruits

Bosses question value of degrees as they search for talented recruits

Companies are dropping their requirement for graduate recruits to have a 2:1 degree because they believe the grade is being handed out inconsistently and can no longer be relied on to represent a high level of achievement.

Research from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), to be published this week, found that a growing number of employers were finding that a 2:2 grade at one university was sometimes the equivalent of a first elsewhere.

Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the AGR, said there had been a significant shift in what employers demand. 'Employers have not abandoned degree classifications overnight, but there is a growing awareness that graduates have other things to offer,' he said. 'If you use a hard and fast cut-off at 2:1, you might miss out.'

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Recruiters felt there were too many inconsistencies around what a 2:1 represented, added Gilleard.

The research, which surveyed 242 major recruiters employing nearly 24,000 graduates, revealed that a third of them were now prepared to look at applicants who only achieved a 2:2, up from a quarter last year.

Rebecca Fielding, talent manager for HJ Heinz, argued that too many students were getting the top grades. 'The majority now have a first or 2:1,' she said. 'Quality standards across universities and subjects are also completely incomparable, so the grade is not necessarily correlated to academic capability of the candidate.

'What we have found is that exceptional candidates come in different shapes and sizes and may have a 2:2, particularly people who have been running their own business, doing sport or those at intensive, very high standard institutions,' Fielding added. Employers that cut off all candidates failing to achieve a 2:1 were missing out on top talent.

Heinz uses the Recruiters Guide to Courses and Campuses, from the company Real World, which helps employers to evaluate courses by comparing the A-level results of their students with how many 2:1s and firsts are awarded. Meanwhile, 20 universities are about to start trialling the Higher Education Achievement Record (HEAR), an end-of-degree transcript that includes not only the student's final grade, but also their extra-curricular activities and how well they performed in different exams and projects.

HEAR was recommended by a committee led by Professor Robert Burgess, the vice-chancellor of Leicester University. 'The HEAR will allow you not only to look at academic skills, but what they gained through volunteering, part-time employment - all things that are important,' said Burgess. 'By 2010 and 2011, we want to implement HEAR across the higher education sector.'

All of this comes as John Denham, the Secretary of State for Universities, prepares to demand that the system for assuring quality inside universities is overhauled. The minister wants to ensure that the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education has the power to investigate every time a whistleblower claims that standards have slipped.

A leaked email from Manchester Metropolitan University last week showed how staff were being told to bear in mind that increasing the number of top degree grades would help the university to keep pace with competitors.

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