With more firms hiring on a skills basis and the inexorable rise of AI, degrees are no longer the golden ticket, says education consultant Jess Harris. This means graduates need to evidence passion and real-world skills on their CV to stand out from the crowd
Let’s spare a thought for the graduates of 2025. They are facing the toughest job market in the UK for nearly a decade. Changing hiring trends appear, at first glance, to be devaluing the degrees they’ve worked so hard for in the first place.
The number of roles advertised for recent graduates is down 33% on last year, according to recent data released by jobs search site Indeed. There are many reasons for this – a sluggish UK economy, rising National Insurance contributions for employers, and more graduates than ever with similar credentials. But the biggest cloud on the horizon is the rise of AI which is drastically reshaping the world of work.
“AI is dissolving the bottom rung of the corporate ladder, especially in economies and industries where information work dominates,” said Ignacio Palomera, CEO of Web3 professional networking and jobs platform Bondex, speaking to The Times recently.
“This is not a binary story of jobs lost vs jobs gained, but rather an asymmetrical transformation where tasks are being obliterated faster than the market can absorb or reskill the displaced,” he added. “The first casualties are disproportionately early-career professionals and operational generalists.”
As if to illustrate this point, PWC UK, number one in ‘The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers’ list for nearly 30 years, announced in September it would be hiring 200 fewer graduates this year.
“There is a fundamental shift taking place in the hiring practices of many firms – more are open to hiring non-graduates”
In addition, there is a fundamental shift taking place in the hiring practices of many firms. More are open to hiring non-graduates, sometimes prizing real-world skills and portfolios above grades and academic learning. Companies such as Accenture, Kellogg’s and Kurt Geiger have recently introduced new hiring rules where no degrees are necessary. Neil Clifford, CEO of Kurt Geiger has made no secret of the fact that he wants to rip apart the ‘paper ceiling’ – the longstanding requirement of recruiters for degrees over practical and real-world experience. “On-the-job learning is often as good, or better than, uni,” says Clifford. “Taking away the paper ceiling is helping bright people get great jobs.”
This doesn’t mean a degree isn’t still worthwhile – it’s just that it is rarely enough on its own. Of course, the upper echelons – Oxbridge, Imperial and the Ivy League – still hold sway, as do vocational pathways such as Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary. University also remains a must for experiencing life away from home and expanding intellectual horizons. Independence, a chance to learn for learning’s sake, and a space to make new friends and have fun will remain a rite of passage for many, understandably. What has shifted is the landscape graduates enter.
This means securing a degree should be viewed more as the starting point for your career than a guaranteed door opener. What employers now want is students who can show they have a passion which they have actively pursued – experiences showing they have gone above and beyond.
How to evidence passion
First, specialise slightly more than your peers. You don’t need a PhD-level niche (unless you wish to continue studying), but when graduating at an undergraduate level, you should be able to evidence passion in something specific. For instance, ‘I’m a PPE graduate who builds data dashboards on elections’ or ‘I’m a soil scientist and have completed a 10-week summer project with the Royal Horticultural Society’.
You need to show you have used your course as a springboard to convert academic learning into real experience. Choose a small, persistent problem in your field – data cleaning for a charity or cost overruns in student societies, for example– and become the person who solves that problem.
Evidence your passion with examples. Create a portfolio site or deck of slides to present the voluntary work or work experience undertaken. Create a case study of yourself – a problem, action, outcome (for example with the data cleaning for a charity) with numbers where possible as proof points. One excellent project with measurable results beats a dozen vague bullet points with no clear outcome.
Use clubs, competitions and communities as a shortcut to build your experience and network. If you are doing a Politics degree, join the debating society, volunteer with the local branch of a political party and go canvassing during an election. Get to know people in your field of interest and ask for their recommendations for your next step into work. If you impress them, don’t be afraid to ask for a testimonial.
It should go without saying but be sure to master the tools hiring managers expect along the way. There is no point applying for a job in a particular field and not being able to use the given technology. Gone are the days when you could expect to learn on the job.
Finally, get working. Too many graduates leave university having never interacted with a real client or consumer. Take roles at university and offer your time to a local SME, startup, charity, or campus department. Do all this pro bono, if necessary, but make sure you keep a record of your work, summarising your professional contributions and gathering results and testimonials where you can. If there isn’t available work in your field, bar or restaurant work is still proof of the ability to work – and nothing prepares you for the working world like starting in the service industry in an entry role.
Working with an education consultancy that supports students through choices and the rigours of the UCAS or Common App application, I firmly believe that university provides an excellent foundation for your personal life, and a degree is an excellent foundation for professional life. But there is a growing body of evidence that it will no longer differentiate you enough. That’s why you need to stand out by finding your niche and owning it.
And the good news is that there’s a real renaissance in demand for skills that you will have developed during your education and activities beyond the classroom. Employers are looking to hire problem-solvers with a can-do attitude and great communication skills. So, if there’s a silver lining in the future landscape of work, it’s that AI may inspire us to reconsider, and value more highly, what makes us human.
* Jess Harris is Head of Quintessentially Education
Further reading: Travellers wanted – UKSA gap-year opportunities to build skills
You may also like...
