For the class of 2006, there are plenty of jobs and the colleges fight for their business. Are they getting complacent, asks Rachel Dugan
The Leaving Certificate class of 2006 may be indulging in a lot of collective nail-biting this weekend, as they await Monday's first round of offers from the CAO, but with fewer students vying for more places, there is less to worry about than ever. The number of students sitting the Leaving Certificate has been falling since 1995, and is now on a par with numbers taking the exam during the mid-1980s, but that is about all the classes of 2006 and 1986 have in common.
Compared with today's students, those sitting their Leaving Certificate in 1986 were staring into a kind of prospects abyss. Toward the end of the 1980s Ireland was experiencing net outward migration of more than 40,000 a year, and in 1986 unemployment stood at a frightening 17 per cent.
After sitting her Leaving Certificate in 1986, Jane Walsh went on to study arts at NUI Galway, where she is now a lecturer in the psychology department. When she graduated three years later, when emigration levels were at their highest, she was faced with a stark choice.
"It was a case of there being two options for graduates then," recalls Walsh, "either emigrate, or go back into college."
Choosing to follow the postgraduate route, she watched as those around her became part of one of the biggest waves of emigration to be experienced since the 1950s. "Friends were emigrating left, right and centre, and there was a general sense of you being lucky to get a job."
The class of 2006 is stepping into a society of soaring levels of inward, rather than outward, migration, and unemployment rates that have been hovering comfortably around 4.4 per cent for the last few years. Aside from the pretty picture those statistics paint, particularly when hung beside the gloomy landscape of 1986, those eagerly awaiting their Leaving Cert results have little to fear from the CAO.
The points race has petered out into more of a leisurely jog, with colleges now limbering up to pursue the students. There are more courses than ever before, and fewer students to fill them, and thus the dynamics of the relationship between applicant and third-level institution are beginning to alter. Are those who used to be hunters of that elusive college place about to become the hunted?
"It's certainly going that way," notes Bernadette Farrell, education officer with the Union of Students in Ireland. "You can see the colleges starting to adapt, and market themselves to the student." She cites UCD's flexible Horizons degree programme, and advertisements whizzing by on buses during the time of year students are filling in their CAO forms, as just two examples of this drive, "There is definitely more competition for students now between the colleges."
FORTY PER CENT of those in the 25 to 34 age bracket have CVs boasting of a third-level qualification, and with more courses than ever for this year's Leaving Cert students to choose from, a college qualification is set to become more ubiquitous than a hangover during rag week. There are signs that it might be a good idea for September's freshers to think about what else they can add to their CV come graduation day.
"Good time-management skills", "excellent interpersonal skills" or "a willingness to learn new skills" are all phrases that tend to get shoved onto the end of the CV, under the nebulous term "other skills". Often seen as the filler, sandwiched between qualifications and referees, these "soft" skills are now the key to securing a job, according to Caroline Nash, assistant director at IBEC.
"Most employers will say, 'look, give me somebody with skills, and a basic academic qualification, and I can teach them the rest'," says Nash, who believes that, with the focus on academic attainment, these basic skills have been lost a little, and that graduates are perhaps not as ready for the workplace as they might think. "It's time to emphasise soft skills, the basic skills, like communication, presentation, teamwork, self-reliance. All those things are important."
A fevered dash through your graduate career, head buried in some weighty volume or other, does not ensure the development of this "softer" side, though. According to Farrell, it is vital that students enjoy the holistic experience of going to third level.
"Joining clubs and societies, getting involved with them, and working part-time, is how you can learn some of those soft skills," agrees Farrell. "So it's really important to take part in the whole holistic experience, not just the part where you turn up at lectures and take notes." Farrell believes that these skills are something that the third-level colleges are beginning to turn their attention towards.
A recent scheme, funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), which investigated the issue of the transferable skills of graduates, reported that employers ranked personal qualities/personality, transferable skills and enthusiasm for the position higher than academic record in a list of factors considered when assessing a candidate for a job. Enthusiasm is something Nash believes is also lacking in many of the country's current graduates who, with so many job opportunities before them, can easily decide they don't want to work in a certain position, or that it's not worth the three-year slog at university they endured.
"We don't want to get into a situation where we become too complacent and over-arrogant," warns Nash.
The advice for the class of 2006 is clear: don't let the Celtic Tiger take the edge off your hunger for putting that hard-earned degree to good use, and, while you're at, why not show your softer side.