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The respondent to this survey is Cheryl who is from a White British background.
| What qualifications did you hold prior to starting university? | A levels Biology Chemistry Physics General Studies
11.5 GCSE's
RSA level 2 word processing, spreadsheets, databases |
| What was the name of your course? | Biology - BSc/Biol |
| While at university have you worked part-time? | Yes |
| While at university have you performed any voluntary work? | Yes |
| While at university have you undertake any work experience? | No |
| Please give details of your experience? | Temp work in shops, factories, offices during holidays. Voluntary work for St Johns Ambulance and in a school. |
| How useful did you find this work experience when it came to find a job after graduating? | It helped me to find out the kind of work I liked to do, and what I definitely didn't want to do. Things like administration that I thought I would hate I found I quite enjoyed and it was a nice safe environment to discover what I liked and didn't like because the jobs weren't permanent. Also employers were impressed with my voluntary work at interviews. |
| What is your status? | In full or part time employment |
| What is your job title? | Quantity Surveyor |
| What responsibilities do you hold? | I make sure that our costs and values are accurately recorded and reported and that all our subcontractors are paid correctly. I also take other financial responsibilities such as project closures as and when the situation arises. |
| What do you enjoy the most about this job? | I think it's very important that my colleagues and managers are reasonable and easy to get on with. Job-wise, I enjoy the detective work involved in making costs and values add up. And I enjoy having a role that is valuable to the company and respected, unlike my previous job as a chemistry technician in a school. |
| What do you enjoy the least? | It can be very frustrating when things don't add up and you don't know why. And it's a very male dominated proffession that does still have some underlying sexism in it. |
| What was involved in the recruitment process for this job? | I started as a temp admin assistant and just kept getting promoted! |
| Do you feel you have a career plan? | Yes |
| If so, how does your current situation fit into this plan? | I want to be a quantity surveyor. I would never have considered doing this job before I started temping here but am really enjoying it. |
| When did you start thinking about what you wanted to do after graduation? Thinking back did you leave enough time for this? | 3rd year. Looking back, more time wouldn't have helped because I would have never come up with being a quantity surveyor. I wanted to work in Science |
| Did you experience any difficulties when it came to finding work after graduation? If yes, please describe some of the problems you faced? | Yes. A lot of jobs that need a degree also need 3 years experience, and the ones that don't need a degree won't hire you because you're overqualified. If you don't know exactly what you want to do it can be very daunting to leave the educational environment that you've been in all your life and suddenly have nothing. |
| What do you wish you had known before you started applying for jobs? | That my ideas of what a good job would be at university weren't really true. That there were so many more jobs out there than I expected, I'd never really heard of quantity surveying and I certainly didn't think of working in the Construction industry. Obviously I wish I'd known what I wanted to do but that couldn't be helped. |
| What advice would you give to someone applying for jobs now? | If you don't have a firm career plan try temping for a while to give you experience in different sectors. Even if you think you know what you want to do, you might be surprised what hidden interests you'll uncover. It'll also give you valuable work experience for your CV and hopefully avoid having too many different sorts of permanent jobs on Your CV to explain (e.g. I've got chemistry technician and quantity surveying, and I did publishing briefly) |
| Would you have done anything differently while at university to prepare for your career? Please give details. | I think it's very important that my colleagues and managers are reasonable and easy to get on with. Job-wise, I enjoy the detective work involved in making costs and values add up. And I enjoy having a role that is valuable to the company and respected, unlike my previous job as a chemistry technician in a school.,Not really, maybe a year out in work would have been useful for the experience. |
| How do you feel your degree has prepared you for today's labour market? | It's given me a degree. But education doesn't prepare you for work, it's so different. In education everything you do is for yourself but in work other people are affected by what you do. So while in education I always thought that I was a bit lazy when it came to working, but now I'm in work I've discovered I'm a really hard worker. I've discovered lots of qualities I didn't know about. My degree has also provided me with transferable skills such as analysis and computer literacy that are very important in the labour market. |
| What impact did your course have on your career aspirations? | Undecided still |
| Did you make use of the careers service at university? | Yes |
| If yes, please describe how you used the careers service. | I want to be a quantity surveyor. I would never have considered doing this job before I started temping here but am really enjoying it.,I used them to find out about the options after graduation. And the possibility of further study. |
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