UK Employer Views

How will doing a degree or postgraduate qualification in Australia or New Zealand affect your chances of getting a job? Here, UK employers from different sectors give us their opinion

The global finance giant  

Tony Spanier is a senior manager at Deloitte

“If a UK national with a degree from an Australian or New Zealand university applied for a graduate role with us, my reaction would be neither positive or negative, although it would give us a good opening question for an interview! More important would be to understand the process the candidate went through to choose one university and course over another. This would give us a good insight into the candidate’s interests, character, and so on. I wouldn’t have any concerns about the content of their degree, unless it was from a university I’d never heard of. If it was from Sydney, Melbourne, Canterbury, Auckland or the like, then no, of course not.

“Our requirement is for applicants to have a 2.1 or the equivalent, the actual university is not that relevant. Besides a degree, we’re also looking for people who have a cultural fit with our organisation, who have the technical ability to do the job, interpersonal skills and rapport, and of course the passion, drive and ambition to work in our firm. We place very little weight on assessing the content of someone’s degree – it is more important that they are a successful graduate than that they graduated from a particular course.

“People who have spent time abroad tend to have a broader outlook, are more culturally aware, and often display greater situational awareness and sensitivity. A degree from a foreign university obviously does not prove these qualities, but it would give an indication of them. I would probably ask the question why a candidate had decided to go to university abroad. The colour and content of their response would help to confirm their aptitude in these areas. Why someone studies somewhere is more important than what they studied. Being able to articulate at interview is key.

“Would having a degree from an Australian or New Zealand university in any way hamper a UK student’s chances of getting a job once they returned home? Not if they were organised, applied to firms early in the recruitment process, and could articulate the reasons why they chose that country to study in. It would help if the university was well-known and had comparable status to UK equivalents.”

The School 

John Sinclair is managing director of Finborough School in Suffolk

“Would I have any concerns about employing someone with a teaching degree from Australia or New Zealand in our school? Absolutely not. We have employed a number of Australians and New Zealanders in the past and have always been very happy with both the content of their teacher training qualifications and with the standards they work to.

“They have been a mix, in terms of the amount of teaching experience they’ve come to us with. In any organisation you need a balance of experience, and so some have come to us after a number of years teaching in Australia or New Zealand, while others have been employed after finishing their teaching degrees.

“I would immediately infer that someone who’d taken themselves off to do a degree overseas had more independence and self-reliance than most, and those are of course qualities that you want to see in a job candidate. I think it shows a lot of courage; proves that they have a bit of gumption. I’d be impressed by that. I’d also imagine it’d mean they’d probably got the travel bug out of their systems, so would be coming to us as a fairly settled personality, who we could rely on to be around for a while.

“In an educational environment, people who have travelled and who have experience of different cultures are very valuable and give a new dimension to what we do. They bring breadth to a staff room, and, to be honest, they are more interesting to the pupils. The last thing we want is a staff of cloned teachers, all from the same background.

“When you have a pile of job applications in front of you, you are looking for some individuality from a CV or a covering letter. So many seem to have been generated to a pattern these days, so you’re really looking for something to jump out and grab your attention. Noticing that someone had done a degree overseas could certainly do that.

“As an independent school we are looking for teachers who are well-qualified and have solid academic records. Not all UK universities and degrees are equal; some certainly aren’t as weighty as others. I would much rather see a solid academic record from a recognised university in New Zealand or Australia than from some of the more obscure colleges in the UK. I’d certainly advise any parent who had a child who wanted to travel and who had that streak of independence that they are better off going overseas to study than staying to do a British degree just because they don’t want to take the ‘risk’ of future employers not recognising their overseas qualification. I think that’s nonsense.”

 

The Entrepreneur

Rachel Elnaugh is a speaker, business consultant, author and mentor (www.rachelelnaugh.com)

 “For me, recruitment is all about attitude. If a person has the right attitude it does not matter whether they have a degree or not, or where it’s from. That said, a CV from someone with a New Zealand or Australian degree would suggest to me someone who is travelled, self-sufficient and has sunshine in their personality. That would get them to the top of my pile.” 

The global finance giant

Christina Kerr is from PWC

“Here at PWC we recruit 1,200 graduates a year from universities all over the world. It would not be at all unusual for us to receive an application from a graduate of an Australian or New Zealand university. As a company PWC is not particularly concerned with which university someone went to; we are more interested in that individual’s achievements at that institution. We look for academic rigour first and foremost, but recognise that this is something that can be achieved in a variety of different institutions; it certainly isn’t restricted to British universities. Provided someone had met our academic criteria, they would be of interest to us.

“The real advantage of studying abroad, I feel, would be if the student was able to sell the experience against our competencies during the recruitment process. Having taken that initiative shows a real ability to adapt to a new environment, and is likely to have given them other transferrable skills which could be very valuable in the recruitment process, provided the applicant was able to sell them effectively. For example, I studied overseas with Erasmus, and was always able to refer to that in interviews as an example of how I was able to adapt to change. Having studied abroad wouldn’t necessarily give someone at a huge advantage, because others may have picked up those key skills in other situations, but it certainly wouldn’t put them at a disadvantage.”

 

The Bank

Mike Varley is manager of graduate recruitment, HSBC Europe & UK

“I look after graduate recruitment and development for our retail, commercial and corporate sectors in the UK. In 2009, HSBC recruited about 400 people on to its graduate and internships programmes in the UK & Europe.

“What do we look for in an applicant? First, we require them to have achieved a certain academic standard at university – a 2:1 or the equivalent. That is really just the starting point, though – once that’s been established, we are more interested in any work experience they may have that’s relevant to our industry, and in their key skills, such as customer service, organisation, teamwork, and leadership. Those are more important than the content of their degree, or indeed where it is from.

“During the assessment process people are required to undertake a series of tasks, which include interviews, role-playing and so on. It’s not really a question of testing their academic knowledge, instead the key skills above are brought to the fore and examined. I would imagine that studying abroad would certainly given someone a certain level of maturity and confidence, and an ability to stand on their own two feet, which would serve them well during the process. It would of course also give them a point of difference at interview.

“HSBC is also an international organisation, and while there might not be immediate opportunities for graduates to work overseas, that may change over time and people who have international experience are attractive to us. I’d be particularly interested if someone had been able to use their summers in Australia and New Zealand effectively, and gained work experience in international organisations. Understanding different cultures is a core value of HSBC.”