Last week we celebrated International Women’s Day and, in ironic counterpoint, the press published several stories on the gender pay gap for graduates. Research shows (my God how many times have I started a sentence or prefaced a presentation with these two words?) that male graduates earn more than the other lot.
I was almost moved to contribute to the debate, inevitably assuming the tone known by regular readers as humorous disbelief tinged with righteous anger. Almost. And then a colleague here, with the natural advantages of femaleness, wrote something quicker and undoubtedly wiser and more constructive. You can read Liz Adams’ contribution here:
So, because of a want of imagination and a very male inability to multi-task, I turned my ‘it’s not fair’ focus on something else that happened last week. Didn’t want to waste all that brooding feeling of injustice by writing about the weather.
We have a weekly poll on our website – http://targetjobs.co.uk – that addressed the thorny issue of accepting multiple job offers. I know that from speaking to recruiters, this practice seems to be on the increase. It’s not fair from their point of view when, often at the last minute, their expected graduate recruits fail to appear and turn up at the front door of their competitors. All that time spent promoting the brand, all that sensitive recruitment process, all that on-boarding only to discover that the little loves have off-boarded with nothing more than a wave over their disappearing shoulders. Kids these days, eh?
Our poll showed that only a fifth of respondents said that they would never accept more than one job offer. In contrast, nearly 60% said that they would either do it reluctantly or couldn’t see what the problem was.
Pardon me for stating the obvious, but when you are told that you are graduating into a challenging and uncertain job market, then we can expect a ‘look after yourself, nobody owes me a thing’ mindset and an impulse to hedge bets by accepting multiple offers. And, as you know, the best graduates will be most in demand.
But I’m not sure that the growth of this behaviour is purely down to students wanting to keep their options open in a volatile market nor to their fear of ending up with nothing. I don’t think that it’s a subtle response to the experience of finding yourself trapped in a buyer’s market because of an accident of history. No. I think it’s more to do with an attitudinal change. “What’s the big deal?” I can hear them saying. “Chill out”. In other words, students may believe that it’s a morally neutral thing to do to organisations too big and too well-known to take it to heart.
But it is unfair, and not just to hard-pressed recruitment teams and line managers in their businesses. It’s also manifestly unfair to their fellow students, many of whom will have been rejected in favour of those who subsequently renege on the offer. It’s also contrary to a code of practice that’s been in existence for decades, drawn up by the Association of Graduate Careers Services, the Association of Graduate Recruiters and the National Union of Students. It’s an official document alright but not a very big stick.
In a similar poll last year, we were surprised to see how many students thought it was OK to exaggerate their qualifications on their CVs (ie tell porkies) and so I suppose I could argue that this is a further sign of the ‘me first’ generation of youths featured so regularly in the Daily Mail. But I don’t know to be honest.
a) Is it a temporary and realistic response to an uncertain job market?
b) Are students’ moral compasses a bit wonkier than they were?
c) Is this the end of civilisation as we know it?
Join the debate.
The GTI Media blog 
Chris, nice post. I had this ‘favourite’ on twitter and just had read. You are correct students / grads shouldn’t accept multiple offers. To be honest, I am a bit surprised by that. Personally, I don’t think there is anything wrong with discussing various offers, competitiveness is key. but pen to paper should only be to one!