Work Experience

Work experience help students be better prepared to enter the job market and reduce time in obtaining initial employment by gaining some sort of job acquisition skills. As mentioned in the last paragraph, sometimes past experience can secure future employment if the past employer is impressed. A Yorkshire social enterprise had 85% of their interns continues to full-time employment. (White,2011).The others have still gained much skills and valuable experience which speed up their process for getting a job offer(White,2011). Those skills include job interviewing, networking and relationship building skills which interns rated internships as providing a better preparation in these skills than university according to a survey(Gault et al,2000). Other academic and career skills learned in the university can also come under a more dependable, practical environment for students to further improvise during working in industry(Gault et al,2000).

Work experience bridges the gap between the expected job market of undergraduates and the real world. By evaluating the past work experience, students can know their job interest and abilities which help them to seek for suitable jobs and decide their future(Gault et al,2000). It reduce the time on searching as they know themselves and the job market better.In addition, Mentoring, network and business contacts in past work experience will have great effect on shaping future career and shorten the time for obtaining initial employment. (White,2011) According to the survey conducted on interns and non-interns by Gault, graduates without internship experience in the organization have a more than double the length of time to obtain the place than interns.(Gault et al,2000)

Extrinsic Career Benefits

Because of the earlier entrance into the job market than students who have no work experience, earlier promotion of graduates with work experience results in a higher salary comparatively(Gault et al,2000). According to the survey conducted on interns and non-interns, the former receive a higher money compensation by 10% than the sitter at the starting level(Gault et al,2000).The disparity is larger at current level which is 17% more for interns Gault et al,2000). This can be explained by earlier employment as mentioned at the end of last paragraph. The survey also shows that interns featured reported a higher level of job satisfaction(Gault et al,2000).With prior experience , graduated knowing their interest and abilities would concentrate on and develop their career toward the direction they prefer, resulted in a higher job satisfaction (Bales,1979, cited in Gault,2000). Higher job satisfaction can have a positive effect on working performance and productivity which resulting in a earlier promotion and salary increase as well.

Intrinsic Benefits

Yet, there are a couple of evidence suggested that work experience has no significant intrinsic benefits on relationship with colleagues or on building some career skills. Previous study indicated that the satisfaction with co-workers and work experience are not correlative(Gault et al,2000). Featured interns in Gault’s report also claimed that there were no significant differences on the level of preparation between internship and university for the 7 career preparation skills including analytical skills, information search, problem solving, resume writing, leadership and teamwork, proposal writing and written communication) among the 13 skills in total, with the university even rated better in teaching oral presentation skills(Gault et al,2000).

Conclusion

The essay concludes that work experience is increasingly important in securing entry-level employment for graduates by getting shortlisted during selection process and being better prepared with career related skills , job acquisition skills and network building. Graduates with work experience need shorter time for getting initial employment and it results in a higher salary level at the beginning level. However, not much evidence can show that work experience can bring intrinsic benefits. The findings proved that working experience is beneficial to future career of undergraduates.

Bibliography

Gault,J, Redington, J and Schlager, T. 2000. Undergraduate Business Internships and Career Success: Are they related?., Journal of Marketing Education Vol. 22 (1) pp.45-53 [Online](Accessed: 28 September 2012) Available at: http://jmd.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45.short

Highfliers Research Ltd. 2012. The Graduate Market in 2012 Ch:5 [Online] (Accessed: 28 September 2012) Available at: http://www.highfliers.co.uk/download/GMReport12.pdf

White, R. 2011. Experts’ view: Degrees aside, what else can you do to catch an employer’s eye? The Guardian, 2 March [Online] (Accessed: 28 September 2012)Available at: http://careers.guardian.co.uk/graduate-employment-advice