You know very well what a graduate degree is going to do for you: differentiate you from those with bachelor's degrees, demonstrate your deep commitment to a particular area, hone your expertise, and perhaps even give you a year out to dodge the recession. But it's a lot of money to spend on something that, when all is said and done, will end up as a line or two on your CV, and it should be obvious by now that employers do not run general Masters entry schemes. Companies and public sector organizations will do graduate recruitment, MBA recruitment, experience-hire, and occasionally, post-doctoral entry for those with very high-value technical skills. But you don't see the words, “People without a master's degree need not apply.” Graduate abilities Employers don't have any formal way of recognizing in their recruitment strategies the value that a master's qualification brings. In an employers' mind someone with a graduate degree is a university graduate first and foremost. It might therefore be better to think of yourself not as a master's holder with an entitlement to better career prospects and salary, but as a “graduate-plus”: better skills, more maturity, a more focused sense of your career goals and greater cutting-edge knowledge. Sell yourself this way and you might confound the protestations of even those employers who claim they won't pay your more. Employer perspective Talk to individual employers and it sounds even more doom and gloom. Hannah Slaney is graduate program manager at the UK's mutually-owned financial and retail conglomerate, the Co-operative Group. “I have had people come up to me at careers fairs who ask what opportunities I have for people with graduate degrees,” she says. “Unfortunately I can only point them to the graduate recruitment program (which is for anyone with a bachelor's degree and above). Almost no organizations have specific Masters entry schemes and graduates are not paid more because they are better qualified.” Sej Butler is recruitment manager for IBM in Europe. “The key element that distinguishes between graduate entry and whether someone joins IBM as an experienced hire following a master's degree is the length and relevance of their work experience,” he says. “If you have an undergraduate degree and have gone straight into a Masters, then you will likely be treated as a graduate entrant. Even if you have one or two years of work experience before the Masters, it might still not be enough to move you out of a graduate entry position. “MBA or Masters graduates apply, but more so those with bachelor's degrees,” said a senior manager in an international IT services firm, quoted in a UK report ‘Talent Fishing: What Businesses Want from Postgraduates' It is not all doom and gloom, however. Look deeper into the report and it seems employers do see more in master's holders than simply an extra year or two's maturity. When asked what qualities they value about employees with graduate degrees, nine out of ten of these employers who recruited master's holders liked their analytical thinking and problem-solving skills. Eight out of ten liked their subject-specific knowledge, their research or technical skills, while the same proportion also liked the new ideas and innovative attitudes they brought with them. However, only about half liked their maturity and thought they had future leadership potential, while just three out of ten thought a master's degree guaranteed them high-calibre candidates. Despite the protestations of employers that they treat graduate degrees no differently than bachelor degrees, there is plenty of evidence that master's holders do get paid more. The winter 2008 survey of employers conducted by the UK's Association of Graduate Recruiters found that those employers who were prepared to pay a premium would pay master's holders around £3,508 more than the bachelor degree average of £24,000 (figures which exclude those with MBAs). Case study IBM recruits significant numbers of graduates throughout the world and is currently investing its largest hiring efforts in its growth markets of India, China, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. However, it continues to recruit large numbers in the major markets of Europe, USA, Canada, Japan etc. While PhD or MBA holders with experience can enter into mid-level jobs which require specialist knowledge, master's or bachelor's degree holders are most likely to start on a two-year foundation program in a business unit while retaining close links to the company's graduate community for their training and development. David Williams is a regular contributor to TopMBA.com
