A new survey has found that graduates are bored of their careers and are disillusioned with jobs that fail to utilize their degree education.

The research conducted by the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) found that far from following a career plan, 50 per cent of graduates ‘fell’ into their careers giving rise to a third who admitted to being bored with their lot, while a fifth said they were ‘disillusioned’.

The TTA spoke with 1,044 graduates in England, Wales and Scotland. The survey is part of a recruitment campaign to get people to retrain as teachers.

Repetitive work was cited as a common cause for graduates to quit, with 27 per cent contemplating a career switch. Inability to tap into degree education was also a major cause of concern for graduates, 60 per cent declared they were unable to use their degree at work. Over half said they would prefer a job in which they were given the opportunity to apply their degree knowledge more effectively.

TTA’s Mary Doherty said: “We know that significant numbers of people have a false start when trying to find the career that’s right for them. More and more people are coming into teaching as their first choice of second career.”

Language graduates were found to particularly dip out on career prospects, with almost half saying they were unable to use their language skills.
Speaking to HRZone, Jessica Jarvis, CIPD learning and development adviser said:

“There is no point hiring very bright graduates, saying you will offer exciting career prospects and then asking them to do what is in essence an administrative job that doesn’t interest or challenge them.

“Without due care and attention, employers do run the risk of ending up with just the kind of bored graduates identified in the survey, and therefore of spending money recruiting graduates without realising any of the value that they can deliver.”