When it gets to crunch time during exams, wander through any university and the odds are you will hear the conversations of vaguely troubled students hoping/obsessing/lamenting over whether they’ve done enough to get that 2:1.
The all-important 2:1 holds a special status in student circles and we talk about it as though it is the partition between success and failure. Recently, my friend averaged 60.9 in his fourth-year January exams and he breathed a massive sigh of relief to be just within the threshold of 2:1 glory.
High competition
In some ways you can’t blame him, today roughly 53 percent of people go to university, so you can argue it’s not enough to just have a degree anymore. It seems employers have cottoned on to this fact, as now almost every prestigious grad scheme ask for a 2:1 or above. Not only grad schemes, but a lot of jobs ranging from teaching to banking and everything in between require a candidate to hold a 2:1 degree to be eligible to apply.
What if you don’t get it?
However all is not lost because there are other ways to make yourself appear employable if you didn’t quite attain a 2:1. Luckily, employers look for other attributes in a prospective employee such as previous work experience, extracurricular involvement at university and even hobbies, surprisingly. A friend who dropped out of university after first year, was told after he got a job as an IT consultant that the fact he put football as one of his hobbies sealed the deal for his boss, who was thinking of putting together a 5 a-side squad at the time.
Being well-rounded
Of course stories like this may be rare but it is worth noting that many employers will want to hire a full well-rounded individual; you may have got a first from Cambridge in natural sciences but if you don’t have the social skills to perform well in an interview or show any other qualities beyond your first, the job may well go to someone else. Interestingly, according to figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, for those who left university with a first, 2:1 or 2:2 degree in 2013, the likelihood of full time employment 6 months after graduation was virtually the same.
That Desmond Tutu
This would suggest that there are many variables when it comes to finding a first job, that don’t rely on grades alone. The university you attended or subject you read may well play a part. Getting involved with a company during your university years, through work experience or summer internships, might also allow you to sneak through and get a grad job even if your degree grade was nothing to write home about. In short, getting a Desmond Tutu (2:2) is not the end of the world even if it might pose some initial problems.
My personal hunch is that in the dog eat dog world of the career ladder, characteristics such as ambition, perseverance and charisma not to mention the ability to schmooze and create a network of contacts will probably be the biggest determinant of future success. After all, it’s not what you know, but who you know.
Do you think getting that elusive 2:1 is really that important? Has it made a difference to your career? Let us know in the comments below.
Photo: danisabella / Flickr
Leave a Reply