By Peter Lenaghan
Postgraduate study has always been associated with deep, specialised learning and it remains a prerequisite for jobs where a high degree of technical knowledge is expected.
But recruiters say that, in many sectors of the workforce, employers want postgraduate qualifications to be allied to practical experience and high-level personal skills.
It is clear tertiary education is still highly valued in the economy, but potential students are being urged to consider how postgraduate study will leverage their expertise to supercharge their promotion and earning prospects.
Leadership recruitment consultant Anna Whitlam.
“When I’m doing something that’s got an emphasis on a particular area, whether it be geopolitics, international relations or the organisation’s got a big industrial relations issue and someone’s done a postgraduate in some of these areas, I can’t deny that’s of huge value,” says Anna Whitlam, a leadership recruitment consultant at WhitlamCo.
“That’s obviously demonstrating that they have an element of academia or an injection of capability and knowledge that others just aren’t going to have.“
The Australian Industry Group, a peak national body for employers, published analysis last year looking at long-term education and employment trends for young people.
Of those involved in the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth, those with postgraduate degrees and apprenticeships/traineeships had the strongest job prospects at the age of 25.
“The strong outcomes may also be due to the more specialised, occupation-specific nature of postgraduate pathways, and apprentice/trainee pathways in particular,” AiGroup says in its Connecting the Dots report.
“This tells us that education and training that has a direct and clear link to an industry or occupation can deliver strong employment outcomes.”
Those with postgraduate degrees were also among those who “led the pack” on job satisfaction at 25.
“When it comes to agreement with the statement ‘like my job as a career’ there is another clear trend – higher levels of education led to greater levels of satisfaction with career pathways,” AiGroup says.
Medicine and law are just two of the industries most closely associated with postgraduate qualification requirements as people progress in their careers.
But AiGroup notes “young people need to acquire a mix of knowledge, skills and capabilities – in different ways, and at different times – to maximise their potential and productivity in the workforce”.
Andrew Aston, the chief executive of specialist recruitment agency Morgan Consulting, says with many employers engaged in a “war for talent”, so-called soft skills such as leadership, problem-solving, work ethic, time management and teamwork are very appealing when hiring for other sectors of the economy when academic qualifications are not a standard requirement.
Morgan Consulting’s Andrew Aston.
“[A postgraduate qualification is] certainly icing on the cake, but it’s not the cake,” he says.
“Some sectors will always look at it in an attractive way, other sectors don’t give two hoots. [For them] it’s more about skills, ability to do the job and fitting into the team.“
For both Aston and Whitlam, postgraduate education becomes most important when it has been completed with a practical goal in mind, building on a candidate’s skills and experience.
“If you feel you’re actually going to learn something and be a better professional as a result of doing the study, then do it,” Aston says.
Don’t do it “just to tick a box or to have it on your resume and you don’t think it’s going to improve your skills”.
“If you’re doing it for the piece of paper, don’t bother,” he says. “But if you’re doing it to get something out of it at a personal level, to build your skills and capabilities, then I would recommend it.“
Whitlam advocates viewing further education as a practical investment to enhance or further specialise a skill set.
“If it makes me a better person and I’m then going to be a better leader, then I will be more successful and then I might get a promotion ... but not because I’ve just ticked that box of having that qualification,” she says.
“Postgraduate qualification is most valuable when you’ve got experience and you want to hone your experience, get additional experience or learn more about something.“
To that effect, Whitlam is currently completing her own postgraduate study in behavioural economics, something she spent many years considering before beginning.
“At this stage and age in my life, I felt it was a really great investment for me,” she says.
So, how should someone considering postgraduate study to boost their career prospects go about making a decision on what to do?
“Talk to people in the sector you want to enter or where you want to thrive,” Aston says.
“If you want to be really good in a space, go and talk to individuals who are really good in that space and ask them if they have a postgraduate degree.
“Then ask them if they think it was worth it and was needed to get to where they got to.”