01 May 2022
Target Universities, what are they and do they matter?
According to The Graduate Market in 2022, the top 10 universities targeted by the Largest Number of Top Employers were:
- Manchester
- Nottingham
- Bristol
- Birmingham
- Leeds
- Warwick
- Cambridge
- Sheffield
- Edinburgh
- Oxford
Source: Highfliers - The Graduate Market 2022
But why?
There is a significant cost in both time and money for companies to recruit graduates, so it has become an easy option for firms to target candidates from the above institutions. Thus, recruiters will put their resources into these universities for the sake of efficiency.
A lot of big companies will run their own ‘graduate schemes’- these will combine a job with a training program and will run on an annual cycle. Recruiters will visit university campuses, attend careers fairs, networking events and offer job- hunting advice. Their aim is to attract students, enrich them with information on the opportunities available at their firm and answer any questions. Through this they will encourage candidates that fit their mold to apply, yet due to the sheer number of universities in the UK, recruiters tend to be selective in who they target.
What can you do?
Networking, commercial awareness and general competency plays a huge role in securing positions in the graduate market. But, having the degree credentials of a target university, although no guarantee of success, statistically increases the chances of securing an opportunity. Employers and positions that don’t require a specific degree discipline will usually target universities with highly credible overall reputations, often they will use their own in-house trends to find institutions that have proved successful for them previously.
If you attend a target university, it is advised that you make the most of these opportunities, otherwise this so-called main advantage will be lost. Managing your time and having a sense of self-motivation to engage with career activities is all the better.
We have established what Target Universities are and why recruiters chose to prioritize them. But what happens if you don’t attend a so-called target university? Luckily for these students, graduate recruitment trends have shown an increasing number of students landing roles at top firms coming from a non- target university.
One thing to consider is your choice of extracurricular activities during your time at university. Joining a society or group is an ideal way to enhance your CV and show your desire to learn more and show interest in your chosen field. Many student run societies across the country are lucky to have partnerships with top recruiters and run events in partnership with firms. According to the Highfliers report in 2022, student engagement with graduate recruitment activities was worse than previous years, with two-fifths of employers branding them as unsuccessful. For most career fields you can end up as a more attractive, more employable candidate than someone who attends a top target university but chooses not pursue anything additional besides their university studies.
Internships, early insights and placement years are all great ways of accumulating experience and having them will bear significant weight in the application process for graduate positions. Exposure to a field of interest increases both commercial awareness and helps demonstrate a clear passion which is favorable to graduate recruiters. Sourcing relevant internships and keeping up with deadlines can be very taxing, especially when students have to balance University work and submissions. There are platforms like Topgrad which make this process easier, since 100s of opportunities are added every month ensuring there are relevant positions for all degree fields. It also has the ability to track the application process so deadlines are never missed and regular notifications notifying users when new opportunities become available.
Recent developments
Employers in general have increased the pool of universities that they have actively targeted during the 2021/2022 application season, 1 in 6 employers have declared they have stopped targeting an individual university altogether. This is a positive step in eradicating this perceived ‘elite’ branding associated with target universities, all in all indicating that the quality of the institution is by no means a guarantee of a perfect candidate. We can only hope that more employers follow suit increasing the chances of ‘non-target’ graduates to land roles at top firms in the current job market.
