25 July 2008
	FM Campus Recruitment Edition On the fast track By Jacqui Pile

Postgraduate degrees used to be considered too "airy fairy" and academic for corporates, now they are the ticket to moving quickly up the ranks Getting a postgraduate degree is no cheap or easy exercise. After completing a master's degree, some students have spent more than R50 000 on university fees. By the time you have studied for eight to 10 years to get a doctorate, you will have seriously dented your finances. Is it really worth the sweat? Postgraduate qualifications have been criticised for being rooted in academia and having little relation to the real working world. In some cases, recruiters have viewed those who try to shift from academic research to the corporate world with a touch of suspicion, tending to label them "overqualified". These days, however, postgraduates are in high demand. "In today's scarce skills environment, we don't have enough qualified postgraduates and, depending on the area of study, companies are keen to lap them up," says SA Graduate Recruitment Association national co-ordinator, Cathy Sims. Sims says that to secure an entry-level position in a retail bank, for example, you need an undergraduate degree. However, investment banks and management consultancies generally require honours-level qualifications, while companies hiring science research graduates tend to consider a PhD the minimum. Gone are the days when postgraduate degrees were all about lofty dissertation topics that had little relation to the real world. Companies like hiring postgraduates because they've developed skills that undergraduates generally don't have, even if they're short on practical experience. That's because the structure of postgraduate courses is more in line with what companies need. Typically, postgraduate courses involve a research component, projects that require strategic thinking and more teamwork than at undergraduate level. Classes are also smaller, so there is more emphasis placed on individual assessment. "Postgraduate degrees are all about coming up with new ideas," says Sims. "This is what companies are looking for." Anne-Marie Stanisavljevic, the director of specialist graduate recruitment agency Jobs on the Internet (www.jonti.co.za), says companies in the financial-services sector place graduates in two-year training courses. "Postgrads are now able to earn decent salaries while gaining experience on the job," she says. Stanisavljevic says having a postgraduate degree increases your chances of getting fast-tracked within a company. "Your qualifications are the first thing that recruiters look for, so the better they are, the more chance you have of starting off at a higher level." Jacqui Pile writes for the FM