Micro-credentials provide an edge for new grads in a tightening job market, experts say

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Radhika Panjwani is a freelance writer from Toronto.

• The labour market outlook for the Class of 2024 offers some challenges as the hiring market has cooled over the past two years
• Research shows students benefit when they combine their undergraduate degrees with micro-credentials (for example, short modular courses)
• Report on the employment income of university graduates, five years post-graduation, shows the median employment income of mathematics, computer and information sciences students was around $87,000, while those with humanities degrees earned a median income of around $50,000

Recent university and college graduates should expect to feel some pain when they seek career-track job opportunities (those that align with their education and goals) in the current labour market, but pursuing relevant post-degree certificates and credentials, may be the key differentiator that establishes success over the long-term, experts said.

“Finding a career-track position might seem challenging in the current job market, but during the job search process, it can also be useful to identify and develop skills that complement one’s recent education,” said Brandon Bernard, a senior economist at job search portal Indeed. “Ongoing learning won’t just help in finding a job, but can help in hitting the ground running once someone has landed a new role.”

Continuing learning means acquiring new skills and competencies essential in the workplace. These can be developed through micro-credentials which are short, for-credit, modular courses.

Grads wary of the job market

Recently, CFA Institute, a global association of investment professionals, released the findings of its third annual Graduate Outlook survey, which explores recent university graduates’ feelings toward their career prospects and expectations.

Results show Canadian graduates (71 per cent) are less confident in their future career prospects and knowing what employers are looking for compared to the global average (81 per cent). They are also less confident about their career prospects in the current economic climate compared to their global peers.

The job outlook

The students’ trepidation may be warranted.

Over the past two years, employers’ hiring appetite has cooled. Overall, the number of job postings on Indeed stand roughly where they did pre-pandemic before they spiked through the spring of 2022, Mr. Bernard said.

Adding to that, unemployment is also up.

Between March and May, the unemployment rate among university graduates [under age 25] averaged 9.9 per cent, which outside of 2020, was the highest rate over the same three-month period since 2016.

In the CFA survey, 81 per cent of recent graduates said although their career prospects have improved as a result of earning a degree, they need an additional edge to make their resumes attractive to future employers.

Given this, Canadian graduates are fortifying their resumes by finding opportunities to build practical skills and real-world work experience while still in university, said Peter Watkins, the senior director of university programs for CFA Institute.

“Post-graduate degrees certainly have their benefits, but we’re also seeing today’s graduates find ways to differentiate themselves in the crowded labour market by pursuing professional credentials that showcase their education and skills in emerging areas of importance, such as environmental, social and governance and data science,” Mr. Watkins said. “These qualifications can signal to employers that a prospective employee has invested in their career and also deepened their expertise beyond their graduate degree.”

Degrees of employability

Currently, job postings in engineering and legal services appear to be holding up and demand for workers across nursing, medical technicians and therapists remains strong, Indeed’s Mr. Bernard said.

“Hiring appetite is down across most areas of the economy, including several sectors likely of interest for recent grads, including technology, marketing and arts and entertainment,” he said. “That’s not to say there aren’t still opportunities in these fields, but rather that landing a career-track role could take time.”

A StatsCan report on the employment income of the Class of 2017 university graduates (for example, five years post-graduation) reveals the median employment income of mathematics, computer and information sciences students was $67,000 (annually) two years after graduation and $87,000 (annually) after five years. Whereas those with humanities degrees earned a median income of $39,000 per year after two years and $49,300 annually after five years.

Humanities

Jonathan Malloy, a professor of political science at Carleton University, has co-authored two books on the subject of arts graduate programs and the need for broad-sweeping reforms to ensure better correlation between a doctoral program in humanities and positive career outcomes.

Currently, many graduate students receive funding such as scholarships and grants to work on their masters and PhDs. He said graduate studies also receives far more public investment, but despite those funds, students have fewer job prospects. Students embark on a PhD pathway to become professors, but there aren’t enough tenure-track positions available for all of them to get jobs as professors, he said.

“Canadian arts graduate education has evolved erratically rather than strategically,” writes Prof. Malloy in a conversation.com blog. “The system is distorted by inappropriate funding models that give little guidance to students. They also incentivize universities to pursue quantity over quality.”

The Carleton academic rued that arts graduate programs in Canadian universities currently don’t do enough to help their students find a meaningful career.

His advice to students is that they must build on their arts degree by becoming lifelong learners and constantly grow and nurture their knowledge through an innate inquisitiveness.

“With a humanities degree, we can’t train our students for hard skills, but I think we do train them on critical thinking, collaboration and developing a sense of curiosity. And those are skills of life.”

What I’m reading around the web

• Jillian Chown, a Kellogg assistant professor of management, examined how doctors in Canada respond to financial incentives. Her findings show money does talk. The key is knowing where to throw the money.
• When researchers at the University of British Columbia used machine learning to analyze more than 500,000 videos by some 4,700 TikTok users, they found when tools such as AI voice were used, it created more novel videos.
• In this blog post Skip Prichard, author and leadership speaker, discusses the concept of “leadership signature,” a blend of personal attributes, experiences and approaches that’s distinctively yours.

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