If we believe the economic doxa, the knowledge economy always requires more young graduates. Recent surveys, however, tend to show that it is not so much the diplomas that make the difference at the time of recruitment …
If the “ knowledge economy “Make a likely and desirable horizon today, it is because it suggests an intelligent world, where intelligent people will exercise increasingly intelligent trades, mobilizing their heads and their talents (leaving, but it is its dark side less often put forward, to poor countries sweat and the exploitation of brute force). This is a creed, carried in particular by theOECDwhich underlies in particular the development policies of long education, knowing that it is the development of long education that is often highlighted (which is at least circular) as tangible proof of the said economy of knowledge. It is certainly difficult to confront this credo with relevant empirical data. This would be necessary to examine precisely the requirements required on a daily basis by jobs and meet them with the skills acquired by the people who occupy them thanks to their training. Vast program ! On these questions only a few still rude statistics are available on these questions, those of the American work statistics office for example, which believe that no more than 30% of the jobs occupied by the Americans require more than a bachelor diploma, which can be assimilated at the license level (the figures would be closer to 40% in the United Kingdom). It is obvious that we cannot stop in this steep observation and that the question requires many other explorations …
A more modest way to enter this problem is to concretely examine the recruitment processes: what employers seek, what qualities do they value, for what type of employment and what do they pay ? Several recent publications provide this issue with interesting lighting for the United Kingdom. One of them observed in a qualitative way both how recruitment agencies selected from graduate candidates and how the graduates themselves sought to “ sell In hiring situations. Another study analyzed a large sample of classified ads published in the British press by examining the criteria put forward by recruiters. Other works still explore the determinants of salary other than the training received, or the weight of personality factors in professional careers.
Without going into detail of all these analyzes, the tone of their results appears quite consistent, even if they can at first appear trivial. An essential point is that diplomas are not enough ; Whatever the level of qualification of jobs, the criteria purely “ meritocratic »(Degree of formal qualification, skills attested by the diploma, academic level, etc.) are never exclusive ; They work as a starting point to start the selection work itself ; This will consist in looking for the personal characteristics which will make the candidate capable of occupying the post, and which, according to the jobs, will go from the most physical characteristics (beauty, slimming, presentation, depending on what researchers call “ The New Aesthetics of Recruitment ») Social skills (qualities of contacts, teamwork, ability to endure stress and tense flows, creativity, self -confidence, etc.). These qualities “ aesthetic “, Social or psychological, will also be recognized in wages or the chances of accessing the most qualified jobs, with identical school qualifications.
These skills other than meritocratic are all the more decisive since the competition is hard between young people increasingly graduates and more and more numerous. Without entering here the debate on the “ diploma inflation “, One thing is certain, and recruiters clearly say it, the fact that diplomas are increasingly widespread in fact, signs less carrying discriminating information for employers, which leads them more and more to mobilize other criteria. This is combined with the evolution of the jobs of executives themselves and the growing requirements of personal investment, initiative, even charisma, in an increasingly competitive context.
This “ personal capital Increasingly decisive, it is up to the person to value him, to make himself employable on the desired position, that is to say capable of living in personal and intelligent way, and that is what it is a question of convincing, in a competition situation for the position. Because employability has a double side, absolutely absolutely but also relative, compared to competitors. The recruitment will then put the young graduate to the test, and this test is very personal: young people play it with their personality. And Brown and Hesketh to distinguish, on the basis of interviews, many of which are provided in their book, two opposite types: players and purists. The first, as their name suggests, play the game: they endeavor to decipher the expectations of the recruiter and to comply with it not without being aware of playing a little with reality, even with cynicism ; The purists want to stay themselves and continue to believe that their skills “ objective “, Those who certify their diplomas will eventually be recognized. Maintenance extracts illustrate the suffering that often marks this situation where the stake is enormous and where young people feel that it is necessary, that it would be necessary to play far beyond the meritocratic beliefs they were able to garner during their schooling.
To this point, it is necessary to question the rhetoric of employability: the very term refers to people the responsibility to be “ employable And this by mobilizing many other advantages than their only diplomas. Employability is their problem, with, implying, the premise that there are a number of remarkable opportunities that the best of them will harm if they know “ manager Their employability. What employers are asking for is not questioned, any more than the existence of a competition for jobs which means that many candidates with the skills required by the position will not have it (relative dimension of employability). Unlike another very perennial rhetoric in Anglo-Saxon countries, the war for talents (“ The war for talent ), Which suggests that people only have to train properly to fit into a world that is looking for talents that are always too rare, employers move their selection criteria so that there is always some rarity and today diplomas attest to an abundance of talents which has not made the selection less hard. We hardly question the very organization of work either which would allow this or that quality to develop.
In short, employability is returned to the individual when it is employers who by their requirements define it.
Today’s employability, it is in fact recruitment criteria that have evolved (we find in the book of Brown and Hesketh a table for the period 1990-2000), with a rise for example of the characteristic of “ proactive “, Which requires that people, beyond their formally attested skills, be able to get things done in the context of the company ; With equivalent diploma, the inexpensive or timid person is statistically less likely to access high professional positions, but will be (as Mr. Jackson’s precise analyzes show) rather confined to technical jobs. We also note the growing accent on the “ Social FIT (Social adaptation) between the person and the human context of the company. Employers say it, this concern for personal guarantees, the social qualities of the candidate is all the more necessary since in modern organizations, no direct control of employees is hardly practicable ; It is therefore more necessary than ever that people have internalized the standards that will be those of their workplace. One thing is clear, employability takes today, and more and more, content far removed from what the rhetoric of the economy of knowledge suggests.
Finally, it should be noted that this valuation of “ Soft Skills “(Skills” soft “, As opposed to what would be more technical skills) and this search for” Social FIT “Can hardly be” neutral Socially: whatever their desire to present their procedures as scientists, recruitment agencies record, with their grid for evaluating behavior, social presentation codes, heavy with “ Subliminal inequalities »… Obviously, this research suggests reflecting on the content of training: everything can no longer be played only on school benches and many of the qualities sought are more likely to develop thanks to extra-curricular activities, but also via all a more informal and as unequal and diverse family education as are the families themselves ; This is an effective form of inheritance difficult to compensate. But what to compensate ? If the analysis of jobs shows that certain qualities are necessary, not only to be selected but to do the work correctly, then training (in school, in the company or elsewhere …) must ensure their development … On the other hand, the analysis of recruitments shows that, at least, the assets that graduates can prevail have a relative value in the competition that ; And if everyone has them, their selective value can drop very well and movements can affect what will be the most valued on this market that is the labor market.
Basically, for these British sociologists, the question of the employment of graduates, cannot dispense with also taking an interest in all the organization of work in a context where the population is more and more educated and therefore more demanding ; Otherwise the waste of talents (“ The Mismanage of Talents », To use the title of the Live of Brown and Hesketh) and the disillusions will be there, and especially since we have highlighted the meritocracy or the economy of (pure) knowledge. In short, managing talents in the world of work of tomorrow is undoubtedly a more complex challenge than to be content to push young people to do more studies …
Go further:
An article from Ph. Brown and A. Hesketh on this subject.
The article by S. PoChic, “ Develop recruitability »»