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Posted July 20, 2012

How A Postgrad Degree Can Improve Your Career Prospects

With the United Kingdom in recession and an ever contracting graduate job market, there is no better time to stay within the education system and pursue a postgraduate degree. Postgraduate degrees can give you an edge over others and heighten your career prospects by a massive margin. Want to find out the reasons why? Then you're in luck, here are the main reasons how postgraduate study could improve your career prospects.

  • Higher Status – A postgraduate course is the final hurdle of the many years spent in education. After completing a postgraduate degree you really will be at the top of the hierarchy of qualifications. This will give you the advantage in the job market as when applying for a job you will be competing with a smaller group of people, giving you a higher chance of achieving a job in your ideal career.
     
  • Greater Knowledge – Having a postgraduate qualification indicates to employers that you have an in-depth knowledge of your specific study area. This is a key influencer in the decision by employers on whether to employ someone, as they want to ensure that the position they are offering is going to be filled by the most able. The possession of a postgraduate qualification indicates that you have this superior knowledge which is always highly sought after.
     
  • Showing Commitment – Choosing to carry on and study for a postgraduate degree shows an employer that you have a great deal of commitment. This is admirable for employers as when deciding on who gets a job they have to be sure that the position is filled by someone who is 150% committed, this is because careers are occupations that are undertaken for a significant period of time, and employers need to ensure that a person will stick at it. The last thing and employer wants to do is waste time and money on hiring other people if they choose someone who is not committed.
  • Increased Networking – When studying for a postgraduate degree you will come across many of the professionals in that particular area of study. This will enable you to establish connections with individuals in top positions, which is a guaranteed way of improving your career prospects. You can either get your name to be passed around professional circles leading to increased exposure or a contact may be able to let you be the first to know about a job that is being made available. The members of staff which you are taught under in your time in postgraduate study may also enhance your career prospects. This is because if they are well known for a field of study, mentioning them may give an employer more reason to hire you as you were taught by the industry's best.
  • Transferable Skills – Throughout the time spent in education you will no doubt have heard these two words more than once! We are always being reminded that transferable skills are the skills that employers are really looking for. Postgraduate qualifications are the perfect way to show employers that you have obtained a large set of transferable skills. Studying at postgraduate level requires hours of independent study, learning to critically analyse texts, and in this modern age how to use a computer and become fully computer literate. It is skills such as these that really do give you the edge in the tough job market that we find ourselves in today.
  • Career Services – When choosing where to study for a postgraduate qualification many students look at the career services that universities have to offer. At postgraduate level these services are at their best, this is because as a postgraduate you should know the type of career area you wish to go into. As a result of this you should be able to utilise your university careers service at an optimal level, getting them to provide you with information on jobs you really wish to pursue, instead of providing you with details of unnecessary jobs that have no relevance to your particular study area.
     

So studying for a postgraduate degree really will increase your career prospects in a number of ways. In these times where the outlook for careers is deeply uncertain, it still remains important that you stand out from the crowd and truly develop an edge over the others and the way to do this is through postgraduate study.

 

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