Tuesday, September 09, 2008

HEA Graduate Careers Survey

The HEA and the IRCHSS have set up a Foresight in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (FAHSS) Exercise which has called for 'a destinations report on humanities and social sciences postgraduate and post-doctoral researchers'. To gather data for this report, a graduate careers survey was launched on 8th August 2008 through the Survey Monkey website (the document is available on the HEA website). The survey complements the First Destinations Report carried out annually by the HEA and the survey of awardees currently being carried out by the IRCHSS.

In terms of survey strategy, graduates of higher-education institutions within the Republic of Ireland have been contacted via email through the alumni offices, graduate studies offices, or through nominated contact points within their alma mater. Some institutions have also put a link to the survey on their home page. According to the latest information on the HEA website, 351 graduates have responded to the survey in full or in part.

The FAHSS Exercise has also set up an accompanying "graduate recruitment survey" to examine employers’ attitudes and perceptions of graduates from the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The survey was launched on 19th August 2008, again through the Survey Monkey website. To date, over 350 employers have been contacted via email. "The purpose of this survey is to establish the qualities that graduates from the arts, humanities, and social sciences bring to the work-place and to establish strengths and weaknesses in these graduates from an employer’s perspective."

The FAHSS Exercise is seeking to appoint an analyst to examine the data that has been collected and to write two comprehensive reports outlining the results obtained from the surveys. A tender has been put out for the analysis and submissions are due by Friday 19th September. More information on everything above is available here.

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