EMPLOYMENT FOR UNIVERSITY GRADUATES AND ITS MEASURE THE HIGHER EDUCATION QUALITY

Abstract

The article belongs to the category of cases, and is aimed at investigating the characteristics of graduates’ employment immediately after university as well as attempting to understand how their starting professional trajectories results reflect the higher education quality. The authors emphasize the importance of studying the relationship between labour market and higher education system through feedback mechanisms with university graduates six month later after university in terms of scientific research (identifying the features of graduates’ educational and professional trajectories development) and in terms of practical implications (the effectiveness of investing in high-skilled specialties reproduction, their training and preparation for the regional labour market). The Ural Federal University experience in measuring the educational environment quality (taking into account the research design) allows for comparing the graduate sociological survey outcomes (responses over a wide range of parameters was more than 30 % output of graduates 2017) and university administrative database (the parameters of academic achievements, education levels, educational directions). In addition an overview of the employment indicators and starting salaries of the Alumni Employment Monitoring is presented, which indicates the differentiation of the characteristics of starting professional trajectories by the bachelor’s and master’s educational level of the university graduates of 2014 and 2015. Analysis of these data also shows that UrFU is the largest university in the region for young professionals’ production (10 % of the total graduates’ number in the Urals Federal District). Research results demonstrate contribution to the young specialists training for region needs: 69 % of bachelor’s degree graduates 2017 and 79 % of master’s degree graduates got the job in the region. The case of the Ural Federal University helps to extend he view of the university contribution to the young professionals training quality at different educational levels. Research results show that graduates expect their professional and career trajectories development from investments in higher education, however, master’s degree graduates in starting professional trajectories can count only on the salary premium in the amount of 8 %. The key conclusion of the study is as follows: combining work and study allows graduates to integrate into the labour market more quickly, but those who continue educational trajectories in the masters and post-graduate educational program, more often find a main specialty job. On average 83 % of master’s degree graduates get a job similar to specialization obtained during higher education. To satisfy the needs of the regional labor market in highly qualified specialists and forecast their output, it is necessary to form the value orientations of talented undergraduate students who were able to identify their natural aptitudes to the professional activity in which they were getting a bachelor’s degree in higher education, and consequently involve prospective students into master’s educational programs.