An exploration of marketing graduates’ attitudes towards their employment in small irish businesses

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to understand and explain the situation of marketing graduates in the labour market. The key findings show that marketing graduates overestimate their abilities to find marketing employment after graduation. However this perception changes once they enter the labour market and realise that a third level qualification is not sufficient to secure a marketing job. This is mainly because the jobs are not publicly available in the labour market and because the marketing graduates lack the marketing experience the business need from them. A story emerged based on the findings based on which several recommendations were developed in order to improve the graduates’ success in obtaining a marketing job after graduation which involve aspects such as the introduction of more work placements at different levels of qualifications and more involvement of institutions in the marketing graduates job search experience.