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Brexit means… what? The impact on students and how careers services can help

October 2018

Miguel Rodriguez, careers adviser at the University of Dundee, outlines the various approaches careers services can take to support students affected by Brexit

'Brexit' may well be the most notable political addition to the English language in the last decade. However, two years since the UK's European Union (EU) membership referendum, what Brexit really means for institutions and individuals across the UK is still a matter of debate.

What does the prime minister's catchphrase of 'Brexit means Brexit' really mean? How are the 2.32 million current higher education (HE) students in the UK (85% of whom voted Remain1) affected by the vote?

The latter is a question that higher education career and employability professionals should be able to tackle confidently so that they can keep providing up-to-date, high-quality support to students.

What Brexit means for HE students

As if coping with the social and academic aspects of university life was not demanding enough, throwing Brexit-induced worries into the mix does not make things any easier for HE students in the short term - in fact, 42% of young people in the UK cited the UK leaving the EU as their first cause of anxiety.2 Much of this anxiety is directly related to perceptions of what the future job market may look like, with 82% of students expecting Brexit to make it harder for them to find a graduate job.3

Regardless of the number of job vacancies available nationwide after March 2019, jobs will still be more accessible to graduates with the most in-demand transferable skills, some of which can only be developed through international experiences. With more individuals taking on international assignments as part of their job role, it is understandable that three out of four graduate employers actively seek global graduates with a high level of cultural intelligence.4

Despite this, nearly 90% of HE students believe that Brexit implies a reduction of international study and career opportunities5, and we cannot really blame them for it. With a predicted 60% fall in EU student university applications6 post-Brexit, and international mobility initiatives such as the Erasmus+ programme at odds with a 'no deal' scenario7, exposure to international opportunities seems to be more at risk than ever for HE students in the UK.

Globalisation is the term used when internationalisation is developed by businesses or organisations. According to experts, it is a key factor in the public backlash that finally led to the Brexit vote. Forecasts of a hard or 'no deal' Brexit scenario have already had a strong impact on those sectors that benefit the most from globalisation, such as investment banking, finance and accountancy. Graduates realise this - the number of applications for jobs in these industries fell by 16%, 18%, and 21% respectively, in the year following the EU referendum.8

These are not the only areas likely to be affected by Brexit, with the food and drink and automotive industries following closely behind. A recent survey indicates that students are thinking ahead of these worst-case scenarios by enrolling in postgraduate study as a way of sheltering from the Brexit storm.9

How careers services can help

It would be worthless to list the challenges that Brexit represents for HE students without also mentioning some of the ways in which career and employability professionals can lend a hand. There is a need for a range of approaches and initiatives, revolving around the pillars of career education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) that can be put into practice by university careers services across the UK.

The elaboration of this catalogue of ideas should be based on two main targets: the promotion of internationalisation at a time of risk, and the sharing of best practices for dealing with the career-related, Brexit-induced issues of students.

What follows is a limited list of ideas to be shared among careers and employability professionals in the hope that cross-institutional collaboration can lead to a more comprehensive catalogue in the future.10

Education

Not all careers services will have the resources or structure required to implement the following initiatives, but these are a few ideas that can work for students if developed effectively:

  • The offering of educational workshops specifically targeted at domestic students (with focuses such as opportunities to work in the EU or making the most of a European gap year), European students (e.g. preparing to work in the UK or returning to your home country after your degree) and both student groups (e.g. navigating the post-Brexit job market or increasing cultural knowledge).
  • The development of European mobility programmes that allow students to participate in international experiences, leading to the acquisition of intercultural skills and the expansion of their multinational networks.
  • The addition of a global perspective into the offerings of existing university skills awards to make students understand the importance of cross-cultural competencies in the development of their employability skills.
  • The promotion of international and language exchange student networks and mentoring schemes.
  • The inclusion of representatives from global companies and multinational organisations as part of on-campus work and study abroad fairs and other employability events.

Information

Considering the grey area of mainstream media bias, it is more important than ever to provide students with reliable sources of information from which to extract accurate, unbiased and up-to-date information about Brexit and the promotion of international opportunities. Refer your students to the following websites:

Advice and guidance

Careers professionals are already using an adequate range of guidance approaches, models and tools when supporting students with their career-related queries, but the following are two suggestions that could benefit their practice when dealing with students struggling with the idea of Brexit:

  • The use of career development theories as a model of practice for tackling problems, such as Roberts' opportunity structure theory or Savickas' notion of career adaptability, seems to be particularly relevant for helping students embrace and adapt to the new reality of Brexit.
  • The inclusion of psychosocial intervention tools, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in counselling practice, in order to deal with students' negative, self-limiting beliefs about the post-Brexit landscape and help them replace these with a positive mind-set allowing them to move forward.

Using psychosocial intervention tools and handling governmental internet resources will not turn careers and employability professionals into student counsellors and international support officers, which is why cross-service collaboration will remain essential from March 2019.

Together with an open catalogue of ideas and reliable resources to be shared across different institutions, cross-service collaboration will hopefully allow for the mitigation of some of the challenges already being felt at universities, and for confident discussion of what 'Brexit means Brexit' actually means for students.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of HECSU/Prospects

Notes

  1. Brexit: For every one student who voted Leave, six voted Remain, new analysis finds, The Independent, 2016.
  2. Young people 'more anxious than ever' due to Brexit and rising debt, The Guardian, 2017.
  3. Students' views on life after Brexit: jobs, research and more, TARGETjobs, 2016.
  4. Are current UK graduates properly prepared for the global workplace?, Times Higher Education, 2017.
  5. The Guardian, 2017.
  6. Vice-chancellors urge action to stop predicted 60% fall in EU students, The Guardian, 2018.
  7. Brexit update, Erasmus Plus, 2018.
  8. Students seek postgraduate study to shelter from Brexit, The Guardian, 2017.
  9. Ibid.
  10. To this purpose, I have created a webpage using intuitive website building software Padlet. Visit CEIGxit database.

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