Work experience (post-HE)

What is it? Work experience includes a range of interventions providing students with exposure to industry and employment. These interventions are run by higher education providers (HEPs) to improve career outcomes and employability for students.

Evidence? There are a handful of robust research studies on the impact of work experience. These studies generally show a strong association with better graduate outcomes such as a higher probability of being invited to interview, a higher salary and a lower likelihood of unemployment.

Should HEPs adopt it? The existing evidence suggests that work experience can be beneficial for students. However, to this day, there is no comprehensive model supported by a strong evidence base for HEPs to design effective work experience programmes. Hence, it is still unclear how to maximise their effectiveness for all students and particularly disadvantaged and under-represented students’ groups who appear to benefit from such interventions. In an effort to address this gap in the evidence base, TASO is currently undertaking a project to understand the barriers these students face in accessing and benefiting from courses that involve a work experience placement.

What is this intervention?

Work experience includes a range of interventions providing students with exposure to industry and employment. These may be difficult for students to develop in the classroom and therefore require direct experience of the workplace. It includes:

• Internships where students are placed in industry for a short period of time, either as a mandatory course commitment or an optional programme.
• Sandwich courses, structured degree programmes where students alternate between classroom instruction and placements in industry. ‘Thick’ sandwich courses involve a single lengthy placement while ‘thin’ sandwich courses involve several shorter work placements spread through the course of a degree.
• Part-time jobs, taken in parallel to the degree studied.

What is the target group?

Most of the evidence on interventions for improving career and employment outcomes is focused on the general student population, with no targeting towards individuals from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds.

A small number of HEPs focus on certain disadvantaged or underrepresented groups, including learners from:

• Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds
• Students from families of low socioeconomic status
• Disabled students
• Female students
• Refugee/migrant students

The evidence reviewed excludes vocational degree programmes such as medicine, teaching and veterinary science, which involve structured work experience opportunities.

How effective is it?

Work experience is the most-well evidenced employability intervention, with six quantitative studies showing a strong association with better graduate outcomes. These outcomes include a higher probability of being invited to interview, a higher salary and a lower likelihood of unemployment from at least six months after graduation.

Two studies (Mason and al., 2009; HE Funding Council of Wales, 2012) have found positive associations between participation in work experience programmes (sandwich courses and paid optional internships respectively) and improved employment outcomes such as:

• Securing work upon graduation
• Employment in a role drawing on graduate-level skills
• Higher average starting salary

Analysis in Mason et al., (2009) takes into account students’ demographic characteristics, degree choice and academic achievement and suggests that sandwich courses are more effective at improving graduate employment outcomes than other types of interventions (i.e., teaching and assessment of employability skills and involvement of employers in course design).

Similarly, Manktelow and Simmons (2018) conducted secondary data analysis on the HESA Graduate Outcomes survey. They found that sandwich degree graduates were significantly more likely to be in professional-grade employment six months after graduation than their peers who completed a typical taught degree. They also found sandwich degrees to be effective at closing gaps in employment outcomes for disadvantaged students. Silva et al., (2015) found similar positive relationships when assessing the impact of sandwich courses on employment outcomes (i.e., earnings, likelihood of being in full-time employment after graduation) in Portugal. They also argued that the benefits of sandwich courses were greater for graduates in subjects typically associated with weaker employment outcomes, such as creative arts and humanities.

Two relevant studies were conducted in the US. First, a randomised CV study where different academic majors and internships were randomly assigned to fictitious job applicants, found that completing an internship significantly increases the likelihood of being invited to an interview for jobs related to that work experience, particularly when the degree subjects were unrelated to the job vacancy (Nunley et al. 2016).

Secondly, a secondary data analysis study found that spending more time at a work experience placement was correlated with a higher likelihood of dropping out of university (Choi, 2018). Interestingly, students from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to withdraw from or suspend their studies whilst engaged in intense work than those from poorer households. However, the study failed to include ‘intensity of academic engagement’ as a variable. This study suggests that excessive engagement with work during a degree may increase the likelihood of students withdrawing from HE.

What features seem to be important?

Two studies suggest that ‘thin’ sandwich courses, where multiple shorter work experience placements are distributed throughout a whole degree, are more effective than ‘thick’ sandwich courses with one lengthy placement. These ‘thin’ courses allow students to get a wider range of exposure to different workplaces, producing a richer understanding of the workplace and broader professional networks than through a single lengthy placement. Equally, ‘thin’ placements can be more attractive to students who report being apprehensive about the length of placements in ‘thick’ courses, and who are therefore drawn to the opportunity to more tightly synchronise classroom learning with workplace experience in ‘thin’ courses.

For voluntary or mandatory internships, the evidence suggests that placing students with employers who are open to hiring successful interns may be an effective way of converting placements into positive graduate outcomes.

Finally, since work placements can allow job seeking graduates to indicate a certain level of employability skills that they possess, sending a positive signal to employers, it might benefit students who completed such placements to be guided by providers in how to communicate them effectively in CVs and job applications. Students’ experiences in work placements can also be used as an anchor for guiding effective Information Advice and Guidance (IAG). This can potentially use students’ learning from workplace exposure to help structure more effective career planning, supporting some of the positive IAG effects.

What don’t we know?

There is not enough high-quality evidence, particularly causal studies – that is, we cannot tell for sure that work experience is responsible for any impact on employability and employment outcomes in the UK context. Some of the existing evidence is old (from the early 2000s) and may not reflect recent changes in the graduate job market.

Secondly, there is currently little research on work experience that focuses specifically on the outcomes of disadvantaged and under-represented students’ groups, even though the existing evidence suggests that this intervention can be useful at reducing equality gaps. It also appears that these students may face specific challenges when undertaking work experiences, which should be acknowledged during the design and delivery of such programmes. In an effort to address this gap in the evidence base, TASO is currently undertaking a project to understand the barriers these students face in accessing and benefiting from courses that involve a work experience placement.

Where does the evidence come from?

We reviewed 12 papers on work experience. Four of these papers examined sandwich courses as an intervention, while four examined internships, both voluntary and mandatory. One study looked at ‘work taster’ experience days exclusively and three studies collected data on the full spectrum of work experience from the stakeholder perspective.

Key references

Choi, Y. (2018) Student employment and persistence: evidence of effect heterogeneity of student employment on college dropout. Research in Higher Education. 59, 88–107. Linked here. 

Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. (2012) Evaluation of GO Wales Phase 5. Caerphilly, HEFCW. Linked here.

Kerrigan, M., Manktelow, A. & Simmons, E. (2018) Sandwich placements: negating the socio-economic effect on graduate prospects. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning. 20, 81–107. Linked here.

Mason, G., Williams, G. & Cranmer, S. (2009) Employability skills initiatives in higher education: what effects do they have on graduate labour market outcomes? Education Economic. 17 (1), 1–30. Linked here.

Nunley, J. M., Pugh, A., Romero, N. and Seals Jr., R. A. (2016) College major, internship experience, and employment opportunities: estimates from a résumé audit. Labour Economics. 38, 37–46. Linked here.

Silva, P., Lopes, B., Costa, M., Seabra, D., Melo, A. I., Brito, E. & Dias, G. P. (2015) Stairway to employment? Internships in higher education. Higher Education. 72, 703–721. Linked here.