A bimonthly publication of AQU Catalunya

36

May 2008

It is common knowledge that transparency is a necessary condition in order for a market to function properly. Transparency means that information flows freely and any agent can rapidly and at minimum cost obtain data for making the most appropriate decision. The universities in Catalonia have for quite some time had Internet portals up and running where job offers for and job seeking by graduates have been openly available. These initiatives seem to have been successful and have helped many graduates to find jobs.

Graduate employment and the situation of graduates in the labour market is an important area of AQU Catalunya's concern, and three different surveys have been carried out on the initiative of the universities' social councils, the results of which provide a complete view of the degree to which social demand and available degree programmes are aligned. The process of carrying out these surveys required our finding out what initiatives have been adopted in other European countries to facilitate graduate job insertion and employment.

One of the initiatives that attracted our attention was to set up a common Internet portal for gaining access to all job offers made to university graduates, so as to be able to see from a glance who amongst a range of candidates could fill a particular job. Experience with this has been positive and, as a result, a workshop was organised with representatives of the universities in Catalonia to discuss the advisability of implementing such a model here. Experts in charge of portals abroad were invited, together with representatives of the HE institutions in Catalonia. The discussion was very lively and highlighted the conflict between cooperation and competitiveness in an initiative of this type. Further study of the matter is required as it is clear that AQU Catalunya will only continue with the project with the acquiescence of all of the universities involved.