Fewer sector job ads now require degrees, research suggests
Melanie May | 4 November 2022 | News
The number of fundraising job ads mentioning the need for a degree is dropping, research by #NonGraduatesWelcome suggests.
Its figures show that in 2019, 34% of fundraising job ads on the free jobs board of Facebook group Fundraising Chat required a degree. Three years later, it found that this has fallen to 17% (26 out of 157).
Singling out the month of October in both years, #NonGraduatesWelcome found that in October 2019 over a quarter of jobs (27%) listed a degree as essential, dropping to 8% (12 jobs out of 157) this October.
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#NonGraduatesWelcome campaigns for charities to end the practice of making degree-level education a requirement for jobs. It believes this requirement is contributing to the lack of diversity in the sector, as well as making it harder for charities to find talented people for their teams.
On its site, it says:
“There are many reasons – through choice or through circumstance – why some talented people don’t go to university. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential to be incredible fundraisers.”
By regularly calling out organisations that specify a degree as a job requirement, #NonGraduatesWelcome has prompted many removals since it launched in 2019, although it remains a requirement in a lot of ads. Job boards are also getting on board however, with Fundraising Chat, CharityComms, FundraisingJobs all recently announcing that they will no longer be accepting job ads with unnecessary requirements.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.