Labour market destination
Information on the labour market destination of the MA-EUS graduates of Leiden University.
Professor Richard T. Griffiths
(October 2010)
There is not much on-line about the labour market destination of EU Studies graduates, except attractive lists of (glittering) careers. If there is information, it is often attractively (and misleadingly) packaged. For example, hardly anyone admits to the existence of a group of students for which there is no information (and who are often jobless, which is why they haven’t replied to the questionnaire). Thus the percentages always add up to 100%, all with jobs. Another statistic is the time taken to find work. Again, this is based on those registered with work, any work, and is usually another brilliant 100% within a couple of months. I doubt whether this is ever the case, but doubt it even more if a sizeable proportion of students comes from abroad. It is a sad fact that foreign study enhances career prospects in the medium-term, but in the short-term, it does cut graduates off from their home job-markets and networks.
This brings me to another way of distorting results, namely by talking-up the job descriptions. It is a fact that many graduates start their careers (if only for a few months) in jobs below their qualifications. So if someone is in food retail, she might be managing an international food refrigeration business or flipping Burgers.
We do have statistics from our graduates between 2004-5 and 2008-9 graduates collected four months after the end of the course or internship. Several of the ‘national government’ employees are now working on behalf of their governments in Brussels as are two of the ‘local government’ employees. This is also the third year that we registered unemployed students (ironically, usually after an internship which left them walking slap-bang into the current recession), and I should add that several of the more recent graduates are currently working in positions below their academic levels – the recession has hit our traditional market destinations harder than most. What is also interesting (and not reflected in these statistics) is that 13% of graduates from these years have eventually gone on to undertake PhD research. And 1% of our graduates get married (to each other!).
I have often been asked to give more practical examples of career paths that our graduates take and my reply has been that when Departments do this, they always ‘cheat’ by selecting the most glamorous examples. But then, I thought, why not just cheat as well. So what I have done is to give the career path of the all students who achieved the best results in their year as well as all the students receiving the Beyen-Prize for the best thesis. They do not all point in one, Brussles-type, direction. By the way, also interesting is the qualifications held by these graduates before coming to Leiden (many of which lie outside the strict definition of disciplines that we should accept!). The list is in chronological order:
Ilgaz Ergen, Turkey (Best student 2005) came to Leiden with a BSc in Management Engineering from the Technical University of Istanbul and an MA in Political Science and International Relations from Bosphorus University. He wrote his MA thesis on the Rural Development Policy of the E.U. and Turkey. He was already working as the Purchasing Manager of one of the biggest FMCG companies of Turkey when he came and after graduating he continued in the same position for one more year. Then in 2006 he started to work as the Foreign Trade Manager of one of the leading Table Olives and Olive Oil producing companies of Turkey, a position he has held ever since.
Ida Petter, Netherlands (JW Beyen Prize 2005) embarked on the MA-EUS with a Masters degree in Economic and Social History from Leiden University. She wrote her MA thesis on “Opinions on European Integration in the Netherlands: the constitutional treaty and media framing”. On finishing degree, we employed her to coordinate and teach in our undergraduate European Union Studies program, and she has continued teaching in it ever since. In 2006 she was recruited into the European section of the Dutch Ministry of Finance, where she became senior policy advisor. In 2009 she was seconded to become an EU advisor to the Dutch Parliament. In 2010 she moved to her present position of Deputy Secretary-General / Committee Secretary of the Dutch Senate (Foreign Relations, EU and Finance).
Maria Basilico, Argentina (Best student 2006) came to Leiden with an MA International Relations and Negotiations from FLASCO Universidad de Barcelono. She wrote he MA thesis on EU-Russian Relations. Bridging or widening the gap? After graduation she worked first for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Hague. She then worked for a time in the project management team for an EU Joint Action project on building academic links between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean. She is currently personal Assistant of the Prosecutor of the Tribunal for Lebanon.
Evert Faber van der Meulen, Netherlands (Best student 2007) came to the MA-EUS with a BA in History from Ledien University. He wrote his thesis on The EU-Russian Gas Relations. Embedded liberalism versus suboptimal state control. After graduating, we employed him to coordinate and teach in our undergraduate European Union Studies program. At the same time, he continued his studies in Arabic. In 2009 he started an MA in Arabic at Oxford University, with a Huygens grant from the Dutch government.
Maria Ilies, Romania (JW Beyen Prize 2007) came to Leiden with a BA in Marketing from the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. She wrote her MA thesis on A Comparative Perspective of National Approaches to Irregular Economic Migrants. A case study on Italy and the Netherlands. On graduating, she was employed by the Leiden University, Faculty of Law as junior immigration researcher. She was responsible with monitoring the developments of Dutch and European immigration policy and writing feedback reports. She also contributed to the development of policy reports and scientific papers on migration-related matters, including the Netherlands expert report on the size and characteristics of the irregular residing population in the Netherlands (Clandestino - Irregular Migration: Counting the Uncountable. Data and Trends Across Europe) under the European Commission’s FP6. At present she is employed by the Erasmus University Rotterdam as the coordinator of an immigration policy-oriented research project, working in collaboration with several Dutch municipalities and ministries.
Sascha Faradsch, Germany (Best student 2008) had previously obtained a BSC in Environmental and Resource Management from Brandenburg University of Technology. He wrote his MA thesis on EU Energy Security and the South Caucasus. Since graduating he has been Parliamentary assistant and political advisor to an SDP Member of European Parliament in Brussels/Strasbourg.
Antonet Abbink, Netherlands (Best student 2008) had come to Leiden with a BSc in Psychology and a BA in Italian Language and Culture, both from Utrecht University. She wrote her MA thesis on The Food Chain dimension in EU Rural Development Policy. Issues of governance in the global agro-food economy. After graduating she was a Schuman trainee at the European Parliament and followed this with an internship in a Brussels-based European Affairs firm (specialising in financial services). From there she became a policy officer at European industry association in Brussels. She is currently a Consultant European Affairs at Public Affairs firm in Brussels, dealing with policy analysis, political strategy, political communications.
Michael Coles, USA (Jan-Willem Beyen Prize 2008) came to Leiden with a BA in Political Science and History from Longwood University in Florida. He wrote his MA thesis on Biometric Security within the European Union: Balancing individual liberties with collective security. On graduating he joined the Amsterdam based telecommunications firm - Expereo International , a leading virtual network operator which specialises in providing broadband connectivity to enterprises worldwide. At time of writing, he was based in Singapore.
Marleen Geerlof, Netherlands (Best student 2009) had studied English at Leiden University (with a minor in EU studies) before embarking on the MA-EUS. She wrote her MA thesis on The EU and MERCASOR (the case of Argentinean petrochemicals and intellectual property rights). She has spent the year since graduation on a series of internships – with the Dutch Embassy to Albania, in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the UN Secretariat in New York and with the EU Delegation to the UN, again in New York. At the time of writing she had just returned to the Netherlands and was applying for a position.
Yannick Stomphorst, Netherlands (Jan-Willem Beyen Prize 2009) came to the MA-EUS with an MSC in Business Administration from Radboud University, Nijmegen. He wrote his thesis on Merger Control and the Shadow of the Past – Can National Competition Authorities Leave Their Past Behind?. He worked as a government trainee and policy advisor in the Economics Ministry (Department of Competition and Consumer Policy). Since the beginning of October 2010, he been a trainee with the European Union, D-G Competition.
Manuel Mohr, Germany (Best Student and Jan-Willem Beyen Prize 2010) came to the MA-EUS with a Political Science and Sociology from Humbolt University. He wrote his MA thesis on A two-step approach to creating the single European electricity market?- The promotion of regional integration between EU energy policy and the markets. He is employed as a research associate at the Institut für Europäische Politik, Berlin.