How Media Agencies Are Recruiting Grads – Now & Next

Amongst teenagers in recent years there has been a noticeable trend for NOT going to university, primarily because of the costs involved and also because of the alternatives now available. The government has invested massively in promoting apprenticeships and offering heavily subsidised personal development courses through NCS. [http://www.ncsyes.co.uk/]
Graduates with maths / tech / economics / physics degrees are in massive demand and are wooed by more and more companies as data becomes increasingly integral to their business. Media agencies do not pay over the odds for grads and will lose out time and again to bigger businesses looking to get the cream of the crop.
Grads who are attitudinally right for media agencies and have the drive and passion to get into one, will most likely achieve that irrespective of their degree.
The problem for media agencies over (minimal) time, is that they will struggle to attract appropriate talent by insisting on highly specific academic qualifications rather than looking at the individuals, their attitude and their level of ability to deliver the job in hand.
This dilemma is particularly acute in the performance arms of digital media such as PPC and Programmatic.
Look around you now. How many excellent digital media agency people do NOT have a maths/tech/business degree?
The upshot is that if media agencies insist in getting grads through the door with maths degrees, they are chasing the same pack as many employers who will pay a lot more. As a result they will be left with the stragglers.
Do you really need a degree in maths to deliver a PPC campaign or work a DSP Interface…?