Diploma Disease

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The report presents the planning and analyzes results of a social media marketing campaign on Diploma disease, which causes ineffective academic investment and supports the growth of education-based discrimination in the labour world. The campaign approaches employees and recruiters, who are directly involved in the spread of the disease. The campaign encourages the disapproval towards the phenomenon and drives the awareness of thinking of solutions. The impact of the campaign’s activities was created by videos and surveys, whose statistics will be analyzed and interpreted. The campaign also encountered some limitation, however, has a prospect to develop further.

A. PROJECT THEME AND CONCEPTS

The number of higher education students within business and economics in Australia has increased rapidly in the past years. Over the last ten years, the number of graduates from such education has doubled, leading to business education becoming one of the most popular subjects in higher education. This campaign focuses on two UNICEF’s Sustainable goals: Goal 8 Decent work and Economic Growth. As quality education stimulates sustainable economic growth (Afzal et al. 2011), the campaign raises public awareness about effective investment in education and the weakness of recruitment system that creates inequality among different academic backgrounds. We try to define Diploma disease, as accumulating undemanding qualifications to secure jobs (Marshall & Scott, 2009), is an example of ineffective educational investment and a consequence of the education-based recruiting process. Even though there are many possible employments for individuals with this background, the competition for jobs is formidable both in the short and long term; this phenomenon was chosen to promote public disapproval and drive the action against it.

B. TARGET AUDIENCE

This project aims to recruiters, employees (fresh graduates, one or two- year experienced) at all ages, nationalities or backgrounds. Regarding recruiters and managers, the campaign promotes candidates' evaluation based on skills and experience rather than qualifications or degrees. For employees, the campaign encourages people to build up skills and knowledge matched with the vacancy in addition to their degrees. If employees have different degrees from the applied job, they should be proactive in improving their resources and confident to express themselves. Newly enrolled students are potential audience because they need practical career orientation to build their career path.

C. BEHAVIOR TO CHANGE

Diploma disease refers to two behaviours: pursuing qualifications without career orientation and assessing candidates solely based on degrees. These are not aligned to develop sustainable economic growth and reduce inequalities in employment. First, if individuals become mindful about the educational outcome, they will collect useful knowledge and skills applicable to their jobs. This investment in human capital is positive for economic growth (Liao et al. 2019), reducing educated unemployment. Second, an innovative candidate evaluation system that combines different factors other than qualifications will allow recruiters to hire qualified talents (Vincent, 2019). Raising awareness about the inability to achieve two goals due to diploma disease helps motivate behavioural changes (Ludwig et al. 2020).

D. OVERALL STRATEGY

Diploma disease arises from a social norm misconception, in which accumulation of qualifications is considered a mean to secure jobs, thus, correcting this misconception could drive behaviour change. The campaign strategy highlights the contrary between existing education-based assessment system, employment preparation and desired behaviour change (Reid et al. 2013). Marketing mix of 4Ps is used to monitor this campaign.

Products: The loss of promising talents and waste of personal resources are emphasized, which will lead to more significant psychological effect on people’s decision to shift to more beneficial practices (Parashiv & L’Haridon, 2008).

Place: The campaign will take place on the Internet as it gives the most comfortable access to all targeted audience. The video (https://youtu.be/MjjqusPCotQ) embedded in the survey (https://forms.gle/HLBpur1BCH7UTxmy6) is uploaded popular social media such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. LinkedIn is mainly used as it is an extensive network of recruiters and employees and potentially causes biases during screening resume (Caers & Castelyn, 2011). YouTube and Google Docs provide analytics for measurement.

Price: The campaign costs both individuals and society time and psychological cost, preventing them from enacting the behaviour. The recruiters may bear additional recruitment costs when they conduct more interviews and examination while the employees may find themselves less competitive if they stop accumulating degrees. Therefore, the campaign demonstrates employees’ perspectives about this disease to decrease the discomfort in thoughts and informs recruiters about their candidates’ expectation.

Promotion: To promote the campaign on social media, the specific hashtags were used to reach as many people as possible in those platforms. The targeted audience is encouraged to share the survey and the video. People are more willing to share if they have incentives to do so. Therefore, AUD10 will be rewarded to lucky respondents with qualitative answers.

E. RESULTS

Measurement of engagement

The video and survey were launched for nine days from 27th December to 4th January 2021. The video has 46 views in total (figure 1) with four likes. The access to the video came from its inclusion in the survey (figure 2). The number of likes and views are under expectation but could have increased when more popular hashtags regarding education were included, and the video was underpaid promotion service.

The survey was taken by 23 participants, which suggests that the video and survey coverage was insufficient to attract the audience. However, the figures could have been improved if participants were motivated to share. Currently, the incentive scheme was for completing the survey, not sharing.

Interpretation from survey results

The respondents were mostly 65% between the age of 18-25 and 26.1% (Gen Z and late Millennials) (Graph 1), indicating that participants are within the targeted group including either undergraduate and experienced workers.

The audience's diversity is achieved when participants come from different educational backgrounds ranging from science, arts and literature, business and engineering. The majority of the audience, about 82%, has more than one year of working, implying they have joined at least one recruiting process (Graph 2).

Percentages in Graph 3 deliver mixed messages. Nearly 40% of participants experienced the disease but did not know the name while those who never have experience accounts for 30%. These figures suggest that this phenomenon has not been pointed out directly in public and people might not be driven to stop it.

Although many haven’t experienced this disease more than 60% admitted that diploma disease is serious and change is needed depending on the situation. In fact, those who have not experienced or heard of the disease admitted that change is needed after watching the video. An important note on Graph 4 is no one answered that diploma disease is not serious. These are aligned with the campaign’s objective to persuade people to go against the concept.

Long- answer questions (Question 6 to 10) were given to stimulate participants’ shift in mindset about the concept, starting from the reasons behind the phenomenon to solutions to inefficient educational investment and complicated recruiting processes. Respondents pointed at the recruiters and the organization and those in a higher position as the reasons for this disease, while some thought of fear of unemployment and the labour market’s trend. They also showed their support of the campaign’s idea when prioritizing other factors such as skills and knowledge different from qualifications while assessing candidates.

Question 9 Appendix about factors to take into account before choosing a degree has the most detailed responses. Participants discussed many perspectives ranging from career outcome, personal finance and interest to parental and social influences. The diversity in answers can be considered as a positive reaction that supports the campaign’s objective. If these answers were published, they could create more impacts on others.

F. LIMITATION OF CAMPAIGN Limitation of the campaign lies mainly on internal resources. The campaign was launched in a restricted time, leading to few opportunities to reach more audience. Despite using different social media, the network of connection is also a restriction as the marketing team only includes two members. Another limitation is hashtags used on social media; education hashtags is not popular these days since COVID-19 news and updates are covered the majority.

G. PROSPECTS OF CAMPAIGN In Figure 3, YouTube recommendation of the content is 8.3%, the remaining proportion shall based on users’ willingness to search. In order to develop the campaign further, involvement of other individuals and organizations is necessary.

As in research conducted by authors at the University of Bucharest, students are mostly motivated by the industry's desire (Doicin et al. 2016). Therefore, institutions shall demonstrate their emphasis on career orientation service and support efficient investment in education. Statistics collected in this campaign could assist them in understanding students' expectation and customize career orientation services. Universities could participate in the campaign while promoting themselves to attract those who are career-oriented.

Based on the last question in the survey, most participants prefer to have mentors and teachers' advice before choosing a degree, so it is vital to have their endorsement of the campaign. According to research done by Estrada et al. (2018), since social settings influence a student's mindset, high-quality mentorship plays a significant part in leading them to experience social integration. Due to the information gathered from the survey teachers and mentors can change their guidance provided to students to avoid Diploma disease and make conscious decisions about their future career.

H. References Afzal, M.; Rehman, H.U.; Farooq, M.S.; Sarwar, K. Education and economic growth in Pakistan: A cointegration and causality analysis. Int. J. Educ. Res. 2011, 50, 321–335

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