The publishing of graduate recruitment expectations for the coming year always makes for interesting reading and this year’s High Fliers’ report is no exception. From a distance, all looks rosy, with employers anticipating an across-the-board rise of 6.4% over the number of graduates they took on board in 2011. Some improvement on the cataclysmic 18% drop in 2009. One of the figures that really caught the eye was the public sector forecasting an expansion in their graduate hiring of a staggering 21.9%. This against a backdrop of headcount reductions and recruitment freezes within the sector.
However, perhaps the most striking take-out from the research was the idea that 36% of 2012’s graduate recruitment intake will be filled by applicants who have already spent time with the hiring organisation, via placements, internships or sponsorship.
For employers, this makes abundant sense on the surface. Internships and work placements give them the perfect opportunity to get up close and personal with potential graduate hires, analysing them for attitude, aptitude and cultural fit. For undergraduates too, the chance to kick the tyres of a possible employer, is hugely insightful, as well as taking away some of the final year dilemma – whether to focus on academic studies or job hunting, with the attendant risk of doing neither particularly well.
But how inclusive is this? How many students truly understand how, and particularly when, to engage with employers? How many think they ought to start contacting employers in their final year, or worse, after they’ve graduated? According to some recent TMP on-campus focus groups, too many. And particularly from individuals who represent the first generation of their family to attend university, lacking as they do, advice, guidance and networks of more employment-savvy graduates.
There are 50,000 more graduates due to leave UK universities in 2012, compared to just five years ago. By not delivering an employer branding message platform to students such as these until it is perhaps too late, we risk much. If employers are not engaging with the broadest student body, they risk missing on some hugely talented individuals. Students risk leaving university with little else than debt to show for their three years of study. And society risks disenchantment, disenfranchisement and non-work ready graduating students.
With so many more graduates apparently competing for just 64% of all available graduate jobs in their final year (and the number of graduate jobs still hovering below pre-recession levels), organisations need to ensure their campus value proposition is being delivered at the earliest possible moment to its audiences.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 