Hi, this news reaches you hot off the press. As a member of the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) we get the latest reports and surveys on the industry before anyone else. Today was the launch of the findings of a survey among 217 graduate recruiters about their hiring predictions for 2008.
Despite the current economic climate, the news is good. Graduate vacancies are up 16.4%; Salaries expected to increase by 2.1% to a median of £24,000 and the surprising thing is they expect difficulties filling their vacancies despite the choice of 404,700 graduates leaving in the Summer.
The top reasons for jobs being unfilled were graduates' perception of their industry sector (this has in the past affected Engineering and Accountancy whereas Marketing or PR is stronger). Also employers weren't finding graduates with the right skills. So how do they plan to recruit graduates like you?
Well, they target certain universities (21 on average which seems crazy when there are 123 in the UK). They go along to careers fairs, advertise with careers services, make presentations and various campus events; they design brochures and websites and they experiment with new media like social networking sites or second life. A new trend to emerge was the strategy of recruiting graduates from Europe because they do not want to lower the entry requirements which can often be 2.1 with a string of strong A Levels. You can understand that global firms need to recruit globally but even UK based firms are considering this.
You have to understand that recruiters want a graduate that will provide a "return". The cost to hire a graduate can be anything over £2500 so they have to make a business case for hiring graduates so they can be very fussy. But graduates need to be fussy too. They want to work for a firm that looks impressive on a CV, provides training and a work life balance. It just seems that the language of recruiters and the language of graduates is very different and time after time there are mismatches between a graduates needs and the employers needs. This is what GRB do everyday - career matchmaking - and it is truly satisfying setting graduates off on the right track and seeing their career progress within the same firm.
So how can you increase your chances of finding work for when you graduate?
First, I think you need to get as much careers advice as possible to help you get a rough idea about what skills you have and what roles they can be best utilised. Your University Careers Service are there to help so use them before you leave.
Second, sell yourself. Get your CV checked; practice interviews; dress to impress; practice your handshake and be enthusiastic - it can be infectious!
There are more jobs out there than ever before so you are entering the job market at an ideal time. GRB have hundreds of jobs with recruiters across the UK and our consultants can guide and advise you throughout the whole job application process. Recruiters pay us to find you so it does not cost you anything. With predicted shortfalls we therefore expect many to turn to recruitment agencies to plug the gap. That's good for us and good for our registered users.
There is much media coverage of this survey so when I have read through it all I will give you all an update. Here's one I have just spotted> http://www.recruiter.co.uk/Articles/336095/Graduate+recruitment.html
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