Deepening the graduate candidate pool

Anna Scott

Recruitment Agency Now reported last week that some of the UK’s biggest employers are this year stepping up their graduate intake by 8.7%.

The survey from graduate researcher High Fliers also revealed that graduate employers are offering a record number of paid work experience placements for university students and recent graduates, through a programme of paid internships and industrial placements.

So far, so good, especially in light of the very difficult jobs market recent graduates have found themselves entering since 2007. The unemployment rate for graduates stood at 9% last June, according to the Office for National Statistics.

But as is often the case, the devil is in the detail. High Fliers’ research also predicts that the majority of graduate roles in 2014 will go to individuals who have already worked for the hiring organisation.

Assessment and development provider a&dc says that employers need to judge their internships and work placements on potential over experience or education.

This is a worthy sentiment but difficult to achieve. Faced with the choice of employing a graduate you know to do good work – or one with a glowing reference from an employer – and one you don’t know without any references, and the outcome is predictable.

That’s why, when I graduated back in 1999, wanting to work in the media, I took on as much work experience as possible, which was unpaid. This was supplemented with part time work. But what I didn’t have that today’s graduates do is a mountain of debt from tuition fees.

And things are even more difficult for graduates who have completed unpaid internships. In the UK, deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has called for an end to unpaid internships to enable graduates from poorer backgrounds to have an equal chance of applying for graduate jobs as those who can afford to work for free.

But aside from the financial impact, students and graduates doing unpaid internships may be less likely to get a job anyway.

Forbes reports recent research from the National Association of Colleges and Employers in the US which found that hiring rates for graduates who had interned without payment were almost the same (37%) as for those who had not completed an internship at all (35%). Those who were paid during their internships were 63% likely to be hired.

Whether employers are offering paid or unpaid internships and work experience, the onus appears to be on students to get as much workplace experience as they can before they graduate.

This is not an unreasonable request, but for employers and recruiters too, ensuring that they deepen their candidate pool when both taking on interns and full-time employees is essential, not just for the reasons of equality, but for them to get a better chance of employing the right person for the organisation and the job.