Graduates Fail to Wow Recruiters

The Daily Telegraph reported last week that businesses in the UK are beginning to look towards school leavers as an alternative to recruiting graduates straight from University. The research survey carried out found that one in five recruiters prefer school leavers, believing that ‘university graduates had unrealistic expectations of working life'.

Interpersonal skills and, surprisingly, computer skills, were cited as the most common skill lacking from new graduates, along with basic numeracy and literacy skills. Instead, younger recruits coming straight from school and college were described as having a better attitude to work, timekeeping and productivity.

This is reinforced by a survey carried out by the Young Foundation; the social innovation research organisation. A study in October 2011 of big businesses in the UK including HSBC, Proctor and Gamble, Santander and KPMG found that there was common concern about the quality of graduates. Again, the skills lacking were listed as commercial awareness, written and spoken English to a high enough level, technical skills...and interpersonal skills.

Necessary Skills

Graduates do not seem to recognise the skills needed to make themselves attractive to employers, the annual Higher Education Careers Service Unit found, when graduates were asked what attributes employers valued the most. Graduates ranked commercial awareness, numeracy and computer literacy low, with softer skills such as communication and work ethic at the top of the list.

This will make depressing reading for companies recruiting into telecoms jobs, accountancy jobs and IT jobs. Despite the economic climate, these three areas remain a growth area in the UK. In fact, the telecoms giant BT reopened its graduate scheme last year after shutting the scheme temporarily in 2009.

Graduate recruiters believe that a closer collaboration between businesses and universities is needed to fill the skills gap, and put the emphasis on the universities to lead this change. In June 2011, the former Chief Executive of Tesco, Sir Terry Leahy, complained that universities were too focused on research and do not place enough emphasis on high quality teaching.

Graduates that find themselves fortunate enough to gain roles straight from university often do so as a result of doing a summer placement scheme or year in industry.

One solution to this problem is for employers to develop their apprenticeship schemes and in-house training schemes. Over two fifths of companies now offer apprenticeships to school leavers or graduates to ensure new recruits are immersed in the organisational culture and develop the specific skills needed by the organisation.

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