Employers held to ransom by class of 2000

Citation

(2001), "Employers held to ransom by class of 2000", Education + Training, Vol. 43 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2001.00443bab.001

Employers held to ransom by class of 2000

Employers held to ransom by class of 2000

Keywords: Graduates, Recruitment

Graduates are an increasingly powerful and demanding group, brimming with confidence and forcing employers to fulfil their expectations or risk losing the war for talent. Some 7 per cent of graduates now expect a "golden hello" and one in five who had received a job offer felt sufficiently confident to turn it down, according to The Guardian's Grad Facts 2000, published in association with the Association of Graduate Recruiters. The survey of more than 2,000 final-year university students reveals that the class of 2000 expects to walk into a graduate job, but has no employer loyalty. Around a third do not anticipate staying with their first employer for more than a year or two.

Work-life balance rates highly, with 36 per cent placing more than 30 days' holiday a year as a more attractive benefit than a car or pension scheme. Job satisfaction is still the main criterion – from both the work itself and from colleagues. Men are more anxious than women about having an excellent salary (61 per cent versus 52 per cent) and a good social life (36 per cent versus 29 per cent). Women want to feel more passionate about the industry in which they work (68 per cent versus 56 per cent). They are also much keener than men to have an inspirational boss or mentor (31 per cent versus 19 per cent).

Training is expected by 71 per cent in their first job. Some 70 per cent expect an initial salary of £10,000 to £18,000. One in five expects to earn more than £18,000 and 8 per cent expect to receive in excess of £20,000. Around 20 per cent of graduates would most like to demonstrate their creativity by working in journalism, broadcasting or publishing. These sectors appeal most to women. Men are most attracted to computing, information technology, finance, banking, telecommunications, engineering and the Internet. Almost half of graduates think that working for the police, armed forces or prison service would be their most disliked job. Other unpopular areas include building and construction, agriculture, forestry and fishing, and hotel and catering.

Despite the introduction of tuition fees, 71 per cent of graduates felt that going to university was a good financial investment and 93 per cent that it had been a worthwhile experience. Graduates are tending to study in their area of origin, and almost half worked part time while at university. More than half of graduates said that having to perform some kind of test would discourage them from applying for certain jobs. Newspaper advertisements continue to top the list for sourcing careers information (53 per cent), followed closely by the Internet (49 per cent). Only 3 per cent use the milk round.

Research by Jobs on the Net, an online recruitment agency, confirms that graduates are shunning small firms in favour of large multinationals. While almost half of graduates questioned want to work in a major corporation, fewer than one in eight express interest in small and medium-size firms, despite the fact that they account for 99 per cent of all British businesses. Donald Martin, UK policy-unit chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "As big businesses downsize and the global economy is increasingly made up of small firms, graduates need to realize that more employment opportunities will be within small and medium-size firms. Employment with a small business can lead to greater responsibility at an earlier age for able graduates, whereas within larger corporations these same graduates are often made to feel anonymous."