 By Graham Trickey, Editor, Prospects. Blue-chip employers do not have enough jobs for every graduate. Fortunately there are good but less prominent alternatives. Organisations whose staff can squeeze into a single room, if not a telephone kiosk, have not always been associated with graduate ambition. But today’s small businesses have more to offer university leavers, while big companies cannot accommodate the expanded numbers applying to them. Despite the attention given to blue-chip graduate programmes, the vacancies they offer are only enough for one in ten graduates. They also tend to be disproportionately centred in London, which can be a disadvantage for those with roots elsewhere. Meanwhile the UK’s 1.2 million small and medium-sized employers (or SMEs) are a force in the labour market all over the country. Together they have approximately the same share of the UK’s total workforce (non-graduate and graduate) as the 7,000 large companies. And SMEs are not necessarily less dynamic than their larger rivals: they have led the way in job creation over the last few years. Many university-leavers and graduates are familiar with SMEs as providers of stop-gap and temporary employment, whether in bars or offices, but the full range of small businesses covers almost the entire economy from industry to finance and public services. Small firms are officially those with fewer than 50 employees while the much less numerous medium-sized employers have no more than 250 staff. At the smallest end of the spectrum pubs and tradespeople are as common as ever, but there are also more innovative businesses, most obviously those related to information and communication technology. Increasingly firms are set up by people who are university educated and they need staff with degrees. Other businesses may not have employed graduates in the past but now need them to carry out functions such as marketing, sales and administration as they grow. For graduates, a big advantage of small firms is that responsibility is often available early with plenty of opportunity to experience how a business works. From the start they are likely to be exposed to a company’s entire activities. Jobs tend to be hands-on and may include helping out with various activities. Unlike the experience in large companies, individuals know the entire staff, as well as the boss and clients, particularly as those in the first two categories may be very few. Some graduates are fortunate to join start-ups with only a handful of staff and then develop with the firm. There can be disadvantages too. Small companies may fold rather than grow, and generally they do not pay top starting salaries. Benefits and working conditions are also unlikely to match the blue-chip version. Lack of formal training and development may likewise be on the wrong side of the balance sheet: clear career paths, of the sort seen in blue-chips tend to be absent. Finding a job with a small business can be more complicated than filling in blue-chip recruiters’ online application forms. Because small businesses are running at full stretch and may not have a personnel manager, recruitment practices can be haphazard.. Although small firms are frequent users of employment agencies and advertisements in the local press, they also find staff by informal methods such as referrals and recommendations. So finding a job may require the use of networking and contacts, or speculative applications followed by a phone call. Another option for graduates is to look at vacancies notified to a university careers services or its Job Shop. In addition careers services are sometimes linked to a local graduate employment schemes that offer mainly short-term opportunities or there may be one run by a local economic development agency. Small firms are particularly keen on applicants who can show they will be worth their pay from day one. So previous related experience is at a premium and relevant qualifications may be welcomed. Even temporary work done since graduating could also be helpful, rather than the waste of time it sometimes seems Employers may also be interested in transferable skills such as problem-solving, communication, teamworking, flexibility, self-motivation and enthusiasm which may not have originally been developed in employment. Finding a match with a particular small firm is not necessarily going to be easy. But the bigger picture is that graduate recruitment is no longer associated mainly with leading employers. One size does not have to fit all. Micro computer experienceIT graduate Rob Dale first got to know a small North Wales company, Hmm Software Training, on a placement during his course. After his degree he rejoined the company for a further 16 months of useful experience before the company fell victim to difficulties in the IT industry. ‘I suppose the best aspects of working for a small business were the working environment and the level of responsibility involved. Given that there were only nine of us in the entire company when I started, it took precisely five minutes to meet everyone. Of course they’d all worked together for the last 12 months and had developed a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Also the level of responsibility (for me particularly) was quite high. Every training course had to be perfect and the PCs had to be correctly configured and the manuals all had to be present and correct by 9.30am every morning. It was particularly rewarding to see everything working on time. ‘The main benefit for me was the experience. After my first month I’d learned every version of Windows inside out and more about Microsoft Office applications than one person was ever meant to know. I’d also been thrown into a disorganised and overworked technical department which previously consisted of one man. So I was able to put forward management theories studied at university and implement them. Who’d have thought academic theories could actually work?’ Related topics
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