SME Career Services
Building Bridges
The marriage of SMEs and graduates can be a hard sell - from both angles. However, studies show that graduates enjoy the benefits of working for smaller businesses, so how to help them make the connection? Mark Diggle, Head of Careers at Lancaster University, answers the question.
…a 2014 LinkedIn study
asked students what they value the most when considering their career. The answer?
Work/life balance was number one…
numbers of students from outside their immediate catchment area. Recruitment companies with a strong SME client base in key regions across the UK can work with universities to
bridge the gap between their graduates and SMEs.
A
report published by GTI Media* looked at some of the challenges that SMEs may
experience marketing their graduate opportunities. In a graduate recruitment market typically dominated by the larger graduate employers, the smaller business may struggle to attract the graduate talent they seek. Although many graduates may ultimately find themselves working for an SME, the point made was that this could be seen as more of a fall-back than a positive career choice.
On the other hand, a 2014 LinkedIn study asked students what they value the most when considering their career. The answer? Work/life balance was number one, closely followed by benefits, company culture, clear career progression, and pride in at number five. The GTI survey and our own experience
at Lancaster University indicates that once graduates join an SME, the benefits – including flexibility and creative freedom – are quickly appreciated. The challenge is to make that first positive connection.
Universities want to improve their graduate outcomes. This may require developing closer working relationships with SMEs and changing the attitudes of students and recruiters, which can be a hard sell. It’s not about simply advertising SME opportunities, it requires the active targeting and selling of the benefits in order to engage suitable candidates.
Recognising that success for many universities requires a national dimension, a partnership approach to graduate recruitment by SMEs is essential. This is particularly relevant for those universities recruiting significant
A university that is well-connected to its graduates can identify potential candidates and promote the values of joining a start-up, which include a hands- on learning environment, day-to-day variety and the opportunity to work closely with entrepreneurial founders. In this respect, universities are essentially acting as a first tier recruiter on behalf of the recruitment companies they have partnered with. We used such an approach with Inspiring Interns, which set out in 2009 to draw attention to SMEs who don’t have the advertising budget to match the larger corporations and uses a filtering system to ensure the longevity of candidate and business matches.
Continued co-operation between businesses and universities must include SMEs. But if the voice of the smaller business is to be heard more widely, the role of specialist recruiters cannot be ignored. Relationships take time to build and continued effort to maintain and develop. The needs of SMEs may be best served when universities recognise the value of closer co-operation with those already meeting these needs. n
*Smaller businesses – a positive career choice for graduates? GTI Media, November 2013 ** Student Recruitment 2.0, LinkedIn, 2014
www.agr.org.uk | Graduate Recruiter 23
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