Posts Tagged ‘career’

Graduates: don’t neglect opportunities within SMEs

November 23rd, 2011

A recent study conducted by Iconnyx reveals that many university leavers are overlooking roles within small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), even though gaining employment within an SME can often be a fantastic career opportunity for a graduate.

The survey found that just 3% of the thirty recruitment consultancies asked believed that graduates preferred smaller companies over larger ones.

Graduate job seekers are attracted to the major multinational organisations and discount the experience they can gain at smaller companies. SMEs are a practical option for university leavers struggling to compete for the popular graduate schemes at large global companies. In fact, it may be the big, household-name companies that first to come to mind when thinking about graduate recruitment but in reality only 14% of graduates actually get places on these companies’ graduate training schemes. The schemes are highly demanding, often requiring a 2:1 degree and sometimes a willingness to relocate. Some findings from ‘Employing Graduates in SMEs: Towards a Research Agenda’ reveal that approximately 50% of SMEs have no preference for the discipline of the graduate’s degree and over 90% of SMEs showed little interested in the class or type of degree.

Some advantages of working for an SME include:

  • SMEs can offer personal on-the-job training and invaluable hands-on experience.
  • You will have the flexibility to get involved in a wider range of tasks and will gain a variety of experiences and skills as job roles are often less firmly defined in small companies.
  • You would be encouraged to voice your own ideas and feel like you are making a real contribution to the business.  You will see ideas implemented and observe projects through from start to finish.
  • Small businesses offer good prospects for graduates who do join them and there are more likely to be opportunities to develop roles and further careers.
  • The working environment may be less bureaucratic and more relaxed than in larger organisations. Small business owners understand that their staff is their greatest asset and are therefore more likely to identify their needs and treat them as individuals.
  • You may be able to get a job near where you live rather than having to move like you would be required to do if accepted onto some graduate schemes.
  • SMEs offer the opportunity to work closely with people on all levels of the business including senior management and to have your work noticed.

SMEs can offer university leavers what they often seek from their first graduate internship or job. However, some graduates are unaware of the benefits SMEs can offer and have no idea how to take advantage of them. So don’t always think big…

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Blogging your way to a career

September 22nd, 2011

Last year, celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton was offered $20m for his website PerezHilton.com. The blog quickly transformed the gossip site guru into one of the most recognised celebrity bloggers and influential people on the web.

Obviously not everybody will bag fame and fortune from their blogs, but they undoubtedly open doors to other opportunities and are a great way to build an online reputation. Blogs can showcase your talents, improve your writing skills and even enhance your chances of finding a graduate internship or job and impressing potential employers.

It is likely that at some point in the hiring process a potential employer will Google your name to see what they find. Therefore, you want it to support and enhance the perception you have created with your CV. The content they find should be informative, professional, well written and portray passion for the subject.

Steps in creating your own blog:

1.      Decide what you want the content to be about. There are so many topics and options but it will be your enthusiasm for a topic that will keep you writing. Begin by asking yourself ‘what do I love?’ You need to consider your hobbies, what books you read or films you watch, what industries interest you and what your favourite websites are.

2.      You need to focus on the aim of your blog.  You need to think about whether it is to spread the word about a particular topic, make your readers laugh or educate people? With this in mind you can then keep your content focused and targeted.

3.      Keep it updated and blog regularly. A blog with only 2 or 3 posts or that hasn’t been updated in 6 months has little value. If an employer looks at your blog and sees that only there are only a couple of entries that are dated then they may assume that you are either not committed to it, or that it’s only out there for show. It will also help boost search engine rankings and a higher rank will send you more people.

4.      Keep it professional! Remember that a potential employer could be reading it. They don’t want to see bad language, poor spelling or bad mouthing of other companies.

5.      Use social media to promote your blog. If an employer does search you online you want them to be able to find your blog so make sure it is linked from other places. Use Twitter, LinkedIn profile and Facebook and make sure it shows up when searched for

So now you have all the tools get that blog started! Once your blog is up and running, make sure you include a link to your blog in any job application.

Start blogging now!

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Itchy feet, itchy feet! – guest blog

June 14th, 2011

I graduated a while back now…in fact I can hardly believe that it will have been two years this summer which is already more than half the time I spent studying in the first place! So what have I been doing during all of this intervening period of no ‘real job’ and ‘no studying’?  Well I spent six months doing something which I would recommend to anyone and everyone who is about to graduate; go travelling.

In the summer of 2009, we were in the height of recession and the future really was looking bleak for those of us about to enter the big, scary, real world.  For me, it presented the perfect opportunity; the chance to travel the world and see something outside my own horizons.  In the months leading up to graduation, it was becoming more and more apparent that things weren’t going to get better anytime soon and so the plan to take off was borne.

It took a while to get there and a great deal of work but by May 2010 I was ready to set off on my big adventure.  In order to get there I slaved away in retail working full time in a management team for a clothes shop and also in a supermarket.  On top of this, I took on two GCSE English students to help bring in some cash to live off of.  On an average week, I’d clock up 65 hours of working (plus at least another 8 travelling) but at the end of the tunnel, the brightest light was shining and I had no doubt that it would be worth it.

In hindsight, this hard work was part of the joy of the experience and has also added greatly to my CV; at least I show I’ve got stamina and dedication to achieve!  I am a bit of a workaholic but that is rather another story.

So finally, with enough money in the savings and flights all paid for, I was off on my trip of a lifetime.  My route went like this:

London – Los Angeles – Las Vegas – Fiji – New Zealand – Sydney – Singapore – Malaysia – Malaysian Borneo – Thailand – Cambodia – Vietnam – Hong Kong – Japan – Korea – China – India

Phew!  Writing it all down like that makes me feel tired just thinking about it.  So perhaps it is time that I got to the point of this post.

I could sit here and go on for hours about why I think that everyone should travel when they finish university.  But here is the general gist of why if you are umming and ahhing about what to do next, then this could be an option.

If you aren’t sure what you want to do with your life, travelling can buy you some time.  It gives you the opportunity to be free and to get to know yourself better and hopefully along that way you will discover something that you will love and want to turn into a career.

If you are scared about joining the ‘real world’, then again travelling will buy you some time and allow you to gain some different experiences.

Working beforehand in order to save up to go away, feels really good!  When you’ve got that little nest egg in the bank, you genuinely feel proud.  Personally, I think it was one of the best things I have ever managed to achieve and yeah I could have put a down-payment on a house…but this way I had much more fun!

If you choose to work while you travel, you will grow as a person as you have to experience everything from way beyond your natural comfort zone.  Especially if you choose to work in a country where English is not the main language…

…which leads me onto another point.  If you were to go out and volunteer (and I am not necessarily saying pay to go on one of those overpriced volunteering trip things…organise it yourself through a charity) then that will look great on your CV.

You will learn so much more than you ever thought possible.  You will learn about yourself, about other cultures, languages, people…I learnt more in six months travelling than I did in three years studying my degree.

It will change you…more than likely for the better.

And my advice not to do?

Don’t just go away and get drunk for your whole trip.  There is so much more to do than that.  If you are going to travel, ensure you have something worthwhile to discuss with a future employer.  Make the trip work towards your employability and don’t make it work against you.

As for me…I’ve well and truly got itchy feet.  Bring on the Euro Road Trip this summer!

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Confidence in graduate job market hits a 15 year low

May 27th, 2010

source – eduinreview

For one recent graduate it all gets a bit too overwhelming.

It’s grim up North; or so the saying goes. Well now it seems that it’s grim up North, down South and anywhere else in-between, according to a recent survey of final year students at 30 of the UK’s top universities. The study, carried out by High Fliers, concluded that 45% of university leavers believed that their prospects upon finishing were ‘very limited’. Considering that the recent recession is officially over, the aftermath of the banking crisis seems to be playing heavily on the minds of graduates.

Possibly the most disturbing of all of the findings is that one in six wouldn’t have gone to university at all if they’d known about how tough it would be to find work upon finishing. Many are scared that jobs available will be snapped up by 2009 graduates, however speaking as an ’09 grad myself I am vigilant of the reverse coming into effect. Martin Birchill, Managing Director of High Fliers commented, “Our latest survey shows that final year students due to leave UK universities this summer are just as pessimistic about their employment prospects as those who graduated twelve months ago… with a record number of students due to complete degrees in the coming weeks and tens of thousands of last year’s graduates still looking for work, there is widespread concern on campus that competition for graduate jobs has never been fiercer.”

These figures paint a stark profile of graduate unemployment but yet again the Government have failed to differentiate between youth unemployment as a whole and the plight of those in higher education. In a repost to the survey’s findings, Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts said, “The jobs market continues to be very tough for young people, who were among the biggest losers during the recession. There continues to be enormous value in higher education and that is why we also are committed to offering an extra 10,000 university places this year.” As we have continued to say time and time again, herding more young people into university will only make the problem of the saturation of the graduate job market even worse; how long will it be until the government realise this?

Although in reality this survey is only a snapshot of graduate opinions, a fifth of final year students were interviewed and the assumptions that can be drawn are worrying to say the least. Following the announcement of dramatic spending cuts in Whitehall, the post-recession bubble seems to have been well and truly burst. With dark times ahead, the next few years for graduates are forecast to be a bleak period.

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