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Graduate salaries down by 6%

November 15th, 2010

It is something that we know will come as no surprise: graduate salaries are on the decline.

XpertHRs annual graduate recruitment survey showed that starting salaries offered to graduate recruits are 6% lower than in 2009; indicating that they are not keeping up with pay rises across the economy.

Following the student riots over university tuition fee increases last week; this news – though not good – could act as some justification for the protesters. Part of the rationalisation for the substantial tuition fee increases was because it was alleged that graduate salaries were becoming more generous, something the XpertHRs survey disputes.

Half of the 190 employers surveyed offered graduates starting salaries of between £20,000 and £26,000. Overall however, the starting salaries varied greatly: with the lowest graduate earning £12,000, and the highest receiving £42,500.

As the cost of living continues to rise, it is feared that graduates will face further financial pressure in the future, particularly in the context of increased student fees to initially contend with.

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DEBATE: Should the long-term unemployed be made to do community work for their benefits?

November 9th, 2010

For some months now the topic of whether or not the long-term unemployed should be made to work for their benefits has been tossed around Parliament. This weekend the debate surrounding the benefits reform re-ignited as the government looks to go ahead with their original proposals.  Here, we summarise exactly what the government are suggesting, outline different sides of the ‘compulsory community work’ argument being highlighted in the media, and ask, what do you think? Should the long-term unemployed be made to do community work for their benefits?

Background information

The UK currently has five million people on out-of-work benefits, with it recorded last year that three million working-age people had been receiving those benefits for two years or more. Government statistics further showed that 1.4million people have been on an out-of-work benefit for nine or more of the past ten years. The numbers mean that the UK has one of the highest rates of workless households in Europe; with 1.9m children living in homes where no-one has a job.

What exactly is being proposed?

To try and reduce these figures the government plan to make it compulsory for those unemployed on a long term basis (although ‘long-term’ has yet to be defined) to do community work, such as gardening, litter-picking or working with a charity.

Though the community work scheme is in the process of being officially outlined, initial submissions suggest that the placements will be more like ‘work experience’ than full-time jobs, lasting from two weeks to one month. The claimant would be expected to work a 30 hour week to allow them to “experience…the habits and routines of working life” again.

Any claimant who refused or failed to turn up to work on time could then have their £65 Jobseekers’ Allowance frozen for at least three months.

The ‘Work Activity scheme’ is said to be designed to help reduce welfare dependency, stop claimants from opting to take benefits rather than work, and flush out those claiming whilst doing undeclared jobs on the side.

Points against the proposal

- Unemployed people will be treated like prisoners – Community service is currently the most frequently used form of punishment for those convicted of a crime, with over 20,000 people given a community sentence last year. By making the unemployed also do community service, they are a) being “punished” in the same way as a convicted criminal, and b) reducing the impact of this prevalent court punishment for those that have caused a criminal offence.

- It will cause already vulnerable people into further despair – The Archbishop of Canterbury is against the proposals, saying he believes it could drive people “into a downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair.” He argued that people who are already genuinely struggling to find work and struggling to find a future do not need their unfortunate circumstances turned against them.

- It could cost lower sector workers their jobs – If the unemployed are made to do lower sector jobs such as litter picking and gardening, then the demand for people currently hired to perform such roles will lessen or even cease to exist. If those people then become unemployed, they could end up finding themselves doing the same role as before, but on a far smaller income provided by the benefit system.

-  It will force the wages of the average worker down – If people are made to work for free, then the whole employment system could end up restructuring.  Unemployed people, feeling that a certain job is more desirable than community work / that any money paid is better than nothing, may feel forced to accept jobs for less pay than other competitors. The result is that those competitors then also have to take less money to get another job, and so on and so on, eventually impacting the average workers wage bracket.

- Forcing people into work will mean they have less time to find better employment – People who are made to work 30-hour weeks will have less time to search and apply for job posts, meaning that they will be even more unlikely to acquire themselves a permanent position.

- It is slave labour – Forcing people to work for free is being deemed as unlawful and has been accused of being the modern day equivalent of ‘slave labour’.

Points for the proposal

- It will help to flush out ‘benefit scroungers’ – By making people do community service, it will teach those who have opted for a life on benefits rather than employment that they can no longer have their lifestyle funded by those that work. It will also put a stop to those claiming benefits whilst unlawfully working, as they will not be able to carry on their undeclared position whilst carrying out the compulsory work scheme.

- It is fairer to the taxpayer – The unemployed should give something back to those paying for their benefits by helping out in the community. There are many people who have never claimed jobseekers, and have always managed to maintain a working life even if they had to take less desirable positions. Why should they then fund people to ‘sit at home’ when these people could be filling many important roles within the community?

- Allows people to experience the workplace again – Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Secretary to the Treasury, told the BBC’s Politics Show that the scheme was intended to “support and encourage”  people to get back into the habit of getting up and going out to work, rather than remaining isolated at home. He also said it would help people demonstrate their employability to prospective employers, after many employers said they look more favourably to people who had done some work recently than those who had been unemployed for a long time.

- It gives people more of a push to find something better employment wise – If people are forced to do jobs such as litter picking and gardening, then it may a) motivate them to up the job search to look for something better, or b) make them consider taking jobs which they may have previously felt were beneath them.

- Breaks the cycle of welfare dependency – With the current benefits system meaning that some claimants are no better off – and sometimes poorer – if they come off the dole to take jobs paying up to £15,000 a year, many have admitted they purposely didn’t take work offered to them. With the new system, those who refused to take work, take jobs that were offered to them or do voluntary work would have their handouts stopped, and so the cycle of welfare dependency at the taxpayer’s cost would come to an end.

- It will save money – 14% of Britain’s national income is currently spent on welfare. As the country struggles to pay back its £156 billion budget deficit, the benefits system is being seen as a significant area where costs can be reduced. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary said, “The benefits system is a deeply ineffective and costly way of subsidising people’s lives. We obviously have a limited amount of money and our purpose is to improve the quality of life for the worst-off in society so they can play a part and hopefully pay tax one day themselves.’

What do you think? Let us know below!

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Making it on your own: Digital Whizzkids

November 5th, 2010

As the media was filled with the latest dismal graduate employment statistics at the beginning of the week (see our piece ‘The Graduate Unemployment Sector’ for more details) we thought it was about time to give you something to aspire to.

Or – perhaps we should say – some people to be inspired by.

Here are some clever souls who – with a little help from their computers – decided to take their career prospects into their own hands and make it on their own. And they happened to do it rather well.  Heck, if they can do it, maybe you could to? (It would be nice to see even more English names on the list next time…)

Mark Zuckerberg


If by now you still don’t know who Mark Zuckerberg is then please refer to the picture for a pretty big hint. That’s right, he is the creator of the biggest social media website in the world: Facebook.

Anyone who has read Ben Mezrich’s book ‘The Accidental Billionaires’ about Zuckerberg’s rise to social media fame, or seen the book’s film adaptation ‘The Social Network’ will know that Zuckerberg created the social networking site whilst he was still studying at Harvard.

Now the site apparently rakes in £20 a second and has an estimated net worth of £500 million. All this without even graduating – Zuckberg ended up dropping out of his degree when Facebook took off – so just imagine what you could do with that added degree qualification in tow…

Blake Ross

When Blake Ross, a Miami teenager, was just 17-years-old he helped to create a free web browser that at the time was called Bill Gates’s worst nightmare.  The internet browser was a little one you may have heard of called Mozilla Firefox.

Now aged 22, the net worth of the Mozilla company (which Ross had been interning with when he and his friend David Hyatt began working on their small Firefox side project) is estimated to be around £75 million. Not bad for someone who hadn’t even left school yet.

Catherine Cook

When Catherine was 15 years old she founded MyYearbook.com with her brother David Cook then 16.

The site – an online version of the traditional American yearbook – now has over 16 million members and is the third biggest social networking site in the States behind MySpace and Facebook. Through the site Cook became a millionaire at 18, though not without a lot of hard work – she says she often clocks up to 60 hours a week around school hours (she’s now studying at University). Still, it shows that a bit of overtime can really pay off sometimes.

Kulveer and Harjeet Taggar

Oxford university graduates Kulveer and Harjeet Tagger became millionaires after selling their booming internet company, Auctomatic, less than a year after its launch.

The cousins, who started their online auction management company whilst they were still undergraduates, had many toils before their triumph – with the pair almost running out of money before their big break. “We survived on ramen noodles for lunch and dinner,” said Harjeet to the Times. “We didn’t even buy any furniture for the apartment that we were working out of, just desks. We had foam mattresses on the floor. We would work until we needed to sleep and then get up and start all over again.”

But the students persisted with their project and were rewarded in 2008 when Canadian web firm Current Media bought the site for an impressive £2.5 million, making it a job very well done.

Adam Hildreth

Adam Hildreth from Leeds, West Yorkshire, was ambitious from a young age. He was only 14 when he started his first business, Dubit Limited with seven other friends.

The company, a website that consulted on marketing to the teenage market, grew to become the most visited teen website in the UK. Hildreth then went on six years later to launch his second business, Crisp Thinking, an anti-grooming software which develops online child protection technology. Over the years he has been featured in the Guinness Book of Records, won numerous young achiever awards, and now directs companies with an estimated net worth of £25 million.

Juliette Brindak

Starting young – really young – often seems to be the key. Juliette Brindak, now 20-years-old and studying at Washington University, was just 10 when she came up with her multi-million dollar making idea. It came from a few drawings doodled on a trip home, a bit of encouragement from her graphic designer mum, and some enthusiasm from her peers to get her site, MissOandFriends.com up, running and making profit.

The successful website, aimed towards ‘tween’ girls, offers the chance for young girls to play, create, learn, exchange ideas, compare experiences and get published in an environment away from every day peer pressure. The company has an estimated net worth of $15 million, and a recent survey said it was beating the likes of Barbie, Hello Kitty and Girl Scouts.

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The Graduate Unemployment Sector

November 1st, 2010

After weeks of economic cut doom and gloom (you can see our report on how the Chancellor’s cuts will affect graduates here) the most current graduate forecast isn’t (surprise, surprise) looking any brighter.  The Telegraph today reported that the number of graduates going from degree to dole has hit 8.9%, equalling a total of 21,020 unemployed graduates.

The report, based on official figures obtained by the Higher Education Careers Service (Hecsu), found graduate unemployment has now reached a 17-year high, up from 7.9% in 2008, and 5.5 % the year before.

It further revealed that IT and media degree holders were the worst hit in terms of finding work, with those entering construction and engineering also struggling, particularly within architecture and building.

And in what seems a final twist of the ‘recession knife’, the public sector was shown to be one of the few areas still recruiting through the economic crisis – a small ray of light expected to be considerably darkened when the recent spending reviews prediction of  490,000 public sector job cuts starts to kick in.

But even as the extent of the challenges today’s graduates face when it comes to employment is further heightened, it’s important to retain a strong head. The job market is tough for everyone right now, and rejection shouldn’t be taken personally. Instead, time needs to be used productively, and graduates need to ensure that rather than giving up, they put that extra energy into snapping up that ideal job as soon as it becomes available (things are expected to improve for graduate prospects in the new year).

Check out Friends Provident’s ten great tips listed below to help graduates secure and keep a job (you can read the full article here) and keep checking our blog this week for more Inspiring Intern advice to help our graduates stop being an unemployment statistic and instead get started on their careers.

Friends Provident’s top ten tips to help graduates secure and keep that all important job are:

  1. Career map – Map out all the possible ways that you could break into your chosen industry. There is always more than one way. For example if you can’t secure the role you want perhaps consider applying for an assistant / co-ordinator/ or PA role. Lots of companies promote internally and if you prove your ability you could eventually climb the career ladder and secure the role you want.
  2. Be proactive – send CVs out to companies, get on their database – don’t wait for roles to be advertised. If you are on their database there’s every chance they will consider you before advertising a role publicly.
  3. Networking – Use the people you know and the ones they know too. It’s amazing what you will find out / learn from people in all aspects of your life. Make good use of them- if you don’t ask, you don’t get! Remember digital delivers – Social media is not just for friends. Use your social network to look for work, and to share your experiences with other graduates.
  4. Internships (foot in door) – Not only do they help you clarify your chosen career path, they also give you an invaluable opportunity to continue networking, the chance to build your communication and teamwork skills and help build confidence in the workplace.
  5. Experience pays – Take every opportunity available to you, big or small. You learn from every experience, good or bad and never know what it could lead to. If you are struggling to get paid work consider working for free in the meantime in an area you want to get into. It is beneficial and will look good on your CV.
  6. Business seminars – Go to business seminars and events – this helps you keep up to date with what is going on in your field and also helps with building your network.
  7. Research – find out as much information about the business as possible before going for an interview so you have a better understanding of what the business is about and what it is looking to achieve. This will give you a better chance of responding well to questions.
  8. Positive Mental Attitude – always work with integrity and respect for your colleagues, people are more likely to give you chances if they trust that you will do the right thing even if it is as simple as admitting if you have made a mistake.
  9. An energetic approach – An energetic and enthused approach will help show how much you want a job. Say yes and be excited about the prospects of the job, even if it is not your dream role. Remember to have fun – you spend so much time at work, try to enjoy it – you will find if you are happy it rubs off on those around you and makes the office a more pleasant place for everyone.
  10. Speak up – Your fresh ideas will be extremely valued by prospective employers so don’t be afraid to suggest new ways of working – even if you are just on work experience.

What is your opinion on graduate employment prospects? Got any extra tips you want to add? Let us know now!

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The 40-Year-Old Intern

October 8th, 2010

The knock-on effect of recession means graduates aren’t just competing for entry-level jobs against experienced workers: they’re now competing against them for internships too.



If you’ve been living in a distant galactic bubble for the last couple of years then you still might not have heard the news – we are currently suffering from a severe global economic downturn.

Yet it seems that as well as all the obvious effects occurring; national cuts, increased unemployment rate, higher numbers of university applicants etc, there have also been a few less expected outcomes, like the increase of older people seeking internships.

A survey conducted last month by CareerBuilder.com discovered that the struggling job market has sparked a surge of older people in the US applying for internships as a way to re-enter the employment sector.

The website, which surveyed more than 2,500 hiring managers across America, found that 23 percent of employers are receiving applications from people who either have more than 10 years of experience, or are aged 50 years and older.

“This economic downturn has really redefined what an internship is” said Mike Erwin, senior career advisor for CareerBuilder. “(People) need to make sure that they’re filling in the gaps while being unemployed, so they’re going ahead and taking these internships whether they’re paid or unpaid so they can get more experience, and hopefully land a full-time job.”

Traditionally, internships have been seen as a way for young people to get work experience on their CV. However, as the recession continues to kick in, and more and more graduates struggle to get the jobs that so many other more qualified individuals are also applying for, internships have taken on a much more important role. They are becoming that vital stepping stone between university and permanent employment.

However, the new statistics could mean that such graduates have an even greater fight on their hands as they find themselves competing against experienced people not only for pre-entry jobs – but also for internships.

Furthermore, the websites findings showed that many companies were just as keen to hire the older applicants as the more common younger ones;

“They know they’ve lost a lot of intellectual capital when they’ve had to lay people off,” Erwin explained. “So you’re going to find they’re going to bring back mature and experienced workers for internships as well as entry-level and college students who are going to bring a whole new feel to the job.”

Although this internship redefinition has only been reported in the States as yet, it leads to wonder how long it will take until economic desperation leads to a similar fad this side of the water.

And what would happen then? Will graduates need to do work experience to be able to get an internship to be able to get a job? Where will it end? Let us know your thoughts now!

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A step too far? 18 months unpaid work with the Met

October 1st, 2010

So you want to be a police officer; enforce law, fight crime, and generally look out for the health and safety of your community. But however much your passion to work towards the good of the nation is, would you be prepared to do it for free – for up to 18 months?

Well you might have to, if new recruitment plans proposed by the Metropolitan Police go ahead.

Reports yesterday explained how the procedure – to scrap training schools and make recruits work as unpaid special constables before they join up – could save Scotland Yard millions of pounds, a necessity if the Home Office’s 25% policing cuts are to be met.

The change would mean that two thirds of recruits would have to commit to working 16 hours a month for 18 months as volunteer special constables before they would be considered for permanent full-time employment. The rest would come from the Met’s community support officers or have law and policing qualifications.

Martin Tiplady, the head of the Met’s human resources, described the move to the BBC as the “right way forward”.

He said: “This will deliver savings of between £12,000 and £20,000 per officer in salary costs during their training period. More importantly, our future police officer recruits will hit the ground running with full patrol status at the outset.

“This approach simply allows those considering a career as an officer to sample the job and acquire the right skills.”

With Police forces nationwide having to cut back on recruitment to solve financial problems, the move is hoped to offer an alternative way of getting people back into the forces, whilst also maintaining the high level of policing service which can only be sustained with sufficient manpower.

The scheme, however, has been heavily criticised, with opposition groups claiming that the plan was “fundamentally flawed”, and would lead to the recruitment of only middle-class people who have the time / funds to comply.

Jenny Jones of the Green Party, said. “Many people just won’t be able to afford to become a police officer. It would mean they would have to work part-time for the Met for the first 12 to 18 months. I think this will narrow the field of people who are able to join the force.”

Police unquestionably play an important, vital and often risky role throughout the country. To enforce an 18 month voluntary obligation will undoubtedly frustrate many of those eager to get in and get crime fighting. However, some perspective on the situation needs to be maintained.

Whether this plan gets officially passed or not, those eager crime fighters will still have some time to wait before they are on the streets chasing law breakers. The fact is the government wants the 43 police forces in England and Wales to find total savings of £545m by 2014, meaning that there simply isn’t the money available to recruit people right now. Just earlier this year the Met admitted that they had 2,000 successful applicants waiting to start their jobs – but didn’t have the funds to place them.

So assumedly these people have had to find other jobs to support themselves in the meantime? It may be disappointing to have to work at what was considered a ‘temporary’ role for a bit longer, but the time will fly by – especially with their policing goal to look forward to at the end. Plus, the scheme includes extra official training, and provides the opportunity to really experience what the job entails. This allows candidates to quickly realise if policing is for them, rather than waiting eighteen months and then having to figure out that career plan all over again.

Furthermore, the requirement is 16 hours of voluntary work a month. This equals less than four hours a week. To suggest that people cannot afford to give up four hours a week of their time seems a little far fetched. What’s more, most would undoubtedly really enjoy the change in their schedule – and if they didn’t? Then maybe policing isn’t the job for them after all.

What do you think? Is making new police recruits volunteer for up to 18 months a step too far? Let us know!

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My Internship: Vikram Sidhu

September 15th, 2010

Vikram Sidhu has been interning as a finance assistant for the last 3 months

Vikram Sidhu has been interning as a finance assistant for the last 3 months

What was your job role?

I was a finance assistant.

What made you take the job?

It sounded interesting and I thought it would be a good introduction into the world of accounts. It was the area I was considering a career in and obviously it was a better way of getting experience rather than just reading about it.  I also thought that three months experience would give me a good idea about whether or not I wanted to pursue a future in that career.

And do you want to pursue a future in that career now?

Yes, I’m definitely interested in that line of work, it’s different, it’s interesting, it’s unique, you’re on the phone quite a lot, and you’re dealing with a lot of people. It’s nice to be part of a team, as well as getting the chance to work by yourself.

Had you applied for jobs before you took the internship route – or did you apply for an internship straight away?
I did apply for a few – I used reed.co.uk and received their daily email alerts for account assistants and loads of different general sorts of finance roles. But they all wanted x amount of months of experience with whatever packaging, and at that time I didn’t understand what half the words or programmes were.

And do you understand them now?
Mostly, yes. Obviously I am not so familiar with the packages that we don’t use ourselves, but I do now know what they are.

So would you say that this internship has given you a lot of confidence in finance?
Definitely.

What degree did you do?
Maths and finance

Did that not prepare you for a career in finance?
No, because what I did in the degree was more the practical side of mathematics, with a bit of finance. There wasn’t any accounting involved, it was just more about theory and numbers, analysis and that sort of thing. It was quite varied and pretty fun – the financial side anyway! But obviously there wasn’t anything that was going to prepare me for accounts payable – it just wasn’t part of my degree. Maybe if I had done an accounting degree it could have, but we will never know – unless I go and do another degree in accounting. Which would suck!

Did you think you would have to take an extra course in accountancy when you graduated – or did you think that an internship would be a better route?

I preferred to do an internship. I could have just done a course after graduation, but I think that has the same problem as a degree course, a lack of practical experience.

So now having almost completed your internship, do you think you have enough experience to get a full-time paid position?

I hope so. I definitely feel like I have a lot more experience now than before.  When I used to ring up agencies saying I was a graduate they would instantly ask have I got x amount of experience, to which I’d always have to reply no. Now, I get a much different response, which is great. Instead of straight out rejection, I now often get told that there are a few relevant jobs I can go for. I’ve had a few interviews already; in fact, I just came back from one today. So it’s definitely a lot more positive response than before.

So how did you feel the interview went today?

I’ll let you know if I get the job or not!

Did you feel you had more confidence talking about complex finance scenarios now that you’ve had experience dealing with them?

Yes, definitely. It makes a big difference. Beforehand, during previous interviews I had for some graduate finance schemes, they’d ask me to give an example of when I’d had to use / cope with a particular financial situation, and I had to relate it back to when I worked in a shop a few years back. Whereas today, I could say, ‘just this morning I was dealing with invoices chasing x amount of money’ and explain how exactly I dealt with that, how I ensured a good customer relationship was maintained etc. It just comes across as so much more relevant and is obviously a much better answer.

Have you ever regretted deciding to take an internship?

No, definitely not. I guess the only thing that was hard was the money – I had saved up beforehand which made it ok and was able to stay with my parents which certainly made it easier, though I can understand why people find it tough. I do think there needs to be some kind of governmental loan scheme to help those struggling.

Did you get all your expenses refunded ok?

Oh yes, I always got my travel refunded without any problems, and lunch was provided by the company, so I wasn’t spending anything as such as far as the internship went. It just meant I had to budget myself for everything else. I’d saved up about £400 beforehand, and I am just about coming to the end of that now. Though that’s not too bad considering it’s been three months!

So for anyone thinking of undertaking an internship – what advice would you give them?

I would definitely encourage anyone considering an internship to save some money first! I would also recommend from my own experience to go through a reputable company to ensure everything is above board. You hear a lot of negativity about internships in the papers nowadays, and about how they can exploit, so it is really important to make sure that your internship is valuable and genuine, and a good recruitment company can help with that. I know people who have gone on self-organised internships and then left after three days because they weren’t learning anything new and were instead left to teach other staff! The fact is it should be the other way round, the company should be teaching you and appreciate that in return, you are giving your time and hard-work to support and help build-up their company. I got my internship through Inspiring Interns and they were great, especially in maintaining constant contact and support throughout to make sure everything was going well. That’s the main thing with internships. As long as you are learning something relevant that you can put on your CV then you should stick with it. If not, then you should leave, just walk out. Internships shouldn’t be contracted and they should be on your terms. You should be able to leave if you are not getting what you want out of it, and reap the benefits if you are.

What kind of person would you recommend an internship to?

A graduate who has just come out of university, or even one who has been out a while but is still struggling to find employment.  I would also really recommend them to students still at university. One of my biggest regrets is not doing more work experience during my time at university – an internship over the summer holidays would have been perfect if I’d known about them before.  It’s easy to see how a Catch-22 scenario can occur. For example, I graduated last year, and applied for loads of grad schemes. But they all wanted graduates with experience, but you can’t get a job without experience…hence Catch-22!  It’s definitely best to make that preparation as early as possible to help make it easier later on to get a job.

So you would recommend internships to other people?

Definitely. As long as they are regulated and you go with a reputable company, I think internships are a great chance to work in an office environment and make that transition from a university environment into a proper, full-time job.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about your internship experience?

It’s so nice to have something useful and relevant on my CV that makes me stand out from all the other graduates – well worth the extra time I invested. I am now regularly getting responses to my job applications, and am able to talk confidently about my area of expertise. I am really pleased I decided to do an internship and certainly have no regrets, and let’s face it – doing an internship is so much better than just sitting at home waiting for something to come along!

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Internships: It’s a win/win situation

September 1st, 2010

Ben Tatton-Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of RingRing Media

Ben Tatton-Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of RingRing Media

Earlier this year, Ben Tatton-Brown, co-founder and CEO of RingRing Media sold his company for an estimated $20m after just 18 months of business. Here, he explains the value of internships in aiding his business’ success, in advancing the interns themselves, and why he recommends Inspiring Interns to other start-up companies.

Anyone starting up a new company will tell you that time is precious, money is sparse and all hands are needed on deck. When we founded RingRing Media back in February 2008 we had no idea how things were going to pan out and knew that if we were to be successful, we would need to get some great-minded, dedicated people on the team.

It was 18 months ago that we first started using Inspiring Interns. They promised to always provide the right graduates for targeted roles – and, I can happily say, have yet to fail us in their pledge. After passing over a specification of the people we were looking for, Inspiring Interns immediately  sourced, interviewed and put forward suitable candidates for us to interview and choose from, saving a lot of time and toil. From the shortlist, we selected people who we felt would both fit into and bring something to the company – important, as we hoped to offer full-time positions after the initial three month internship. Starting primarily with just four staff, we worked hard to get the company up and running, quickly getting our name on the mobile advertising map.

In June 2008, RingRing Media launched the RingRing Exchange – the world’s first and largest mobile advertising exchange. Connecting operators, media owners, publishers and mobile apps to brands and agencies through one dynamic platform, the project proved a huge success and boosted the company to an internationally recognised level. As the company grew, our interns became  full-time staff, and we hired more Inspiring Interns to both support existing roles, and fill new ones within the business.

The internship arrangement not only benefited us, but also, significantly, the graduates. All of our interns were paid for their travel and lunch expenses and we ensured they received full training and hands-on work experience in their specific job area. Obviously this was great for us if they decided to stay on at the company, but it also importantly provided the graduate – many of whom had had little or no experience in a corporate environment – with the fundamental skills, practice and knowledge to advance them in other future employment ventures.

At the beginning of this year RingRing Media was acquired by a large  mobile advertising company called Amobee headquartered in Redwood City, California, an acquisition which allowed us to complement our revolutionary mobile advertising exchange  with the most deployed telco-grade ad-serving solution in the world and benefit from Amobee’s exceptional international connections. Together, as a new company, we are expanding rapidly; we have over 75 employees worldwide across 4 continents  - ten of which are Inspiring interns that stayed on with us full-time.

I can recommend Inspiring Interns to any business looking for talented and targeted graduate staff; we are aiming to be the largest mobile ad exchange in the world, and we will continue to use the services of Inspiring Interns to help achieve our aspirations.

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They think it’s all over – think again!

August 20th, 2010

They think it's all over - think again!

It’s fair to say there was a strong feeling of apprehension in the air travelling to work yesterday. Groups of parents quietly muttered expectations together on the regular commute, the headline of the daily freebie spoke of record results, and parades of nervously giggling young people – something of an unusual sight at that early time after weeks of summer holiday – indicated which day it was: results day.

And yet this year everybody’s concern wasn’t necessarily about what grades they got. For weeks the headlines had reiterated the same gloomy forecast for this year’s school leavers hoping to go to uni: that there are too many applicants and not enough places. With multi-million pound cuts leaving universities particularly feeling the sting, and student applications ever rising – a said result of heightened media emphasis on the necessity of having a degree mixed in with the effect of recession scare mongers crying about the lack of any employment opportunities right now – the future looked bleak for a generation where even hard work and good grades couldn’t save them from an already pre- determined fate.

The final published statistics said it all. A record 97.6% of students passed their exams, 27% of which acquired an A and one in 12 scored the new, media hyped A* grade. With such consistent high achievers there is no longer an obvious divide between those bound for academic greatness, and those who face a different (and often just as successful) route to their future careers. Instead, a top-end scramble for the 200,000 of those who didn’t quite achieve their predicted results (including notably a large number of brighter school-leavers who just missed out on achieving a set of ambitious grades) is occurring through clearing. Some – the lucky ones – will claw back a last chance second place option. The rest will leave empty-handed, disheartened and dejected by a system that has let them down, and often, with no back-up plan.

Go abroad for a degree the headlines shouted today at the crestfallen.  Take a gap year, go travelling, do an apprenticeship, enrol on a college course. Certainly it is a bewildering time for those whose aspirations were focused on being achieved via a university experience to suddenly have to rethink their strategy. Yet, however great the initial disappointment, and however patronising the media , they do have a point. A pro-active attitude to what could now be a new beginning (especially for those believers of everything happening for a reason…) is the only way to get through such grim times. After a summer of post-exam relaxation and fun it really is time to get off the sofa and get practical.

And by practical we mean making it count. It is time, as John Guy said in a recent Guardian article, “to be selfish and think about what would help your career most in the next five years.” A year out shouldn’t be viewed as a waste, but instead as an invaluable opportunity to not only get some life experience, but to also enjoy the luxury of time – away from the professional and peer pressure – to truly consider what to do in life and which career path to take.

Of course, just considering is often still not enough. How is anyone expected to know what they want to do when the options are things they have never done before? One of the main problems today is that a lot of life-affecting decisions are being made on assumption. As law graduate Ben found out, choosing a degree in something you think sounds good doesn’t always work out; “I hadn’t had any previous experience in Law before choosing to study it,” he explains, “but had always liked the idea of becoming a barrister one day from what I had seen on the TV. I had no idea how boring it was going to be and by the end of my three years knew that law was the last thing I wanted to do. I wish now I had done some work experience or an internship beforehand to give me some better direction on what to do with my life.”

Internships are always a great option – the value of work experience should never be underrated. Not only will an internship allow a proper, lengthy working insight into a particular job sector (rather than just the kettle boiling insight of a work experience kid…) but also, unlike with most work experience placements, they will pay travel and lunch expenses, meaning that there is nothing to lose via the experience, just lots to gain. Plus, in the midst of the current university administrative chaos, more companies are coming round to the concept of taking on interns of all different academic backgrounds – not just university graduates – meaning that finally the opportunity really is getting there for everyone.

Though for some it may seem like a huge defeat to have to wait another year, the professional and personal development that can be achieved during that time (not to mention all those extra points on the CV) can more than make up for it. A portfolio of working experience will not only heighten any candidate’s credentials, but also assist a far more informed decision of where to go and what to do next, and hopefully – if the perfect job has been discovered – drive the motivation to succeed in achieving the realised goal. Recent statistics have even shown that students who take a gap year often achieve better academically than those who go straight onto university – so don’t write off the year just yet.

Hopefully for those who did miss out on the grades, the potential that can be achieved during a year out will be realised, and rather than disappointment, a sense of new beginnings will join me on today’s trip home.

Inspiring Interns is a recruitment agency that place students and graduates in internships with a view to full-time employment.   See http://www.inspiringinterns.com for all the latest news and vacancies.

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Internships – a ‘first stage of recruitment’

August 9th, 2010

I got a new job

If the term ‘internship’ makes you think of tea-making and picking up the boss’s dry cleaning then think again – internships are now being hailed by the BBC as almost a ‘guaranteed rite of passage’ in the ever-competitive job market.

2009 saw record numbers of university leavers and new figures show more than 660,000 people have applied for a university place for the next academic year.  This staggering amount is up by 12 per cent from last year, once again breaking the record for the number of university applicants.  With these figures on the rise, the coalition government have made an extra 10,000 university places to support the hefty amount of applications, meaning more students than ever will be graduating with degrees in the coming years.  It is becoming even harder for employers to recruit graduates when they simply cannot distinguish who is more qualified for the job – how does one chose between the graduate with the 2:1 History degree from Durham or the 2:1 English Literature graduate from Bristol?

The answer, I hear you cry, is internships.  These are becoming the latest box that graduates need to tick in order for them to increase their employability and stand out from the other hundreds of applicants after the same job.  According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, 21.7% of graduates in full employment within six months of graduating were taken on by employees who had previously provided them with some form of work experience.  It would appear that employers are less willing to gamble on a new recruit who may look fantastic on paper, instead choosing to take on someone who has already experienced working at the company and who therefore has a “basic grasp of workplace dynamics”, according to a BBC article.  In other words, the internship has become an ‘extended interview’ whereby the intern has a chance to showcase their abilities and see if they fit into the company lifestyle.

One could even go as far as saying personalities are coming back into fashion as far as job placements go – seemingly, it’s no longer just about the prestigious university and impressive degree result; employers are interested in who they are recruiting rather than trusting the CV alone.

So where does this leave graduates? With competition for entry-level jobs as tough as it has ever been there is no room to rest on your laurels. A good degree is not enough to take you onto the career ladder: experience, contacts and demonstrable skills are your key to a first job. An internship will give you all three. So the message is clear: don’t get left behind – call us, email us, tweet us, facebook us, send us a pigeon or do anything to get in touch so that you can do an internship and realise your potential.

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