Government Help...an oxymoron? 

Find the right key

It looks like the government is planning to launch Traineeships aimed at people aged 16 - 24. The schemes, likely to last 6months would help equip students and graduates with the life skills that they miss and employers cry out for. They would involve work experience, alongside interview skills sessions and tips on CV writing. These schemes would be directly relevant for those who for whatever reason haven’t found their ideal job after 3-6months. They would give you a non-work option which would keep you occupied and off the sofa, whilst increasing your employment chances. This initiative is thought to be launched in September 2013 - look out for it! Please follow my blog

Money: have graduates finally grown up?

Following on from my post dated Oct 24th which suggested that graduates were being too fussy about the basic salaries of jobs to which they were applying and therefore turning down opportunities, a report was very recently published declaring that graduates are now actually less selective about salaries compared to last year’s cohort. They seem to be finally happy with what they can get!

The recruitment consultant Hay Group ran a survey of 600 graduates and found that only 8% of them saw money as being a top 3 consideration when choosing a job, compared to 45% of graduates last year. Moreover, the importance of the potential to earn a bonus has become less crucial. This year only 7% of graduates saw the bonus potential of a future job as very important down from 37% in 2011.

Instead the most importance factors that graduates were considering, were 1) potential career progression, 2) the ability to make a difference, 3) the chance to use technical knowledge. The survey also revealed that employers had more jobs than graduates that they had.

I feel this is surely a win, win situation. Finally graduates have become more realistic and less demanding (for some this will never change) in their needs and wants when it comes to jobs. With lower graduate expectation and allegedly more jobs available than many believe there to be, the UK may actually begin to employ the glut of graduate that floating despairing around the job market. Lets hope this continues! For more relevant graduate news please follow this blog.

We know what you did last night?

This is less of a nod to the Sarah Michelle Gellar’s horror classic, but rather more about the rather chilling realisation that your social media profile could be hindering your chances of getting a job!

I admit this may sound outrageous. I never believed recruiters when they said that I should make sure my Facebook profile didn’t contain obscene comments or images. However, it seems making your particularly dodgy pictures and videos visible to the public may actually harm your job chances. With so many people applying for jobs, I guess recruiters and employers are looking for more superficial ways to reject you.

Hays, the recruitment firm ran a survey of nearly 800 people and found 36% did not think an employer would look at their profiles. Therefore they made no changes to their social media habits when job hunting.

Not the impression you want to give your future boss

Only one in ten admitted editing content and untagging photos when looking for a job. While around 55% declared they had changed their privacy settings, in a bid to ensure personal information did not compromise their jobs chances.

Regional Managing Director of Hays, Mark Sheldon, said: "While the majority of people are taking sensible steps to protect their privacy online when looking for a job, it’s worrying to see that so many people don’t recognise the potential pitfalls associated with social media use.”(Milkround, 2012)

With the extra competition for graduate jobs, it is the little things that are gaining more importance and relevance in the recruitment process. You may be a strong candidate and say all the right things in interviews, but if employers find out things they don’t like about you, they don’t have to hire you! I am not saying stop using Facebook or detag every photo in which you look like you are enjoying yourself, but just think what some of the more obscene photos say about you. This is probably more relevant to rugby boy socials! For more graduate news please follow this blog.