Graduate recruitment starting to look a bit healthier

Slight increase in graduate hiring as social media makes recruitment of quality graduates less time consuming.

During the last couple of years the recession has reduced the amount of graduate jobs available, this along with the banking scandal and the Eurozone troubles has had an obvious negative affect on graduate job prospects, yet there is a glimmer of hope for recent graduates as UK employers look to increase their graduate recruitment by 6.4% this year. Also according to the Association for Graduate Recruiters (AGR) starting salaries for graduates is set to rise by 6% to £26,500.

Still competition for graduate jobs is high as graduate recruiters receive high volumes of applicants per graduate job of around 100. Social media has been hailed by recruiters as a way to save time and reduce costs whilst finding those elusive and difficult to find graduates and new figures show graduates are actively participating, with 45% of graduates having an active profile on the social networking site Linkedin and others admitting to following a company on Facebook in order to receive hints and tips.

Ted Elliot of Jobscience expects this trend to continue with a “trend towards personal branding” where graduates use their social networks to highlight their skills and abilities, a feature already available via linked in with its recommend function. He also states that recruiters will “no longer solely rely on references from candidates – they’ll have immediate access to a multitude of ratings for candidates.” He also goes further to say that brands must build up own brand through these social networks, developing the image of a “hot company” to work for, and that this will become very important if they are to attract the best young talent.

Source: Pareto.co.uk, Wednesday 22nd August 2012