[vc_row bk_type=”boxed_look” parallax_offset=”180″ align=”Left”][vc_column][vc_column_text]According to the latest findings by the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU), unemployment levels amongst recent graduates have fallen by the largest amount in around 15 years. As well as being positive news for students who are soon to graduate, everyone from employers to graduate recruitment specialists can also congratulate themselves for their hard work.

The HECSU report ‘What do graduates do?’ traced the destinations of more than 256,000 first degree graduates, from both full and part time courses. Researchers caught up with respondents in January, around six months after they left university.

The findings revealed that levels of unemployment amongst graduates had fallen from 8.5% to 7.3% year-on-year.

Over 75% of recently graduated students were in employment, with 66.3% of these in professional or managerial work. This was an increase on previous results, which revealed that just 64.9% were in this line of work. Conversely, the number of graduates in non-professional positions, such as catering and retail, had fallen from 13.7% to 13%. The average salary ranged from £18,615 to 22,785 dependant on position and occupation.

Researchers also looked at how graduates in different disciplines fared after leaving university, and found that graduates in building, engineering and architecture seemed to fare the best. In particular, architecture students, of whom 83.6% were in employment six months after graduating. Lastly, there was a year-on-year increase of 22.4% of the number of graduates working as science professionals.

Why should businesses hire graduates?

Graduates represent a golden opportunity for employers, mainly because they are ready to mould. You can train your eager new employees to grow with the business and become its future leaders. You don’t have any bad habits to contend with, only potential waiting to be unlocked. Other benefits of recruiting graduates include:

• A proven return on investment. You may have to pay a graduate more than a non-graduate, but their higher contribution to profit long-term means that a university educated employee will for themselves in no time at all.
• Familiarity with new technology. This year’s graduates are from a generation that is so familiar with technology that they can easily adapt to the latest developments, giving you employees with future-proofed technology skills.
• Enthusiasm, productivity and bright ideas. With the employment market not always being favourable to graduates, most are so keen to be in full-time positions that they will work harder and do more to impress employers. Also, the chance to finally get started on their future careers makes them positive and enthusiastic. Lastly, they’re a fantastic source of creative and innovative new ideas.

Our newest graduate recruit here at SOLOS joined us from NTU in August. Andrew has already proven himself to be an enthusiastic and valuable member of the team and we look forward to help him progress in his new career with us.

SOLOS Consultants is a specialist recruitment service for clients and candidates across the whole of the UK, attracting the highest quality candidates, including graduates from top UK universities, and placing them with successful businesses of all sizes.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net

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