Seven HR

Migrant Workers

Are graduates a quick fix during economic crisis or are they more trouble than they're worth?

Often hailed as a cheap source of hit-the-ground running intelligence; recent graduates are on the market and desperate for jobs – so why aren't you (or indeed everyone) snapping them up?

The benefits of taking a grad are well known, not only are they cheaper than most qualified and experienced managers, but they learn quicker and easier, so they don't take long to get up to speed. Their retention is higher too (The CIPD has it at 86% over 3 years) so the money you invest will go further, and therefore you're more likely to see a return on it.

But there's the rub. How much do you have to invest now to get one of these wunderkinds? Consultancylinks.com estimates it costs around £3000 per graduate on a full graduate scheme. No small fee.

And then there's the salary. Gone are the days of a £16k apprentice salary; now the average graduate salary (according to the Times Graduate Employers Survey 2008) is £27,000. We have National Account Managers in charge of multi-million pound PSLs on our books on less than that! So they're sometimes actually not economical and various companies are beginning to take this stance.

This year has seen the number of graduate jobs out there decrease as companies tighten their belts. According to the Times Graduate Employers Survey 2008 , there are 1% fewer roles for newly qualified grads. ‘Not much of a decline', you may say, but considering that most companies will have made the decisions to reduce their graduate numbers last year , when the economy was still healthy; just imagine how much it will drop next year, with the message from boardrooms all over the UK being ‘don't spend'. So presumably, if you are looking for grads, they're there for the taking, and you have a higher chance of bagging the best ones too.

Surprisingly, graduates response to economic uncertainty and the flexing graduate market is neither strategic nor predictable, and reports are contradictory.

The Times Graduate Employers Survey 2008 has the most popular sector as Investment Banking, and that's from graduates interviewed this summer, who were apparently undeterred by the precarious position many of the banks were in.

However Reed.co.uk's survey has the less traditional sectors such as the Marketing, Media and Creative industries in the lead. No, they're not going to the ravaged banks, but in times of uncertainty are the creative industries really offering the security these graduates crave? 1 in 4 graduates in Reed's survey said they'd now be happy to sacrifice up to 5% of their salary for 3 years of job security.

Who knows what they're looking for from one moment to the next? What is clear is that graduates feel like beggars rather than choosers and are well aware of the troubled job market so they're taking what they can; and if your company sees them as a clever investment of time and money, then getting the pick of the bunch is easier right now.