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YOU ARE IN » Home page > News and information main menu > Graduate Market Trends > Grad recruitment in 2008 and 2009 (Summer 08)

Graduate recruitment in 2008 and outlook for 2009 (Summer 08)

• Summary
• Introduction
• The 2008 recruitment season: vacancies, shortfalls and salaries
• Vacancies and salary outlook for 2009
• Applications, selection and assessment
• World class skills

Summary

Looking at the findings from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) 2008 Summer Review Leigh Ingham reports on the current position of graduate recruitment within the UK and looks at AGR predictions for 2009.

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Introduction

The AGR 2008 Summer Review canvasses the opinions of 242 of the UK’s leading graduate recruitment firms, who between them in 2008 will employ a total of 23,727 recruits. This survey focuses on graduate vacancies and salaries in 2008 in addition to forecasting expected graduate recruitment figures for 2009. Table 1 shows the key salary and vacancy data from the 2008 Summer Review with a comparison of figures from the 2008 Winter Review. This article will provide a summary of the key findings of the review.

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The 2008 recruitment season: vacancies, shortfalls and salaries

The Summer Review states that graduate recruitment has undergone a year-on-year increase of 11.7%. Although this is slightly down on 2007’s figure of 12.7%, and less than the AGR’s prediction in the 2008 Winter Review, which predicted growth of 16.4%, most importantly graduate vacancies are still increasing.

The top recruiting sectors among the AGR respondents continue to be Accountancy or Professional Services firms and Banking and Financial Services firms. Indeed, these two sectors alone are offering more than a third of total graduate vacancies. In line with the 2007 Summer Review by far the largest group of vacancies (57.5%) are located in the South East and London with 46.6% of the total number of vacancies in London alone. This is concurrent with the largest recruiting sectors, accountancy and professional services and the banking and financial services sector, often basing their headquarters within the City. Interestingly although Accountancy remains one of the largest recruiting sectors, the percentage of graduates that they have recruited in 2008 has actually reduced by 1.9%.

The 2008 recruiting season has been successful, with three quarters of AGR organisations, 74.7%, predicting that all of their 2008 vacancies will be filled. This figure is particularly positive as over two thirds of employers, 67.1%, in the AGR Winter Survey were expecting challenges in the 2008 recruitment season.

The median graduate salary growth in 2008 has been modest at only 1.8% which is considerably smaller than 2.4% in 2007 Summer Review and also less than the prediction made in the AGR 2008 Winter Review of a 2.1% increase. However, again, the most important point is that salaries have again increased. The median salary earned in 2008 by graduates employed by the AGR member organisations is £24,500 which represents a small increase on 2007’s weighted median figure of £24,073. This confirms the predictions made in the 2008 Winter Review of reserved salary increases.

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Vacancies and salary outlook for 2009

Given the current economic climate, HECSU is happy to report that the AGR Summer Review does not predict any heavy reduction in graduate recruitment in 2009 with only 13.6% of the survey respondents’ predicting either slightly fewer, far fewer or no new graduates will be recruited in 2009. By far the largest group of respondents, 51.5% of the total, expect there to be similar numbers of graduate recruitment in 2009 as there was in 2008, however a substantial number of the respondents, 32.1% in total, are expecting increases in graduate recruitment during 2009.

More good news is provided in the expected salary predictions for 2009 as over a quarter of respondents anticipate a rise of between 4.1% to 10% for their 2009 graduate recruits, illustrating a marked increase from only 13.3% in the 2008 Winter Review. Additionally a majority of the respondents, 39.8 %, expect their salary levels to remain constant for the 2009 recruitment season which is virtually identical to the prediction of 39.4% made in the 2008 Winter Review. However there is a cautious upward trend emerging in the findings from the 2008 Summer Review with only 29.4%, as opposed to 39.4% in the 2008 Winter Review, predicting a modest increase of up to 4%.

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Applications, selection and assessment

The mean number of applications received per graduate position has gone up slightly in 2008 with, on average, 30.7 candidates per vacancy compared with 29.2% in 2007. However there are considerable discrepancies in application numbers per vacancy depending on sector. As with 2007 Summer Review the Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector positions attract the most applicants per vacancy with 112 graduates applying for each position. At the other end of the scale Consulting or Business Services firms receive the fewest applications per vacancy with only eight graduates applying, this is down substantially on last year’s figures with 23 applicants per graduate vacancy reported in the 2007 Summer Review.

It would seem that the frequent media discussion of the value of a 2:1 classified degree may have impacted upon graduate recruiters. In the 2007 Summer Review the selection criteria of ‘2:1 or above’ had a 10 percentage point lead over the next most cited criterion for selection, however in 2008 Summer Review this lead has dropped to only 5 percentage points. In addition to this, increasingly employers are choosing a ‘2:2 or above’ selection criteria. The use of this has risen from 24.7% in 2007 to 32.6% in 2008. There is also a gradual rising trend for looking at other skills and experiences of applicants such as a growing emphasis on work experience, up from 10.6% to 14.9%, and studying specific degree courses, up from 24.2% to 29.3%. The trend away from using the ‘2:1’ benchmark as the foremost criteria for selecting graduates could reflect the current concern over the grading of degrees. Respondents in the survey stated their decision to reduce the selection criteria from 2:1 to 2:2 was an attempt to “widen the talent pool”.

The good news for the graduates recruited in the 2008 pool was that a majority of the AGR respondents, 57% felt that their applicants were of the same standard as last year, 30% were more impressed by their applicants judging them to be of a higher standard and only 13% felt that applicants were not as good as the previous year’s recruits.

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World class skills

Employers expressed most concern about predicted shortfalls in ‘hard’ skills of UK graduates. Of these ‘hard’ skills the area of most concern was writing skills with 56.4% of employers stating this as a problem area in addition to 43.1% predicting problems with graduate’s leadership skills.

The majority of respondents, 80.5%, have stated that industrial placements or internships are ‘very effective’ at developing soft skills. No participants at all gave these a rating of ‘ineffective’. This is positive feedback indeed for placement schemes and would suggest they allow the applicant to develop highly regarded and practical skills which employers value.

The sectors which the AGR respondents expect to suffer from skills/knowledge shortfalls most acutely are Business and Management and Engineering with 42% and 37% of respondents respectively predicting problems in these sectors.

It may be of concern to note that over half of the AGR respondents, 52.8%, view encouraging more school leavers to go to university as either neutral or unimportant. This lack of support from the AGR respondents may indicate a larger and more widespread apathy for the government’s widening participation scheme which ideally needs the support of business to continue developing.

Content last updated: July 08