With rising
tuition fees many companies are still using unpaid work as a route
to finding their perfect
graduate
Competition for graduate jobs means that graduates will struggle
to get taken on by top firms this year unless they have already
worked there as interns. Three out of the five leading companies
will not interview applicants from the class of 2011 who have not
done work experience with them and students must get a job in the
companies chosen field while studying for their degree in order to
get a good job when they graduate.
The study conducted by High Fliers Research
looked at the recruitment plans of 100 leading UK employers
including GlaxoSmithKline, Tesco, Lloyd’s and the civil service.
With an average of 70 graduates applying for every place on a
trainee scheme, undergraduates must adapt by getting jobs in their
desired career whilst studying.
Martin Birchall, of High Fliers, said ‘This is
a stark warning. In this highly competitive market, new graduates
who’ve not had any work experience have little or no chance of
landing a well-paid job with a leading employer.’ This even took
into account the degree they have studied, and even if the graduate
had achieved a high result.
This means that all but the very wealthy will
be able to support themselves through a year of unpaid work that
many firms use. The law around this is very grey, unions
continuously argue that unpaid work experience is illegal while the
CIPD is calling for interns to be paid a minimum wage of £2,50 p/h.
Many firms have bought in interns to keep up head count after a
freeze in graduate recruitment and a quarter of new
graduate jobs being cut in 2008-2009. Yet with rising tuition fees
many undergraduates will be unable to afford to have a year of
unpaid work with average debt per graduate increasing to around
£40k.
Recruitment for graduates is shaping up moving
into 2011 and most employees are increasing their graduate intake
by 9.4%.
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