Graduate recruitment – are we managing our graduate’s expectations effectively?

In a word, no. We have been in recruitment, primarily finance, for a number of years and like to think we have excellent market knowledge and first hand experience of dealing with every type of employer, from corporate giants down to one-man-bands taking their first step as an employer.

A good recruiter should have a good understanding of the market in which they operate for many reasons; one of particular significance is salary knowledge, as more often than not neither the candidate nor the employer will have a clue!

One area of total salary ignorance is Graduate Recruitment. Who is going around telling our students that when they leave university they can earn £25k plus in their first job?

According to research done by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) the average starting salary for a graduate is £26.5k, but what they aren’t telling us is that this is based on ‘Graduate Placement Schemes’ in large blue chips companies/firms, a fiercely competitive world that only take on the top performing students with the best degrees. It doesn’t take into account any regional variations. It is well known that the south of England, especially London, pays higher salaries than elsewhere, this is not made clear in the research.

As mentioned, we have specialised in Accountancy and Finance recruitment for a long time, and know that outside of the Top 10 firms, accounts practices do not pay the recorded average of £25,750 for graduates – a newly qualified accountant in practice is often on this wage, and they have a degree, a professional qualification and actual hands on experience.

This is not to say that the research is wrong, it is a recorded fact, but it needs further explanation. Realistically most students will leave university and join the long queue of people looking for work in an economic downturn with no practical experience – this does not mean they can command salaries of £25K. Universities and advisory boards need to manage their expectations to ensure that when they leave they go into a good job with development opportunity where the starting salary is unimportant based on what they can achieve in the longer term as well as ensuring they understand that having a degree doesn’t prepare them for employment and they will have many more skills to learn as they develop. (A topic for another day!)

As recruiters we get so many calls and emails from ‘fresh’ graduates who when asked what salary they are looking for it is well over £20K. It is then down to us recruiters to advise them that we are more likely to be pitching them at £14K – a massive discrepancy in what they have been told for the last 3 years.

Of course there are many opportunities for graduates to earn well – especially in certain careers, for example law and engineering, but they are really only for those that are exceptional, and lets be honest most people aren’t exceptional, the clue is in the word.

To sum up, universities need to take on board that it is their responsibility to give their students a realistic cross-section of salaries and careers once they leave and not just advise them of the absolute best case scenario.