In my work, I meet a lot of graduates. I help them ensure they present themselves to employers with the right skills, experience and awareness. Working with these often vibrant, enthusiastic people, I have learned that they have a lot to offer future employers. Here are some of the key areas I have found graduates excel in:
Working with processes
Everything is process. Eventually we all come to understand that. Graduates learn this early on. They learn there is a process to their studies, and there are processes to completing the different kinds of work they are asked to do.
This helps make them adaptable and to maintain a good sense of the context in which they are working. An added benefit is their familiarity with working with a set of processes means they are better able to manage new tasks and change periods than less experienced learners.
Discipline
Contrary to the myth that all undergraduates do is hang out in bars, many of the graduates I’ve seen are well disciplined, hardworking individuals. University life is set up to encourage students to take responsibility for themselves. They learn how to manage their time and their workloads. They make decisions for themselves about which extra activities to engage in to get experience and make contacts.
Graduates are well used to working with deadlines, too. They have several years’ experience of having to complete assignments, presentations and other work within a given time frame. This skill is so important to an employer – if you can’t rely on your staff to do what they say they will do, when they say they will do it, you’re heading for a messy situation.
Standards of work, too, tend to be high. During their studies, graduates will have been working with performance indicators. They will have been expected to develop ways to demonstrate their abilities to gain knowledge and apply concepts. As they will have progressed through their degrees, the standard of work will have become higher, and their ability to learn will have been honed to a high degree.
Structure
Graduates will have learned how to use both structured and unstructured time. This is part of the discipline of university life. This means they learn how to work with others as well as how to work independently.
Work, too, is of a higher standard as they have learned both traditional and innovative ways to produce work. Their work tends to be well structured and thought through. They can adapt this experience to workplace research and reporting quite quickly.
Skills
Graduates generally develop a good range of key skills. Modern students are digital natives, technologically savvy. They are also used to working in a global context – they will have student friends from around the world, and will have been taught the global context of what they are doing. They will likely be networking with people in many different countries through social media.
Through their undergraduate studies, work placements and additional roles they may have taken on at university, graduates will also have learned soft skills such as teamwork, communicating, and leadership. They will have learned an increasing sense of responsibility for themselves and towards others.
Thinking skills, too, will have been developed. Graduates have a good amount of experience of thinking creatively, critically and analytically. They understand how to gather and process information. During their studies, they will have been encouraged to innovate and bring a new perspective to current thinking.
All this adds up to candidates who are:
- Enthusiastic learners, quick to develop and become productive
- Talented, bringing a range of hard and soft skills to the role they take
- Free from the baggage of ‘it can’t be done’ thinking, being fresh and innovative
- Prepared for the world markets of the future, with communication, thinking and processing skills
I hope that you’ll seriously consider employing a graduate in your next vacancy.
In December 2013, we are going to run our next Graduate Programme in Doncaster. For more information about the Programme or to learn about some of the financial incentives we can offer employers (like wage incentives, free placement opportunities, free training for the Graduates and Employers) , then please contact Bobby Singh.
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