Grad vacancies on the rise

Good tactics are key to landing the best job. Julie-Anne O'Hagan reports.

It is a good time to be a graduate, says executive director of the Australian Association of Graduate Employers, Ben Reeves. And the association's Graduate Recruitment Survey 2006 proves it.

"Forty per cent of employers we surveyed said they hadn't filled all their graduate vacancies," Reeves says. "We've seen vacancies increase by 13 per cent in the past 12 months."

He says the nationwide skills shortage is making employers compete for the best talent by staging recruitment drives at universities. They are also targeting students in the penultimate year of their course by offering work experience programs and summer postings which can lead to full-time graduate positions, particularly in the areas of finance, banking and law.

However, if you are a final-year student, you may have already missed out on a 2007 graduate place.

"If you wanted a job in early 2007, you should have applied already," Reeves says. "A lot of employers would have already closed applications by now."

Reeves says this is the best job market for graduates since 2000, but he stresses that where employers haven't filled their graduate quota, it is most probably because they couldn't find the best-quality candidates.

And best quality doesn't necessarily mean top marks.

The national manager of Drake International, Rilka Warbanoff, says that while top graduates are likely to be courted by employers, they may not get the pick of the jobs.

"How someone is going to fit into an organisation's culture is very important," she says. "Employers are looking at what a candidate did outside of school and university, what sport they played, whether they got involved in plays and musicals or community activities."

Warbanoff says, many employers are more flexible about the sort of degree they need, but they are looking for integrity, passion for the industry and commitment to the company.

Employers are also particularly interested in a candidate's ability as a team player, says Matt Gribble, the NSW director of Michael Page International.

"Showing they played team sports or worked as part of a team in a part-time job or with a charity organisation would lend weight to a candidate's claim that they are a team player," he says.

Gribble says employers are taking on graduates in larger numbers with demand high in the fields of accounting, engineering, marketing, HR , law and technology - but graduates still need to prove they can offer diverse skills, particularly the ability
to multi-task.

"On your CV it is important to include anything that shows diversity and the ability to be involved in and manage multiple tasks... to show you have interests outside your studies," he says. "Juggling a part-time job with your studies is seen by most prospective employers as a positive. The more relevant the job to the chosen profession, the better."

To read the Australian Association of Graduate Employers' Graduate Recruitment Survey 2006, see www.aage.com.au

go, go graduate
Rilka Warbanoff of Drake International says graduates can improve their job prospects by: researching the market and asking friends and contacts for advice; going to career days and recruitment fairs at university; getting a part-time job/ work experience in your preferred industry; contacting prospective employers and ask for an ''informational'' interview to learn about their business; remembering a CV is "marketing collateral" and keeping it neat, accurate and to the point; following up with employers and asking for feedback. Employers' recruitment rounds often close early in the year preceding recruitment, so don't miss out.

Published: 26 July 2006