During a wide-ranging debate one of the panellists questioned whether employers were setting the bar too high and expecting too much from new recruits?
The question struck a chord with me. Over the past decade or so I have witnessed employers raising entry qualification requirements; 75% of leading graduate recruiters now have a 2:1 cut-off. The list of skills that graduates in the 21st century must have is lengthening by the day. The most recent addition to the list, highlighted by the British Council in research published a few days ago, being intercultural skills.
It's all a far cry from the days when entry qualifications into many professions were set at five 'O' levels and employers believed that it was their responsibility to provide school leavers with all the work skills they needed to succeed in work.
Of course, today's world of work is far more demanding and faster paced and as a consequence employers across the globe are setting ever increasing standards. An article in the New York Times* points out that in the USA employers have plenty of vacancies, piles of cash and countless well qualified candidates. However, they remain reluctant to hire, often 'stringing job applicants along for weeks or months before they make a decision. If they ever do'.
Numerous reasons are offered up as to why a sort of hiring paralysis is taking place. At one level there is clearly a mismatch between the jobs available and the skills held by many of the job seekers. But an altogether more common condition seems to be a fear among businesses that the economy is going to dip again. Linked to this, employers worry about making hiring mistakes and wasting money in a tight economy.
The knock-on effect is that employers are extending the selection process, building in more assessments, and taking longer than ever to reach a decision. The article in The New York Times is followed by an extensive list of readers' experiences, some of which seem absurd and far-fetched. Job candidates must suffer ever more pain before any hope of gain based on what the correspondents were relaying!
I would not say that in the UK we have reached quite the same stage of anxiety in recruitment but I did coin the phrase 'risk averse recruiters' some time ago and I think it is a fair description of how graduate recruitment operates today. The investment is considerable; there are many more candidates chasing the best jobs and recruiters are increasingly accountable for their actions.
That said, we are fortunate that UK employers still believe in operating graduate programmes, in fact, the number of vacancies in 2013 is predicted to rise by 9%. One reason for this is that employers do take care to recruit the best fitting graduates who can deliver a return on the investment made in them. If this was lost businesses would quickly lose faith which would have disastrous results.
So do employers seek perfection and are they right to do so? I guess the answer depends on whether you are an employer or a job seeker. What do you think?
Carl Gilleard<br/>Chief executive<br/>AGR
* The New York Times Business Day Economy March 6 2013.
