Further to Monday's announcement that one in three retailers are now considering school leavers for positions that previously were reserved for graduates, it has today been identified that businesses must now be able to provide logical business reasons for opening graduate-specific schemes up to a wider calibre of candidates, namely, school leavers.
This decision was the foremost conclusion reached by industry experts who attended the Association of Graduate Recruiters' (AGR) discussion panel on Monday. It is their belief that for such a critical change to be made to the way that companies fill places allocated for graduate-specific schemes, justification is needed. Though the general consensus is, as stated, that businesses must now explain their motivation behind altering the type of candidates they are accepting, this by no means silences the ongoing debate around this issue.
The belief that it would be unfair to vary the graduate recruitment process for graduate schemes, without providing the public with valid justification, was echoed by the AGR's President, Anne-Marie Martin. She said: "In an age when we realised that we cannot afford higher education and we cannot afford to fund
from the public purse, organisations need to make sure they are entering school leavers' programmes for business reasons". She continued, voicing the concerns of
those who oppose such a change, by questioning whether school leavers are suitable and ready to enrol on graduate schemes.
Martin, speaking on behalf of graduates amass, suggested that by accepting school leavers in place of graduates for such positions, employers could be disadvantaging
themselves. She noted that employers would be denying themselves the "creativity and analytical skills" that graduates have spent their university career's developing in addition to the maturity that graduates are more likely to bring to any role, being four years older than school leavers. Martin furthermore commented that, in her opinion, the different "thinking styles" that graduates have, surpass those of school leavers.
However, not everyone shared in the thinking of the AGR's president. Sonja Stockton, an employee of PriceWaterHouseCoopers, said that while she agreed that businesses should be cautious when making such wide-reaching changes, they should be equally cautious about discounting the abilities of school leavers.
Stockton said that her firm had "benefited immeasurably" from accepting recent school leavers, in place of graduates.While such changes are a wonderful opportunity for school leavers to earn more money and gain the employment security that such companies will bring, earlier in life, as a recent graduate it is difficult not to question the readiness of school leavers for positions that some graduates spend four years at university preparing for. For now however, the debate continues.
Elise, GRB Journalist
