The graduate job market is picking up, to an extent, The Guardian reported this weekend. Reed have stated that jobs in May have increased year on year by about a quarter since 2009 and furthermore, that starting salaries are rising too, for the first time in three years, and up 24% in the last 18 months. These statistics will certainly induce a sigh of relief in many students and graduates, however, we cannot be too quick to celebrate; The Guardian were quick to add that we should not read too much into such stats.
Martin Edmondson, chief executive of recruitment company Graduates Yorkshire, has asserted that the "London effect" - that of the significantly higher salaries in the capital - has caused graduates to have a skewed vision of graduate salaries nationally. While many believe the average starting wage is in the region of ??25,000 to ??30,000, the actual figure is much more like ??15,000 to ??18,000. "If graduates are getting a message that the average is, say, ??25,000 to ??30,000, there will be a mindset that they need to be landing a job in that sort of salary bracket and, possibly, discount jobs that pay less, or become disheartened," Edmondson warns.
So while the reality of the graduate careers market is slightly unclear to us, the most important thing we can be doing is to demonstrate that we have not only the right skills but the right attitude, James Reed, chairman of Reed, explained this week: "What we have been finding is that, for employers, mindset will often trump skills. That's not to say skills are not important, they are. But if employers have to choose between someone who has all the right skills but not the right mindset, versus someone who is the other way around but who can then be taught the skills, 97% say they will choose mindset."
What we can take from all this, then, is to not take all statistics as gospel but instead to concentrate on how we present ourselves at the application stage and look beyond skills, to what we personally can offer to a company and how we can fit in. It appears that this is the key to obtaining that difficult graduate job.
Louise, GRB Journalist
