How will you, as a graduate, improve your offer to prospective employers?

The reality of finding work for many people, particularly recent students and graduates, is hitting home hard.

Now, more than ever before, graduates are finding that they really need to raise their game in convincing prospective employers that they are suitably skilled, experienced and able to 'produce the goods'.

The current economic situation, the floods of graduates entering the job market and increased competition from vocationally skilled college leavers and those made redundant mean that university leavers need to make the most of every opportunity to enhance their skills, personalities and employment opportunities.

Aldi offer a graduate entry scheme with 50 available places.  They report that they received over 12000 applications.  This is common across many industry sectors offering such schemes with massive numbers of applicants chasing relatively small numbers of places.

The truth is that these schemes, and the businesses that offer them, are not a true reflection of the UK industrial landscape.  Although great schemes, if you are successful in securing a place, if you do not look beyond them then you are significantly reducing and limiting your future career options.

It tends to be forgotten that 95% of British businesses fall into the SME sector, that is small to medium enterprises, employing anything from 1 to 250 people.  SME's operate across all industrial sectors, manufacturing, creative industries, technology, engineering, retail, service, hospitality and lots more.  The list is quite endless and, needless to say SMEs employ more people within the UK than any other group.

Failing to consider the SME sector as a route to employment, is a BIG mistake.  The exposure to business practises can often be more significant with a small business, the day to day operations are frequently a lot more 'hands on' for all employees, skills such as customer service, flexibility, communication, business development, and many more are often developed more rapidly and fully within a small company than a larger organisation - simply because the demands of the business mean that they have to be.

Programmes such as Unite with Business and Graduates to Merseyside (http://www.graduatetomerseyside.co.uk/ )  offer graduates and final year students the opportunity to experience life at the 'coal face' of an SME.  They are proven programmes with many successes, both for business owners and for the graduates undertaking the activities, with many individual graduates and students going onto full time or contracted employment within the business.

More importantly they provide individual students and graduates the opportunity to improve themselves.  By undertaking work within one of our SMEs you will develop your skills, enhance your abilities and be able to demonstrate that you 'can do the job' - believe me, in the eyes of an employer who is concerned about bottom line this is more important than your qualification.

If you are a graduate struggling to find work then you really should consider approaching programmes such as Unite with Business or Graduate to Merseyside, that exist to help to put businesses in touch with people like yourself.  Yes it can be daunting, yes you may feel uncomfortable, yes you may not be overly confident, but you have to take that first step.  The teams from both projects will help you to overcome your fears.

Tear yourself away from the unproductive job webpages and make the call - you never know where you could end up.

Steven Bell, Project Manager, Unite with Business