UNILEVER HUNTS FRESHERS FOR LANDMARK NEW SCHEME
The UK’s brightest young people must start competing for their position in the job market earlier than ever, it seems.
Consumer goods giant and major graduate employer Unilever has announced a landmark new recruitment programme to attract first year university students. But why are big companies focussing their resources on freshers, when so many people who have already graduated are in desperate need of work?
The Unilever Spring Programme is exclusively for first year students who apply for a three-day business challenge in Spring 2013 (around six months after they start university). Students must put their skills and business acumen to the test working on a business case study project and completing a half day assessment centre. If successful, they will start a 12-week or 12-month placement the following year.
Orla Meade, graduate attraction specialist at Unilever UK and Ireland, said that stiff competition for graduate jobs means undergraduates have twigged that it’s never too early to start schmoozing employers:
“With the recent hike in university fees, students understandably are looking to secure jobs earlier to maximise the investment into a university education and we want Unilever to be front of mind when students plan their career after university. Those who join us for placements during university often benefit from fast-tracking to a graduate role, so it’s well-worth students thinking about their careers as early as possible.
“We’re to starting to talk to students earlier in their university lives than ever before, meaning that first year students can sample life with us well before graduating.”
Okay, that’s great for them — but what about those who have already graduated? Those who realised too late how employers prize experience, sometimes even above qualifications? Meade had this to say to those who have already left university:
“Although we all know that the job market is tough today, particularly for graduates, the situation isn’t all bleak. In fact, companies are still fiercely competing to attract the top students and graduates who continue to be very much in demand.”
Hm. It’s clear that today’s undergraduates (paying up to £9,000 a year for tuition fees) have twigged that it’s never too early to start schmoozing potential employers — even if they’re yet to finish their first year at university. But what does that mean for those who have already graduated – and haven’t had access to these vital early opportunites? Will the new breed of hyper-ambitious undergraduates make your cohort look like slackers? And is it reasonable to ask first years to be so career-focussed at such an early stage?
*ARE GRADUATE EMPLOYERS GETTING TOO PICKY ABOUT WHO THEY HIRE AT GRADUATE LEVEL?
Are companies making unrealistic demands on their graduate intake, because they know they hold all the cards? Shouldn’t the big employers be focussed on opening their doors to those who need jobs now, rather than those who will graduate in a few years’ time?
Tanya, come on, get real!! What an absurd story – haven’t you been paying attnetion to what’s been happening in tbe economy for the past 5 years??? Of course it’s “buyers market” for employers at the moment. They can’t be blamed for successive government’s insistance on getting as many young people to university as possible. They only have a certain requirement for young talent each year and are having to find more and more intricate ways of finding these people, now that the marketplace is so full.
Aren’t you making a mountain out of a molehill?? I can’t quite see the point of the story???
on the question of “Are companies making unrealistic demands on their graduate intake, because they know they hold all the cards?” of course they can make unrealistic demands there are that many graduates, they can have the entry level so high that only the brightest graduates, will be attracted to them.
The worst entry level criteria I have seen is A’s for Maths and English, 320 UCAS points and a 1st from a top 20 university and the scheme would consider nothing lower.
This is nothing new, the majority of investment banks also offer first year “insight” schemes, usually lasting 3 days to a week. The idea of these is that students can gain an insight into the world of work. Like the Unilever scheme they are not actual jobs and as such should not be viewed as “taking jobs away” from people that have graduated! If this is the case then it’s time to start berating employers for offering work shadowing to school children.
The graduate market is a buyers market for recruiters and will be for some time; there are more students and grads than ever before and the proliferation of meaningless degrees has led to a lot of students that (through no fault of their own) have been given bad guidance at school level and encouraged to study pointless degrees at lower ranked Universities rather than joining the workforce three years earlier. It’s a horrible situation for those effected but you cannot expect businesses (who are generally in it to make money!) for being picky over the best talent. This is tantamount to expecting Man Utd or Chelsea to sign Sunday league footballers just because there are so many of them!!
“Now picky employers target first year students”
WRONG – its one picky employer – no plurals involved.
Secondly, the army targets army training corp – before uni, the air force similar. They dont wait until they graduate, they start training them early.
Get over yourself. Sometimes in life things aren’t equal, no one said it was compulsory to wait until the cream of UK’s talent graduates. Snap it up early.
If grads are as savvy as this blog contends, who can blame employers for matching them?
This is a non-story. I think you need to understand that being a graduate is just that, it used to mean you’d get the pick of jobs. Now, with fewer entry level jobs and more graduates the world has changed. School leavers need to start asking themselves if what they will gain from uni and is there any real need to attend?
Grant, what would you class as a pointless degree? Humanities? Sciences? I’m sure there are many unemployed from a whole range of backgrounds.
I’m also not quite sure what this story is getting at. Schemes such as the one Unilever are launching are not yet the norm – but they are by no means the first or the only graduate employer to offer opportunities targeted at first years. I expect that other employers will move in this direction too – and as long as the schemes are accessible and any work is paid at NMW or above, I struggle to see why they aren’t at the very least a neutral, if not a positive, development. My only caveat to this would be if a company were to close down it’s other routes to recruiting graduates – so for example if students hadn’t decided by the end of their first term that they wanted to work for Unilever, then they’d missed the boat. However, such a stance would be counterproductive and I would imagine somewhat unlikely.
Would I rather that there wasn’t this pressure on students to start enhancing their CV so early? Yes. Do I think it’s unreasonable for employers to expect graduates to come out of University completely ‘oven-ready’? Again, yes. But I have more time and respect for that expectation if an employer is prepared to offer a range of paid work experience and placement opportunities to students while they’re studying.
This woman sounds lie such a spoiled bratt constantly whining about how hard done by she is. You need to get in the real world and get your hands dirty doing some good hard graft. You seem to think you are superior to everyone else and that life owes you the red carpet treatment. Sounds like mummy and daddy were too soft on you. Time to wake up to reality you’re nothing special.
@MM is this a flame, sorry what are you on about? Unilever graduate scheme needs 300 UCAS points, which yes, is a bit annoying as your tested on your A level or school results, but that is BBB at a level and it doesn’t appear to specify a 2.1 or 2.2 at the application stage?
*(Sorry) that is BBB at A level, (I should have said).
I agree with others that this isn’t really a case of “taking jobs away” from graduates since the first year “insights” aren’t very much like jobs – they’re more akin to shadowing. However, they can undoubtedly help people who have a clear idea of what industry or company they want their career to be, as they allow them to get a foot in the door early. It’s not for everyone (I never did one, because I was still too wide-eyed about the whole mystifying graduate recruitment thing to actually finish an application), but for someone with a clear direction, they can provide a really valuable addition to their CV.
Is it wrong to ask first-years to choose their career so early? I would say no, because it’s not actually mandatory. But I would say that by the end of first year, it would be helpful for people to have an idea and try to apply for second-year internships if companies in their chosen sector offer them. I’m now in my final year and my experience from the past summer’s internship was that in many companies, second-year interns get first preference for places on the graduate schemes.