YOUNG JOBSEEKERS ARE “PLAYING HARD TO GET” WITH EMPLOYERS, REPORT CLAIMS
The UK’s “picky” graduates are “playing hard to get” with employers, and many are actually turning down jobs, if new reports are to be believed.
Can this really be true? Or are some sections of the media just determined to make out that young people don’t really want to work at all?
Finding out the truth to these questions is particularly important as news breaks today that David Cameron is planning make jobseekers aged 18-21 (which could include some graduates) undertake community work if they cannot find work or training to occupy them. This idea has been kicking around for a while, but now it seems it may well be put into action.
In addition, a recent news story in Metro suggested that one in seven graduate job offers is turned down by the applicant. Reporter Oliver Wheaton wrote:
“As Britain is finally heading out of the recession graduates hoping to find jobs are trying a new technique: Playing hard to get.
“Gone are the days of university graduates taking any job they can get, as nearly half of employers said they had unfilled graduate position last year.
“Many graduates are reportedly being offered roles, before backing out because they want to continue looking for better paid or more senior positions.
“…The overall ‘turn-down’ rate — the proportion of graduates that did not accept a position offered to them — was 14.4%.
“Several employers also thought this may be the result of graduates having many job offers and deciding which one to go with late in the process.
“Graduates might be more picky about the roles they take these days, but the path to a dream job is still a familiar route, with companies giving a quarter of graduate roles to people who have worked for them, often as interns.”
The report appeared to suggest a widespread phenomenon of thousands of picky graduates turning down roles – but all may not be as it seems. For starters, the figures the report referred to were from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), whose members are big corporations who run the big graduate schemes.
As Graduate Fog’s founder Tanya de Grunwald told The Debrief, there are numerous reasons why applicants to these schemes may turn down offers. With many firms’ recruitment processes taking six months or more, many applicants will simply have changed their minds by the time the offer is made.
And yes, others may simply have had a better offer. As Tanya told The Debrief, perhaps it’s no bad thing for employers to know that they don’t always hold all the cards:
“You could call these graduates picky, or you could call them smart. Either way, I don’t think employers can complain. These grads are only playing the big firms at their own game.’
In addition, Stephen Isherwood, Chief Executive of the AGR, told Graduate Fog that the ‘turn-down rate’ for graduate jobs had not changed since last year. And, if you looked at it another way around, you could say that six in seven graduate job offers are accepted. But of course, that’s not nearly such a good story.
*WOULD YOU TURN DOWN A GRADUATE JOB?
If yes, on what grounds? If no, why not? Do you think the graduate scheme application process encourages applicants to play employers off against each other, shopping around for the best offer? If you’re desperate for work, what is your response to the news that some graduates are turning down jobs?
I turn down/don’t pursue jobs that pay less than my rent, would cost too much to get to etc or that I don’t think I I’d last a day in (e.g. telemarketing) – in theory you can get sanctioned for being fired so some risks are best avoided.
Never been offered a true “graduate job”.
Seriously, where are these fabled graduate jobs we are supposedly snubbing?
The Association of Graduate Recruiters has never been the most reliable of agencies… they have frequently spun lies suggesting that graduates “are not fully skilled, fully trained, fully experienced, nor capable of hitting the ground up and running”.
There are some industries in some locations that have jobs available. For those who are fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time with the right skills, it is not unreasonable that they get more than one job offer and therefore turn at least one down.
As for “backing out because they want to continue looking for better paid or more senior positions”, I don’t believe for a moment that graduates are turning down job offers to head to the job centre instead.
More senior? Some entry level work would be great, if you would stop getting folk in to do it for free!
Interesting that the Tories’ new plans for compulsory community work if you’ve been out of work / education / training for 6 months seem to exempt university graduates
From yesterday’s Independent:
It is understood that the new plans will not apply to young people who have completed independent work experience in the six months before their benefits claim or the small number of university graduates who could be drawn into the scheme.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/david-cameron-wants-young-people-to-work-30-hours-a-week-for-benefits-in-new-tory-plan-10051342.html
Perhaps they feel grads have already demonstrated ambition and a desire to work, having done a degree?
@JC – Agreed – I can’t think of any graduates I’ve met who’ve boasted about all the graduate schemes they’ve turned down! Having said that, a few people have told me on Twitter (as recently as yesterday) that they have turned down jobs which either paid really badly or had long working hours or poor conditions, or no potential for progression. Of course, that’s up to them – but it does frustrate me when I (occasionally) hear of graduates who have turned down positions with what sound like good companies in something close to or related to what they think they want to do, because it wasn’t their ‘ideal’ job. The job market is tough, and sometimes it’s a case of ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’. To them, my advice is that if you’ve found a good employer who has spotted your potential and wants to pay you a proper wage and help you learn and develop – say YES PLEASE!
I think this is pretty likely. But that’s presumably because there will in any industry be a very few ‘already high fliers’ or ‘plug in and play’ candidates who’re likley to have a number of offers.
Given that employers are seemingly less inclined these days to train on the job and accordingly, graduates are more likley to move on and show less loyalty themselves, there’ll be a higher demand for these ‘superstar’ candidates, who will likely have a number of offers to turn down before most others receive offers.
I am an unemployed graduate and I won’t lie I turned down one job offer but I do not regret it one bit, you can check out the whole story on it on my blog https://straygraduate.wordpress.com/2015/02/14/a-job-interview-to-remember/
Also with my experience with graduate schemes, I struggle to even get feed back on my interviewing process
@Eowyn: Agreed on the Association of Graduate Recruiters.
@Tanya:
I amazed the Tories plan to exempt graduates from that scheme.
At present unemployed graduates certainly aren’t exempted from workfare and/or shoelace tying lessons under the Work Programme.
Nor would graduates working part-time be exempt from the haranguing by the DWP to somehow get more hours under Universal Credit.
And both Tory MPs and Shadow Work & Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves continue to say horrible things about unemployed young people – sometimes cloaked in Orwellian language about “help”.
Both Cameron and Reeves have even attacked Housing Benefit for under 25s – both unemployed and low paid presumably – in the past.
Look at this, 13 years, 2002 graduate not a permanent job(not even an interview), Geography grad, Glamorgan university, South Wales.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3026362/Geography-graduate-applied-500-jobs-t-permanent-role.html
Economy has not been great before the recession.