Member Article

What skills do North East employers look for when recruiting graduates?

The journey between hedonistically mounting the forbidden campus rhinoceros (pictured, a stone’s throw from Newcastle University’s Robinson Library) and entering the workplace will often seem like a million miles away to many undergraduates.

Yet, gaining employment in a graduate’s desired field after degree completion can be one of life’s toughest tasks. Certainly, too many people find themselves in a post-university position where they are too unrpepared to begin the career they want. Today, graduates must be aware of the requisite skills and attributes needed to find employment and put their qualifications into practice.

A survey put together for the North East LEP and Tees Valley Unlimited, by Newcastle University Business School, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and the North East Chamber of Commerce, has revealed which skills employers most seek when recruiting graduates.

Good communication, team working and reading/writing abilities topped the wish list of responders, which included 103 businesses from Northumberland to Teesside.

Participants ranged from firms with an annual turnover of under £100k to those earning more than £10m a year. The majority of responses came from the £1m - £5m turnover category (25%) and the £100k - £500k category (21%). The majority (66%) said their turnover and profits were increasing each year and almost half (45%) were increasing their staff levels annually.

Businesses also highly rated planning and organisational skills, computer skills and the ability to adapt and act in new situations.

Decision making, analytical and problem solving abilities and sector specific skills and knowledge were also considered to be key requirements.

Bottom of the ‘must have’ skills list were numerical, marketing and social media, and foreign language skills.

Companies considered innovation as the key contribution that graduates could bring to their business, followed by problem solving skills. Despite scoring poorly in the essential skills for graduate recruitment, employers also rated graduates’ ability to develop their company’s social media strategy as important potential contribution.

However, lack of work experience and job skills were the major stumbling blocks to graduate recruitment. Some 61% of businesses said they employed graduates who had the right skills rather than because they had a degree. Just 8% of the survey said they specifically employed individuals because they had a degree.

More than eight in 10 businesses (84 per cent) said they had contacted or worked with universities when recruiting and 63 per cent expressed an interest in contributing to university courses, to ensure graduates learned essential skills for business. However, only 18 per cent were already in ‘very frequent’ or ‘rather frequent’ contact with universities to discuss curriculum programmes. The majority (45 per cent) only tended to co-operate with universities when they were recruiting graduates.

Almost half of the respondents considered the best way to co-operate with universities to be via the university careers service or by offering student internships or work experience. More than half (52 per cent) said that graduates would be more employable if they studied courses relevant to employers’ needs, with practical experience and sector specific work placements.

The survey was instigated by a discussion of the skills and attributes required by North East employers during last year’s Graduate Retention conference at Newcastle University.

Analysis: Jamie Hardesty, North East Editor

“As someone who has made the transition from graduate to employee in the past few years myself, the findings certainly represent an accurate depiction of the type of person you need to be to gain employment.

“Interestingly, the key skills highlighted in the report (good comms, teamwork and reading/writing abilities) are often overlooked by graduates themselves when applying for jobs.

“For instance, informing an employer that you’re a good communicator can often go unsaid when being too preoccupied with mentioning your specialist skills in an interview.

“I would encourage all graduates to sit down with university careers advisors when beginning an application process. I for one found the help from Newcastle University invaluable in not only preparing to talk to employers but to actually identify the skill set I had, aside from my specialisms.

“The most successful graduates are those who endeavour to keep learning and expanding their skill sets. Using a careers service not only helps the individual to get a job but to also embrace the ethos of ‘learning to learn’, an essential part of improving, and ultimately succeeding, when embarking on a nascent career.”