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Northumbria University supporting SMEs to employ Graduate Interns

Are you think about recruiting?

Are you a small or medium sized business?

Will the post be in Tyne & Wear or Northumberland?

Have you considered a Graduate Internship?

Northumbria University is launching a new European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) project to support regional Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), enterprise growth and graduate jobs in the North East.

Through the Northumbria Enterprise and Business Support (NEBS) project, £2.1 million of funding has been secured to support businesses and graduates.

One of the project strands will extend the help Northumbria provides to SMEs through graduate internships. The interns will be paid by the SME for 6 months in a graduate position to meet the business needs of SMEs across Northumberland and Tyne & Wear with the project contributing £3,825 towards the 6-month salary (min salary £17,000pa pro rata)

This latest tranche of European funding follows Northumbria’s highly successful ERDF-funded Northumbria Graduates into Business project which ran for two years from 2013. By the end of the previous project:

• 71% of SME’s reported an increase in turnover, including up to £200,000, as a result of employing a graduate intern.

• 75% of the graduates were offered full time permanent positions by their employing SME at the end of the internship.

Through the previous project, The Skill Mill employed Charlotte Thorpe as a Graduate Intern. After successfully completing her internship at The Skill Mill, Charlotte accepted a full-time position with the SME. David Parks, Director at The Skill Mill commented recently:

“Charlotte has had an enormous impact throughout her internship, and indeed beyond it. Trade has increased with new projects where she took the lead. Charlotte has also developed a range of systems which ensure we can tender for large framework contracts.”

If you’d like more information about Graduate Internships, including the next steps, please contact Victor Ottaway, Graduate Internship Manager (victor.ottaway@northumbria.ac.uk / 0191 227 4044).

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Victor Ottaway .