West Midlands getting first pick of best graduates

According to Birmingham-based recruitment company, Katie Bard, the downturn is forcing organisations across the country to opt out of graduate schemes and as a result, graduates of excellent calibre are choosing to stay put in the city.

Verity Stokes, divisional leader at Katie Bard, believes this is an ideal time for companies to take on graduates for admin and customer service roles - and to help keep them in the region.

She said: “Organisations throughout the West Midlands should take advantage of the trend changes - they can have the best graduates come into the company for full time employment at entry level roles, but who boast excellent soft skills and have achieved first class degrees on taxing courses.

“Graduates who come away from university with excellent degrees usually tend to move away from the area either for graduate schemes in other regions or return home, which means that the West Midlands misses out on the best candidates.

“But during the recession we’re noticing a definite change. There’s a real movement, with the big graduate schemes not hoovering up the best candidates, simply because companies are deciding not to run the schemes during the downturn or are reducing their graduate intake.

“People are now coming out of university with an open mind to what step to take next, and at a recent graduate fair at Birmingham University, we had over 70 graduates registered interest with Katie Bard.

“Usually there’s a range of levels of skills and abilities at those events, but we found that we were signing up extremely high achievers who have top class degrees, as well as possessing a huge range of soft skills which makes them ideal candidates to go into companies at entry level and build their part within the organisation.

“These intelligent, high-achievers are building blocks for companies in times like these and can help give them a competitive edge.”

According to Katie Bard - which is part of the international Angela Mortimer group - the soft skills that the latest wave of graduates possess, include a high level of communications, analytical and IT skills, as well as good problem solving and intelligence in their thought processes.

Verity said: “At Katie Bard we have face-to-face interviews with the graduates which enables us to identify their soft skills and see firsthand their personality and attitude - which are all just as important in the workplace as good qualifications.

“By knowing and understanding what type of candidate our clients are looking for we are able to match the appropriate graduates to that vacancy.”

Katie Bard, which has its West Midlands office based in Waterloo Street, Birmingham, finds temporary and permanent work for high quality office based staff across the Midlands and wider UK.

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