Benefits of Work Placements - High Fliers Report 2018

We have been delighted to hear how well the Royal Holloway Management students have been getting on during their placement years. The timing of our visits corresponded with the release of the latest High Fliers Report which indicates that since 2010, the number of work experience placements available for students and recent graduates grew annually, rising steeply by more than 50% in total, almost double the rise in graduate vacancies over the same period.

     

 

High Fliers Research have over the last two decades conducted detailed research into the Graduate recruitment market in the UK. The Graduate Market in 2018 is a study of the latest graduate vacancies and starting salaries at the UK’s one hundred best-known and most successful employers, conducted by High Fliers Research during December 2017

The report notes a change in the purpose of work experience programmes over the last decade, with such programmes initially being set up to help university students better understand career sectors most suited to them by giving them exposure to the types of work Graduates did in particular areas. High Fliers note that “There were few direct links between these undergraduate work placements and the graduate recruitment process.”  

However today we see that work experience schemes have become an integral part of recruiting new graduates. Indeed our Year in Business students applying for placements during the course of their 2^nd year at University are selected through a very similar process used to recruit graduates. Many face application forms, on line interviews, psychometric tests, face to face interviews and assessment centres. As a result many of those who go on to complete successful placement positions are then offered a Graduate position to take up after their Final year at University.

According to High Fliers Report 2018 over three-fifths of the country’s top graduate employers will be hosting course placements -  structured work experience organised as part of university degree courses (sometimes described as ‘sandwich’ courses) and typically lasting between six and twelve months – that give students first-hand experience of technical, commercial or research roles.

Encouragingly for our 1^st year YIBs there is also the opportunity to get work experience in the 1^st year and strengthen CVs ahead of applications made in the 2^nd year. According to High Fliers Research, more than half of employers now offer work experience to first year undergraduates – either via paid internships and vacation placements, or through open days, short introductory courses or ‘taster’ experiences.

Yet again Recruiters at the organisations featured in the research highlighted the importance of work experience when it comes to assessing students’ applications for graduate roles. Over a  third warned that in today’s competitive job market, it was either ‘not very likely’ or ‘not at all likely’ that a graduate who’d had no previous work experience at all with any employers would be successful during their selection process and be made a job offer, irrespective of their academic achievements or the university they had attended

 Read more about the High Fliers 2018 Report:

 https://www.highfliers.co.uk/download/2018/graduate_market/GMReport18.pdf