Home > Job News > Internship > Employers 'expect too much' of graduates < Job News and Info

Employers expect too much of graduates, a leading careers organisation has warned.

That means that fears of unfilled vacancies are likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) argues.

In its 2008 Winter Review, the Association of Graduate Recruiters reported that 67 per cent of employers believe that they will struggle to fill vacancies due to the shortcomings of new entrants into the workforce.

But a spokesperson for AGCAS puts some of this down to employers' unreasonable demands.

"There has been a major shift in what companies expect graduates to come out of university with and how prepared [for work] they expect them to be," said Elspeth Farrar, communications director of AGCAS.

In the past, employers were more prepared to take the time to train new workers themselves, but the assumption increasingly seems to be that this is the responsibility of universities.

"It used to be that graduate training schemes were exactly that. Companies would take in graduates and develop their skills. It seems now that companies are expecting students to come out of university work ready," she said.

A recent survey by Income Data Services claimed that graduate recruiters are planning to cut the numbers they take on this summer by as much as 14.7 per cent.

Need to recruit part time, seasonal staff, interns or graduates? Advertise your job vacancies with Employment4students