Tue, 7 May 2013The graduate director of job site totaljobs.com says SMEs would be “missing a trick by not considering graduates as a potential pipeline of talent”, as research shows students are highly engaged by the idea of working for a smaller firm.

Mike Fetters was commenting on research showing that nine-tenths of the 500 surveyed graduates say they would like to work for an SME, while 51% say they have considered starting up their own business as a route out of university.

Evidence suggests graduates see smaller firms as having lower barriers of entry when compared to larger, blue-chip graduate schemes. While 29% of graduates think they have the right skills for a job in an SME, just one in 10 think they have the skills to being a graduate role at a larger firm.

Reasons graduates would consider working for an SME include:

• 65% state that their ideas are more likely to be heard

• 62% believe that SMEs are better at developing their workforce

• 37% say the company culture would suit them better

Fetters concludes: “The graduate market in the UK is big, with a huge variety of skills and knowledge out there - all of which can be tapped into by SMEs if they can effectively utilise the right channels out there.”

• A separate survey released last month found that graduates’ top career choice would be the NHS Graduate Schemes – meaning working at one of the largest organisations on the planet.