By Marcus Leach
A survey, commissioned by specialist small to medium sized business (SME) recruiter Give A Grad A Go, has revealed that 91% of UK graduates think corporations pay better, 79% think they offer better job security and 74% believe they offer better career progression than SMEs.
However, graduates felt SMEs excelled in terms of work ethic (75%) and job satisfaction (82%), while a massive 92% of all those surveyed felt that SMEs encouraged more creativity in the workplace. Smaller businesses also scored higher (62%) than corporates on work-life balance.
“SMEs make up the backbone of British industry and will need to take advantage of the abundance of highly skilled graduates leaving university looking for work," Cary Curtis, Give A Grad A Go founder and MD said.
"Graduates that approach us are often unaware of the fantastic career opportunities that exist in SME organisations and certainly have no idea how to take advantage of them. The result is that smaller employers tend to struggle to source the best grads. We find those we place, excel in smaller companies, quickly progressing their careers as a consequence.”
The results also revealed that 54% of graduates thought public sector pay was either ‘low’ or ‘very low’, contrasting recent findings from centre-right think tank, Policy Exchange, which revealed public sector workers earning over 30% more than their private sector equivalents.
