Should you hire a graduate for your business?

Cary Curtis, founder and MD at specialist graduate recruiter, Give A Grad A Go, explains why you should hire a graduate for your business.

If you’re part of a start-up then you may still be enduring sleepless nights debating the big questions, ‘What font should my website be in?’, ‘Which kettle shall we get for the office?’ ‘Should I really use an exclamation mark instead of an ‘i’ in the company’s name?’. Whilst I can’t help you with these tough decisions, I can give you one piece of proven advice – hire a graduate. Here are three reasons why:

They’re enthusiastic…

If I offered you a treasure chest with 18 years’ worth of bold new ideas in it, you’d want to have a look, right? That is exactly what a graduate is. After 18 years of preparation and education, graduates have heads filled with ideas and are ready to apply them to the working world, keen to kick-start their career. Thanks to their education and age, they’re au fait with the latest technological trends and practices, and can bring a fresh approach to your business.

They’re an investment…

Recruiting a new graduate requires time and training to get them to the level your business requires. This is an investment though. You can teach them how to work the way you think is best for the business, and they are good at learning – they’ve just done a whole degree’s worth of it! Also, graduates aren’t likely to be fed up and fancy a career change five minutes into the job, as their green CVs need detail and experience.

They’re your competition…

If you’re not employing them, you will be competing with them. With the graduate job market as saturated as it currently is, many graduates are combining their initiative with grant schemes offered by universities and the government, such as Start Up Britain, to launch their own businesses. They’ve got nothing to lose when their only other option is unemployment.