Higher education colleges and employers should work together to create more opportunities for graduates in the capital.
According to a two-year assessment of London’s graduate labour market, institutes should encourage entrepreneurial skills, improve career guidance and arrange more effective work placements.
The report carried out by Focus Central London, South Bank University and the University of North London shows that employers in different graduate labour markets have differing views about their needs.
Information flow between graduates and employers should be improved to allow graduates to adapt to suit their chosen employment area.
Michelle Eardley, responsible for graduate recruitment at the Woolwich, called on higher education institutions’ careers services to prepare graduates better for the frustrations they are likely to face in their first year at work.
She said, “The primary problem we have is graduates’ unrealistic expectations of how quickly they are going to be given responsibility. They forget that they need to spend a while getting experience before they are given responsibility for big initiatives.
“It would be useful if careers services were able to prepare them more for those frustrations so they can get the most of the time they are given by their employer to bed down and get experience.”
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