Benefits of Graduates in the Workplace

Employers are more aware than ever of the business benefits of recruiting a diverse workforce. 

Every organisation needs to understand its customer base and is now more receptive to recruiting a workforce that encompasses the widest social strata possible.

Recruitment methods are developing all the time and are scrutinised more carefully now to ensure that they are not centred exclusively on middle class values. Employers do all they can to recruit on the basis of equality. They measure applicants objectively against a pre-defined set of competencies.

In line with the desire to have wide diversity in their workforce, many of Australia’s largest companies, including the major chartered firms and the big oil companies to name just a couple, have well-established graduate recruitment programs.

These programs are continued year after year because they work so well for the organisations involved.

So what are the benefits of a co-ordinated graduate program? The benefits certainly vary from one industry to another.

Generally some of the main advantages include:

• Up-to-date information:No matter how professionals try to keep up to date, it is almost impossible these days. An influx of new graduates each year usually provides an injection of new ideas and different approaches.
  
• New graduates bring with them new energy:  New graduates bring enthusiasm and idealism. They may be inexperienced, but their new energy can give a whole organisation, or certainly a whole department, a new vigour for daily challenges.
  
• Fresh ideas: Thinking along the lines of "that's the way it's done around here" leads a business on a direct road to nowhere. Bringing in intelligent people with fresh ideas can give the workplace new life.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is one organisation that specifically recruits graduates. The ADF offers professional positions in a wide variety of industries including medicine, engineering, teaching, nursing and dentistry.

In the ADF, graduates begin their career as an Officer from day one. They immediately begin practising in their chosen profession. The Defence Force recruiters claim that many graduates move straight into roles that are more challenging compared with being in a civilian job.  Some graduates can very quickly find themselves as part of a multi-national peacekeeping operation or be practicing in a mobile field environment during national emergencies.

Apart from the ADF, there are numerous corporate organisations that find recent graduates have lots to contribute.  It’s true that they may be more challenging than other employees, but they have heaps of potential.  And, in general, they are smart and determined.

They are likely to be very ambitious and willing to work harder in order to prove themselves.  Most graduates are intelligent and well educated and they are normally so grateful to be offered their first job after graduating, that they give a fair degree of loyalty in the first instance.

A healthy advantage for employers that provide positions for graduates is that graduates starting their first job arrive with no baggage. They have no pre-conceived ideas about what can and cannot be done.  Employers have more scope to train them in the way that the employer wants things to be done.  In contrast to this, most graduates need basic tutoring on how to operate in the work environment.

It is a mistake to think that graduates are a source of cheap labour. This is not the case at all. They are likely to require high maintenance in many ways and they certainly expect a competitive salary. However, to give value back in return for the good salary, they want to be given a high degree of responsibility early on.