Go on fess up, who’s eating all the good graduates?

[Whatsyournameandwheredyoucomefrom]

I am currently interviewing grads for an entry level role in the marketing industry and SWEETMARYANDJOSEPH it’s tough going.

I’ve been taking in cohorts of grads for 10 years and in past years they were always keen to learn, chatty, determined to show the best of themselves and keen to know more about the industry. I’ve found graduate hiring to be a really
lovely thing; starting people off on their careers is something I love to do.

This year is bloody horrendous. I’ve done 23 interviews so far (5 roles available) and bar 2, without exception there’s zero enthusiasm or ‘self selling’, it’s more like I’m asking them to do a household chore and they’re getting pocket money in return - it’s ‘well if I really must do this job, what’s in it for me’. For example today a 21 year old cut me off mid sentence as I was talking about possible career progression through the industry and said ‘yeah I’m probably not thinking about that right now, I’m just figuring out what industry I want to get into right now you know? Like what is it about XXXX (that industry I’ve been in my entire career) that you think is worth pursuing because I could do basically anything and be fine you know?’ - very nearly snapped ‘this is an interview not a careers fair’ but held my tongue. Another told me £22k was basically slavery (her exact words) and she couldn’t work for less than £30k - not even graduated yet ffs. Also, oop norf so no London premium either.

I’m not expecting gratitude for the interview, I don’t even expect them to know anything about the industry and I’ll pay them £22k for the privilege of being fairly useless for a year while they learn. They can be earning £30k in 2 years with the training they get at the early stages through this role and I’ve had some go one to £50k+ in that time and yet almost without exception, none of the grads this year have turned up to the interview with any indication that they actually want the job.

What is this?? Is someone sweeping up all the driven, good candidates and paying them megabucks? Or are universities setting mad expectations on salary and not teaching interview skills?

I’m 35 so it’s not like I’m totally out of touch and feel a bit daft saying it but is this a generational thing? Covid?? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

@riesenrad , some are traits, but good parenting can make a big difference.
Monkey see, monkey do, and all that.

Crap parents can knock the confidence out of a child etc.

Good parents teach their children social skills

Haven’t you heard? It’s very much an employees market now. Graduates and other employees can now be very picky about who they work for.

corporate companies are absolutely fighting for the best talent. Employees expect almost complete flexibility, great package, exceptional benefits, to work for a company with values aligned to theirs etc. If you’re getting the dross through the doors for interviews, it’s probably cos your company isn’t selling itself very well in those aspects and the best talent isn’t even bothering applying,

it’s a harsh reality (for companies) but a huge positive for corporate job seekers

Todays crop weren’t great but all the discussion here about their experience in covid helped me to see them in a different light, so thank you for that.

Ive found one I’m excited about, she’s very bright and I think will learn quickly. Another one was lovely and chatty, but wasnt really understanding how working life works, so was keen to stress she won’t want to work beyond 4pm and wants to start late (11am) on Fridays. I said that would be fine, we’d just need to adjust her contracted hours and therefore salary for 28 hours rather than 35 and she didn’t realise we’d do that if she worked less hours, she thought she’d get the same salary. She was a bit mift and said ‘I thought it was flexible’ and I explained that we have core hours, but that if you don’t want to work passed 4 then you’d start at 8 to make sure you were working the same number of hours per week in total. She wasn’t happy about that at all.

I’m hoping to have our first batch of non graduate interviews next week so fingers crossed for some good ones. We’ve had loads of interest today since changing the brief to recruiters apparently!

well done OP! Good luck in finding some bright young minds!

R.e. flexibility it really works both ways... ha..ha..ha... I often pop out for a long lunch but am back in for 9 p.m. meetings

*young, or otherwise
Age is no barrier for the creative and curious

They do have some brass neck don’t they!

Are their parents not giving them expectations about how the world works before they enter it?! I mean they shouldn’t have to as common sense would say you work less hours you get less pay. But sounds like they need it spelled out to them before they get anywhere near an interview

The move to a 4 day week - is reduced hours with the same salary. Apparently, they'll be more productive - so you can see why they are confused. Still the applicant was inexperienced in the art of negotiating terms - not surprising really. Big shock - despite all the flexibility, benefits and all the other stuff that gets chucked in the mix - you still have to work your butt off and achieve some results, if you hope to succeed.
We seem to have slid back into the I've done two years now I deserve a promotion, all my friends got one! That grad was sent back with a list of things he needed to work on before a promotion would be considered...I expect we'll lose him but that's ok...he can be promoted above his ability elsewhere.

I'm having a similar issue at the moment. It's really quite difficult to engage /find a connection.

I've tried a few different things and looking at motivations/what they enjoy etc. But it's quite a difficult discussion

Honestly, I don't think £22k for an entry level role at a marketing agency is particularly low. That's pretty standard for a junior role in an agency, and even roles requiring 3-5 years experience pay around £25k at agencies. I think marketing/advertising has been viewed as kind of a fun or glamorous job so the pay has traditionally been lower than in other industries, because so many people want to get into it. In-house marketing roles typically pay a bit more but the opportunity for progression at an agency is usually much better.

The grad scheme on offer is actually quite good in that it would allow the employee to add a lot to their CV in a short time, and many marketing jobs seem to want the employee to know a bit of everything (so the company can have them do the job of three people but that's another story.)

totally agree.

Trigger probably more unpopular opinion!

I think it's almost the opposite of child led - I think it's adult-led on behalf of the child - over-bearing, over-controlling parenting styles and teaching styles has infantilised this generation who are not allowed to fail at anything they do and when they come close to failing there is a full scale intervention where it's always someone else's fault and someone else's responsibility to fix it. No freedom, always supervised, drove from A to B, lives are over-scheduled with activities.

They take no personal responsibility - there's no time for it. So employers are expected to behave like their parents taking responsibility for their welfare, their mental health, physical health, career development - they are the generation who have been spoon-fed their entire lives.

Told when to take a new page in their jotters at school, exercise book inspections in sixth form ffs, expected to rely on the teacher to tell them when they can remove a blazer - school and the education system has a lot to answer for - they are encouraged to make so very few decisions for themselves, the scxhool's league tables are the priority.
So they are entitled, of course they are - they get everything done for them and told that passing exams is their only value in life and they learn to do that very well...how could they be anything else but entitled.

I think spending so much time in their rooms gaming/on social media doesn't help. It might be how they interact with their friends these days, but they're not learning to interact with the real world, and they're not learning to interact with people outside their own chosen circle.

If you're out and about, sometimes you'll get lost when you visit somewhere new. Sometimes your train or bus will be cancelled, or terminate halfway there. Sometimes the shop or café will have run out of what you really fancied. Sometimes someone will jostle you out of the way when it's your turn to be served. Sometimes someone might speak to you a bit brusquely or even rudely if you're in their way or otherwise annoying them.

You interact with the shop assistant, the customer who asks if you can reach something for them that's on a high shelf, the bus driver, the elderly lady on the bus who is lonely and wants to chat....

It's all life experience.

The decent ones are going for a better salary than that, I could get that salary without years of doing a degree

According to the Institute of Student Employers Recruitment Survey 2021 - 60% of interns and placements went on to work for that employer and that percentage is apparently pretty constant. So in general more get converted to jobs than don't although I haven't seen the split in percentages between interns and placements.

And they report the satisfaction rating amongst employers who responded on the quality of hire amongst school leavers is quite a bit lower than grads.

But presumably you have some work experience.

Dd has a job paying the equivalent of £22k over the summer, very little training needed - she has very limited experience but the job has no career prospects and little training needed or required - unlike the OP's. They are like comparing apples and pears.

@Hillary17 this!!! Can’t believe HR are posting about this and not realising that they are massively in competition against other companies offering similar roles for much better salary, benefits, flexibility, aligned values, purpose driven etc etc.

no corporate company has a hope in hell of hiring the cream of the crop unless they excel in every single aspect of what employees are asking for.

the best companies have researched, studied, consulted with experts, launched huge projects etc just to determine how they are going to tackle the talent shortage. They know they have to work extremely hard to get a look in from the best talent, that means throwing all the old rule books away about traditional job adverts, interviewing techniques, compensation etc. And even after all of that, when they make offers, some interviewees get huge counter offers from their existing employer to stay. It’s really really tough and competitive.

you want the best, my god you have to pay for it now.

employees market now, big time!!!

@summerin69 yes this! You wrote it much more articulately than me in an earlier response but you’re spot on

incredible to see so many comments from people on this thread about how entitled the grads are, how it’s their parents faults etc etc

young people are changing the shape of the world. They want a different work life to their parents as grandparents. They want to see much more fairness in society, including fairer distribution of profits from these multi million/billion pound companies to their employees, who are ultimately the ones who are making these companies huge profits.

they want purpose driven roles. They want ethical companies. They want to feel happy and fulfilled at work. They want full flexibility, flexible benefits.

they want control over their own lives and the freedom to make their own choices.

too many people on here still in the mindset that an employer owns you. No! An employee is a key asset to a company to make the company money! Without the employees, the company doesn’t hit its own financial objectives.

anyone who denies that an employee should expect all of the above as an absolute standard is a) way behind the times and b) forgets that life is for living and that gone are the days where people are happy to corporate slaves and c) that employees will just leave if they don’t get what they deserve and need

we should all expect much more in our lives !

And so it goes whilst it's an employee's market - there's a recession around the corner - we'll see how things pan out then. Nothing is set in stone and some employees are worth fighting for, some are not - best you know which group you fall into before you start producing your long list of demands and throwing your toys out of the pram.

And in a corporate world, who is even more important than the employee?

The client or service user.

If the employee's happiness and fulfilment and flexibility means the client isn't getting the product or service he or she wants, or it's costing too much, the client will go elsewhere, or find they can do without it. And the happy fulfilled employees might find themselves looking at redundancy.

I can't remember who it was but someone once told the Institute of Directors (at a dinner or conference?) that in order of priority, third priority was the shareholders (), second priority was the customers/clients and first and top priority was the staff.

The logic was that if the staff wasn't happy and looked after, then the customers wouldn't be happy. And if the customers weren't happy, then neither would the shareholders be.

My background was B2B marketing (so not FMCG) - and latterly sales (but still B2B - I was effectively selling to my company's competitors, so highly strategic as we also wanted them to sell to us if they were in areas that we weren't). My favourite definition of marketing was Malcolm McDonald's one, which (paraphrased) was the process of identifying and providing products and services profitably for mutual benefit I liked the definition because it made the point that there needed to be mutual benefit : there was no point in screwing your supplier of widgets/services if they then went out of business and likewise if you overcharged your customer they may not continue in business or would find another supplier.

That same principle also applies to the supply of new recruits

@Tellhimno

Demographic trends mean the pendulum has swung from employers dictating terms to a different sort of setup, one that favours the young graduate jobseeker.

The demographic trends are not going to change any time soon.

Sure some industries are willing and able to bend over backwards to the American model (with different labour laws) - it might not do them any good in the long run when they look at productivity levels - and the pendulum will most swing back again...the recession will be challenging for everyone.

Tell me that after a winter of discontent across Europe with energy costs, food costs. We're in for a rough ride

This is interesting, a few years ago everyone was complaining about millennials being entitled but we were mostly grateful for any job as we graduated in the recession. Sounds like Gen Z can afford to be pickier. I'd have been thrilled at that offer when I graduated.