Setting up a graduate training scheme - any tips?

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I work at a small-ish marketing/PR consultancy in a fairly specialist sector. We're finding it really hard to recruit into the roles we need to fill, which are usually for people with 3-5 years' experience, so we've decided to focus more on recruiting graduates and train them up , alongside our usual recruitment. We also want to offer a structured training scheme rather than have people picking it up as they go along. I've volunteered to get the plans up and running, so as well as lots of general research, I thought I'd ask the wise people of MN for advice, tips and general information. I want to make it as good as possible for the people involved. Thanks in advance.

I am in the process of setting one up for our medium sized firm. I've structured it to include relevant industry qualifications as well as softer skills in a bi-monthly group training session. The grads will have a mentor and then also a less experienced buddy to ask day to day questions. Pay will increase as they pass qualifications and there is an initial rotation around teams for learning purposes with some set projects to accomplish as well that should be interesting and challenging. The key I've emphasised to the management colleagues is that they aren't employed just to do other people's filing etc, they must be helped to develop, encouraged to share ideas and reverse mentor more senior colleagues.

We advertised via uni careers boards and on our website and social media channels. Some great applicants as well as some not so good. Hopefully it will all work well for you.

Use the universities as a starting point. They all have student support services that help find roles for students however I would suggest that you look for other employees such as apprentices too.

Graduates often feel after completing 3-5 years of degree education the thing they want most is to get stuck in to work and not spend another 1-3 years training no matter how good the perks.

Advanced level apprenticeships will allow you to find the right candidate who will understand that they are employed because they want to train in your sector and they often hadn't considered university for a variety of reasons. An apprentice will be with you for x years until qualified whereas a university graduate may always be on the lookout for better opportunities and for better pay. It may be harder to get them to commit to a smallish sized company for a long period of time and they may only see you as getting their foot in the door type employment.

I've been on one, so only seen that side of it but I would say have very clear expectations, and a very clear, measurable way of tracking their progression. Maybe exams if appropriate. We had a taskbook with a certain amount of tasks to get signed off by a mentor each year. If you completed it on schedule, you got your pay increase and moved up. If not, you risked being kicked out. I think that's fairly common on grad schemes. I disagree slightly with Reinette, in that in my experience graduates are desperate to get onto a decent grad scheme. If it is a successful scheme, it is not like spending another 1-3 years training. They should be getting stuck into work, but with a structure of learning on the job and proving their progression. Every job involves learning as you go.

The other thing to consider is maybe how to keep them one you have trained them up - depending on what your industry is like, you could have the problem of other companies poaching your fully trained graduates after you have put all the effort and cost into training them!