With a massive 1000 per cent increase in applicants, a Yorkshire-based professional recruitment and development company has received an overwhelming response to its annual graduate mentoring programme.
In previous years, Felicity King, who co-owns Edwards and Pearce with her husband Dan King, had 20-30 graduates on the programme, but this year there were over 260 applicants.
“Our graduate support programme combines the two separate areas of our business, both recruitment and development. We talk to employers every day and know the pressures they are feeling too.
“On the one hand there is an endemic skills shortage as companies struggle to recruit experienced people, then on the other hand, fast-growing business requires a very well-established training and development function to ensure new recruits are supported and nurtured as quickly as possible. Not all companies can manage this and, as a result, many small to medium-sized companies (SMEs) have shied away from recruiting graduates because they feel under resourced and feel it’s too risky.
”As a result of the pandemic, remote and hybrid study have also meant human connection, collaboration and all-important personal development isn’t in focus anymore. Whilst students have been busy adapting to the changing way university education is delivered, it has meant that the vital skills required to jump into your first position like confidence, professional conduct and being part of a team, are often lagging behind. Our programme exists to fill that gap between employer needs and graduate employability.”
Over three weeks, the mentoring program will be delivered online in order to prepare graduates for their first job and their future success. It examines three key topics – personal branding, practical skills, like writing application letters and CVs, interviewing and navigating the types of roles available, and networking, which is extremely important for your early career and beyond.
Felicity continued:
“It can be a scary time making the leap from university to employment and there isn’t any one size fits all transition programme to solve this. On top of that, there’s such a lot of uncertainty at the moment in the world in general that graduates need more support than ever. I think that’s what’s being reflected here in the hundreds of graduates applying to join our programme. I don’t think there has ever been a more important time to make employability more HUMAN focused. I believe EMPATHY is the key to helping young people understand who they are and develop the courage to be everything they are meant to be.”
To ensure as many students as possible across the UK know that they are not alone and that help is available, Edwards and Pearce are exploring different ways to deliver this increasingly popular programme.
Aside from professional coaching from Felicity and sector-specific insights and advice from members of Edwards and Pearce’s senior recruitment team, all graduates will have access to Edwards and Pearce’s Digital Empowerment Platform, a social literacy tool that helps people understand each other better, collaborate more effectively, innovate, solve problems, build resilience and be more productive.
For more information about Edwards and Pearce and its graduate mentoring programme, please visit www.edwardsandpearce.co.uk. Alternatively, please call 01482 621721.
