Young things with itchy feet

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Six out of 10 new graduates stay with their first post-study employer for less than a year, research shows.

And the trend is accelerating, says the latest Cubiks Graduate Salaries and Recruitment Report.

The annual survey of 18 major employers focuses on those staff who are either one, two or three years out of university, says manager Kevin McBride.

It shows that just 44.2 per cent of graduates recruited last year were still with the same employer in July this year. Of those hired in 2000, 44 per cent remained and in 1999, just 32 per cent.

Why are graduates being lost so fast?

McBride says it's the result of "bright young things moving quickly" and new graduates' desire to get overseas and earn student loan-busting, stronger currencies.

Employers, in turn, are keen to "snaffle those who have had the rough edges knocked off them", even if they have had just a few months' experience.

"And someone with two to three years' experience is more valuable than a raw graduate."

The high turnover doesn't surprise University of Waikato career co-ordinator Brendon Gardner.

He has noticed that students looking at heading overseas to put a dent in their student loans are particularly interested in teaching English in Korea.

But graduates' speedy turnover is having an impact elsewhere. Increasing numbers of professional services corporates and Government departments which used to run graduate trawls every year have cut them back to every second year.

Others are now hiring graduates just as they need them.

Graduate turnover was listed as the second most important factor affecting the development of targeted recruitment plans, after business activity.

That's also impacting on the training the new staff members receive.

McBride says that large influxes of graduates at one time once made spending on formal training worthwhile, but for some "it's no longer worth investing - they [new graduates] are not hanging in long enough to make it worthwhile".

The survey is slanted towards Wellington and large corporates, head offices of multinationals and Government departments.

None of the companies surveyed has fewer than 50 staff; 43.7 per cent have more than 500 on the payroll. Asset value was more than $100 million for 55 per cent of employers surveyed.

The survey also discovered that:

* Interviews remained the most common graduate recruitment method, but pre-employment psychometric testing continues to rise. Nearly 52 per cent of companies used such tests, up from 40 per cent in 1999's survey.

Assessment centres - where people in the running are observed while completing various challenges and tasks together - have also grown in popularity, with one-third of companies using them.

The report describes this as encouraging; although such centres are pricey to operate, they "exhibit one of the highest levels of predictive validity".

* There has been a large increase in the number of appointments whose degree discipline wasn't deemed to be important.

"This is further evidence that many employers are now looking to appoint people with evidence of the mental discipline necessary to complete a qualification ... rather than ... specific qualifications."

* The perks filling the gap between base pay and total remuneration package included, in descending order of value, a superannuation scheme (offered by 57.5 per cent of employers, with an average value of $3080); medical insurance (18.5 per cent, with an average value of $640), bonuses (14.1 per cent, with an average value of $3275); other payments (which might include study leave - worth $103); payment of professional association fees (7 per cent, worth an average $450); telephone rental (5.3 per cent, worth an average $428).

Car and expense allowances were allowed by just 1.7 per cent of employers, worth, respectively, an average of $14,200 and $1040.

* A new graduate's first pay rise in the past year was far higher than those awarded to general staff - 12. 1 per cent for the recently qualified against 4.5 per cent for general staff.

Cubik Survey