Small businesses may 'expect too much' from graduates

Date: 4th March 2008

Business owners may have "unrealistic expectations" of graduates, according to the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Service (Agcas)

Agcas claims that having unrealistically high expectations of graduates can make it difficult for businesses to fill vacancies.

The communications director for the body, Elspeth Farrar, commented: "There has been a major shift in what companies expect graduates to come out of university with and how prepared [for work] they expect them to be."

Ms Farrar says companies are increasingly expecting graduates to leave university "work-ready" and fully trained - claiming that in the past graduates would have been put through company training schemes and had their skills developed prior to taking on large workloads.

According to the Association of Graduate Recruiters' 2008 winter review - 67 per cent of business owners say they are likely to face recruitment difficulties during the coming year.