“Ai Group has today launched its new graduate employment service in Canberra which aims to tackle the catch-22 dilemma where graduates can’t find a suitable job without experience and employers can’t find job-ready graduates with experience,” Australian Industry Group Chief Executive, Innes Willox said.
The Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham, launched the new service at Parliament House in Canberra today.
“The Ai Group Graduate Employment Service is driven by the need to address the fact that less than 70% of graduates are in full-time employment five months after graduation. Even when graduates do gain employment relevant to their field of study it is estimated that they take up to 24 months to become fully productive.[1]
“Businesses are keen to employ graduates but often need assistance with screening, recruiting, employing and mentoring the graduate to full productivity. Ai Group’s new service solves this problem.
“Our ground-breaking initiative provides a personalised service to companies. We make sure that when a graduate is hired they have the workplace skills that are required. We screen, recruit and mentor the graduate and work closely with their manager to see how they are performing in the workplace.
“Our service provides companies with graduates who hit the ground running. We also give the option of Ai Group directly employing the graduate in a manner akin to a group training service. Either way we do the leg-work for business,” Mr Willox said.
At the launch Ai Group also released its latest policy statement, Connecting for Productivity: University and Industry partnerships, which includes new data from members gathered through the 2016 Workforce Development Needs Survey.
“The statement identified that in regard to graduate capabilities, members expressed their highest levels of dissatisfaction around graduates’ levels of self-management and capacity to learn. The policy statement recommends a number of actions for closer cooperation by government, industry and universities to build future graduates who have the adaptive capabilities needed for the fast changing world of work,” Mr Willox said.
Recognising that a key solution to a lack of work readiness is to expose students to the workplace and to integrate the experience with their studies, Ai Group has developed a new guide, Uni Students – Good News for Your Business, which was also circulated at the Launch on Tuesday.
The guide assists employers to get involved with university students by providing information on the benefits to the business, types of involvements, legal requirements, tips on successful relationships, examples and contacts to get started.
[1] McKinseys