New here? Don't forget you can buy the book at Amazon. Thanks - Tanya x

DUDE DISMAYED AS LIBERAL, LEFTIE NEWSPAPER FAILS TO CONDEMN WORK-FOR-FREE-FIRST CULTURE

I fear something is very, very wrong at the Observer.

Barbara Ellen’s column this weekend (‘Hey intern, get me a coffee and stop whingeing’) was a depressing read indeed.

Although she raged nobly against the injustice of placements being more accessible to well-off graduates (tick!), Ellen appeared to be saying that asking you lot to work for free for up to a year is perfectly reasonable (cross).

Dude generally likes Ellen’s writing, so I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt and hoping that she’s just badly informed on this subject.

I can’t believe that someone as smart as her – who writes for the most liberal newspaper in the world – could seriously be suggesting that the minimum wage laws that protect everybody else in this country should not apply to graduates.

Ellen’s logic – as is often the way with people who did not pay for their university education (assuming she had one?) – is that she had to work for free when starting out, so why shouldn’t you lot? It’s a rite of passage, and her advice is simply to ’suck it up.’

As a fellow journalist (albeit a far less famous one!) I can see her point. I did unpaid work experience too, when I was starting out. But I did NOT do it for a year, unpaid. (I worked for about 3 months before I started to be paid).

And – as a graduate of 2000, the last year before tuition fees were introduced – I was not in anywhere near the kind of debt you lot are in.

As I had not paid for my course, I did not have the same expectation that it ‘bought’ me anything. I made my situation work – but under very different economic circumstances to the ones your generation face.

Ellen is right that the work-for-free-first culture is nothing new. But she’s wrong in thinking that makes it okay.

She also fails to consider how tuition fees have changed graduates expectations about life after university. Of course the fact that you’re paying huge sums of money for your qualification impacts the amount of post-sorting, photocopying and coffee-getting you are prepared to do before you start being paid.Owing 15-20k kinda does that to a person.

Ellen also seems unaware that many of the thousands of graduates who are working unpaid are not just running errands for a couple of weeks – and the work-for-free-first culture has become the norm in many industries – not just media.

Dude has heard countless tales of cash-strapped companies (major ones – who frankly should know better), allowing graduates to work for months on end in jobs that require real responsibility – for no pay whatsoever. That’s right. Nil pounds, zero pence. For months.

Sure, sneaky bosses dangle the idea that it ‘might lead to something in the future’ but will it really – and if so, when? Many employers know full-well how vulnerable graduates are to these tactics. I’ve seen these placements go on and on with – guess what? – no job at the end of them because – oh, look at that – there’s ’simply no budget’.

So eventually that graduate leaves – and another appears to fill their shoes. Doesn’t Ellen think that taking advantage of young people like this is pretty disgusting? Because I do.

Unpaid work experience is a clear indicator that something is very wrong with the current transition between education and work – that’s the real issue here and one that Ellen fails to consider. A system that expects young people who are already in 15-20k of debt to work for free for a year cannot be right.

The employers say you’re not ‘work ready’ when you come out of uni. The universities say their responsibility is to educate you, not to prepare you for work. Their positions leave a gap between uni and your first paid job – which at the moment you, the graduates, are plugging by working for free.  At a time when job market has never been tougher – and graduates have never been poorer.

‘Spoiled’ and ’self-pitying’?

‘Penniless’ and ‘rightfully fuming,’ more like.

Dude looks forward to the day when the bitter battle over unpaid work experience moves on from this nasty, inter-generational squabbling – to become a constructive debate. If we’re ever going to sort out this situation, we need to tackle its root cause.

***

If you’re doing work experience, Dude’s advice has always been clear:

1) Don’t whinge. Understand that there are no guarantees – and than in competitive industries like media it is not your human right to be given a job, no matter how many internships you complete. If you choose to pursue a career in these industries, the risk is yours and yours alone.

2) If you do decide to do work experience, make sure it works for you. The most valuable placements are those that give you some responsibility / interesting jobs to do – and are for a well-respected company. If none of these boxes are ticked, your time could well be spent doing something more productive.

Worrying rise in brainpower-boosting drugs in UK universities, expert reports

Disturbing rumours are buzzing around that students are now so anxious about their future they’re using drugs designed to treat  ADHD and Alzheimer’s disease to give them the edge at exam time.

The latest reports suggests a quarter of students are reportedly using ’smart drugs’ in American universities – and anecdotal evidence suggests pre-exam pill-popping is on the rise in the UK too.

Expert Vince Cakic, from the department of Psychology at Sydney University – writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics – blames the growing pressure on students to achieve stellar grades if they’re going to have any chance on the increasingly competitive jobs market.

Our education institutions are turning into hot-houses, he says -

“High school and university are the primary competitive spheres of many people’s lives, and ones that have significant bearing upon their lives, in terms of both career opportunities and future earning capacity.

“The pressure to succeed academically is very real, and in a climate in which high-stakes public examinations have increased demand for private tuition, it is likely that all avenues for performance enhancement will be exhausted.”

Academic institutions should be very worried indeed, Cakic warns. Randomised trials would be problematic as these drugs are legal. Worse still, although the current drugs only boost brain power by a small amount, the next generation of these pills are likely to be far more powerful – and attractive to students.

“It appears likely that more effective compounds will be developed in the future”, he says. These will significantly “enhance memory, alertness, attention, motivation, executive function, creativity or the need for sleep,” making them tempting to stressed-out, last-minute crammers the world over…

What do you think – are high-flying students using these pills to get the best marks possible, to further their careers? Or will they appeal more to slacker students who haven’t bothered to go to lectures? Is it cheating – and if so, what’s the solution?

For more on this story, click here

PAID-FOR PLACEMENTS TAKE BRITAIN BACK 30 YEARS, WARNS EXPERT

A professor at the London School of Journalism has blasted the practice of paying for work placements, saying a financial trade in career opportunities is ‘unethical’ and gives poorer graduates no chance.

The comments of Lis Howell – deputy head of journalism at City University – follow the disturbing rise in work experience placements that are not only unpaid, but for which the ‘workee’ is expected to stump up a fee. The practice is seen by many as a gross extreme of the creeping ‘work-for-nothing’ culture that is already slashing poorer graduates’ chances of competing for jobs on a level playing field.

Monday’s Times2 reported a rise in what Dude would describe as the work experience ‘black market’, where middle-class parents are forking out thousands of pounds on paid-for ‘internships’, to give their children the chance to stand out in a jobs market where a degree is no longer seen as enough.

At a Tory party fundraising event last week, an auction saw a placement at Ecosse Films ’sell’ for £3,000 – and a slot at the magazine house Conde Nast went for £3,700. Granted, the cash from these bids didn’t go directly to the companies offering the placements. However, these golden career opportunities were still being bought by those with money – and not offered to those without.

Howell said:

“We organise placements for students with companies and it’s usually a win-win situation. The idea that the students have to pay to do it is unethical.”

If it continues, Howell fears it will lead to the sort of discrimination that hasn’t been seen for decades.

“It’s going back 30 years to the time when you could be a lawyer only if you could afford to be indentured. It’s a very retrograde step.”

Dude agrees – a black market for work experience is a grubby thing indeed. How on earth did we get here?

* Missed the Times2 feature? Read it here

ANOTHER OUTRAGED CAREERS ADVISER INSISTS HIS PROFESSION IS ’VERY, VERY INNOVATIVE’

DO YOU AGREE?

Ooh, this is fun. Dude has received an email from another hopping mad university careers adviser (Regular readers will know that this is becoming a habit).

Amazingly - like my previous correspondent – he seems genuinely puzzled by what on earth might lead me to do something as mean and nasty as suggest that university careers advisers could be doing a better job to inspire, engage, inform and guide students and graduates when you’re trying to make decisions about your future – and find work during a recession.

He’s keen to get into a debate with me about this matter – but to be honest I’m not keen. Because I think what you think about this is far more important.

Here’s his letter - just comment directly below if you’d like to tell him why your careers centre didn’t work for you.

- As an undergraduate, how effective was your careers centre at inspiring and engaging you?

- If you went in not knowing what career you wanted, what was their response – and was it helpful?

- What sort of help is available now you’ve graduated?

- Do you think universities should be made to re-think the way they approach careers advice?

- Now you’re paying them thousands of pounds for your degree, do they have a responsibility to help you make decisions about what to do with it?

Remember, this is your opportunity to have your say – so don’t hold back ; )

Hi Tanya,

I have read with interest your comments about Careers Advisers and careers advice being out of date?

Most Careers Advisers and Careers Services in HE are very, very innovative – indeed our service has jusr won a national award.

I would welcome some debate with you about your comments and I’d like to ask exactly what evidence you have to support your comments?

Kind regards, Simon

BABY BOOMERS GRABBED THE GOODIES – LEAVING THEIR KIDS FACING A BLEAK FUTURE

An article in this weekend’s Observer magazine claims the so-called ‘lost generation’ of graduates have been royally shafted – by your own parents.

In the six-page feature, 27-year-old journalist Andrew Hankinson claims ‘intergenerational unfairness’ will blight the entire lives of people his age and younger.

“Our parents had free education, fat pensions, early retirement and second homes,” he says.

“We’ve been left with student debt and a property ladder with rotten rungs.

“And the only choice is crap job – or no job. Thanks very much.”

As typically follow articles on this subject, the responses to Andrew’s feature fall into two categories. Fellow graduates who agree with him – and older correspondents sneering at him for having unrealistic expectations about the lifestyle his qualification would (or should) ‘buy’ him.

Dude is in neither camp. Yes, Andrew’s expectations are unrealistic -but who put them there? Shouldn’t his school accept some blame for failing to point out the truth before he signed up for his degree? (He was, after all, only 17 – not old enough to vote – when he made the decision to go to university – and in turn, take on enormous debt).

And shouldn’t the universities take responsibility too, for leading students to believe their education is guaranteed to give them a significant ‘leg-up’ on the career ladder – when in many industries that simply isn’t true? When students are paying for their time in Higher Education, they deserve to understand what their completed degree is likely to ‘get’ them – and what it won’t.

Unfortunately, Andrew persistently undermines his (otherwise strong) case by coming across as snooty and entitled – and his lack of respect for hard-working non-graduates borders on offensive.

Happily, although the emails I receive from Dude readers share Andrew’s frustration, they do not share his ‘victim’ mentality.

Yes, you’re disappointed, frustrated and yes, angry.

But you’ve twigged that that locking yourself into this defeatest mindset won’t help you get a job. In fact, it will stop you getting a job.

Instead, you tell me you’re done with wallowing – instead, you’d prefer to crack on and find out how to boost your chances of getting your career started. You understand that the first step is taking responsibility for your own future – not blaming others for how hard everything seems.

Which is why my money is on you getting a job long before Andrew does.

Perhaps I should send him a copy.

Do you agree with Andrew? Read the full story here

UNDERDOGS VICTORIOUS AS DUDE TELLS NEWSPAPER: “OLD CAREER ADVICE FAILS GRADUATE JOB-SEEKERS”

Could a fresh batch of hate mail from crusty careers advisers be winging its way to Dude HQ?

It looks likely – but I’m happy to take one for the team*, because it looks like we’re finally getting somewhere with the battle for decent graduate career advice.

Last week, following ‘that’ comment I made in Stella about careers advisers being ‘out of touch‘ (something you lot tell me, again and again!), I had a call from hawk-eyed Scotsman journalist asking me to expand on my controversial (!) viewpoint on this issue.

So I said, “Simple – I’m only repeating what my readers are telling me.”

And that’s pretty much what she published!

Read the full, fabulous story here

(*and publish it on this blog)

“Backlog” from Class of 2009 to pinch a quarter of 2010’s graduate vacancies, warns expert

Sharpen your elbows – new figures say the stage is set for an almighty bun fight over graduate jobs this summer.

Students applying for graduate jobs in September 2010 will find that a quarter of vacancies have been filled by 2009’s graduates, according to a survey of employers.

“There is a big backlog to catch up,” warned bad-news-bear Martin Birchall, boss of High Flyers, which carried out the research.

The 310,000 students who finish their degrees this summer will be hit by a triple whammy, he explained. The combined effects of 1) cuts in recruitment in the last two years, 2) a significant increase in applications and 3) the fact that 25% of positions have already been taken by the previous year’s graduates look set to result in an deeply uncomfortable summer for many.

“We are not out of the woods yet,” Martin went on to admit. “It’s going to take another two years before things return to the level of 2006-7.”

“Competition for the remaining vacancies is therefore likely to be extremely tough and there is widespread concern on campus. For those who have yet to begin job hunting, the chances of landing a place on a graduate programme in 2010 are looking increasingly slim.”

While this news isn’t great, Dude would like to remind readers that graduate schemes are far from being your only option.

And although I report these numbers in blog posts like this – because I think you should know about them – I’d also advise against obsessing over them too much.

Why?

Because freaking out won’t increase your chances of getting a job.

Clarifying your goals, staying motivated and running a super-smart job-search will.

So my advice is to keep calm and carry on.

1) Take charge of your job hunt – remember, finding work is your responsibility and yours alone. No one is going to do it for you. If you feel your confidence seeping away, have a word with yourself. Do you really want to be living at home with your parents for the rest of your life? Thought not – so get cracking!

2) Out-fox your rivals by seeking unadvertised vacancies and creating opportunities for yourself by bagging experience and building your network of contacts. I can’t stress enough how worthwhile this is. Find ‘hidden’ vacancies this way and the competition thins out.

3) Monitor the effectiveness of the job hunt strategies you’re using. If one isn’t working, stop doing it and try something else. Do more of what works. Don’t be afraid to ditch strategies that aren’t working – most likely, your time and energy would be better spent using a different tactic.

4) Remember that your chosen industry is not static – it’s constantly changing. This is particularly necessary for graduates seeking careers in a creative industry – like TV, journalism, music or book publishing – or any other industry that’s seriously struggling right now, whether that’s thanks to the recession, the impact of digital technology or the threat of a change of government (remember, public sector jobs are not ’safe’ anymore). Spend time researching the reality of working in they industry you’ve set your heart on, before insisting it’s your ‘dream’ and heading off with unrealistic expectations about being able to sustain a 40-year career in these industries. These industries are undergoing seismic changes right now. So become a trendspotter. Looking for where the opportunities are going to be in the future can be a better plan than chasing the opportunities there once were in these industries.

5) Keep an eye on your motivation and productivity. Develop a job-hunting routine that works for you by learning to be self-aware about your habits. Find it hard to get going in the mornings? Try going for a run before you switch on your computer.

6) If you’re tempted to ‘dodge’ the recession by doing an MA, FOR GOD’S SAKE MAKE SURE IT’S A GOOD INVESTMENT. Remember, further study won’t necessarily boost your chances of finding work, or getting a higher paid job – whatever the person selling the course tells you. Don’t be suckered by a fancy prospectus – check it out with employers before you sign up. Do employers really value the qualification you’re about to get even deeper into debt for? If you’re tempted to go travelling for similar reasons, by all means go if you can afford it – just remember that there are no guarantees that the job market will be any more buoyant when you get back.

7) Whatever you do, do something – even if it’s just voluntary work. If you’re job hunting at home, having a reason to leave the house is a good thing – and being able to put something on your CV for this period looks better than having a big gap.

Read more about the latest figures on the graduate jobs bunfight here.

I STIR UP A HORNET’S NEST- BY STATING THE BLEEDING OBVIOUS

It seems that Dude is doing something right – my comments in last weekend’s Stella magazine (Sunday Telegraph) have ruffled a few feathers in the sleepy world of careers advice.

This morning, this (no-so) charming email – from an unidentified correspondent, who I assume is a careers professional – arrived in my inbox…

“Thought your comments on careers advisers being out of touch [were] interesting and wonder how much you really know about what a careers adviser actually does.”

It continues…

“Any good careers adviser worth their salt will spend time visiting employers, training providers, higher education institutions and using the internet to keep up to date with trends and entry requirements.  The availablity [sic] of excellent careers databases means that information is readily available and there is no excuse for any adviser to be “out of touch”.

“Perhaps you should check your facts before making such sweeping misinformed generalisations.”

Okay… It seems not everyone is a fan of my work.

; )

So, does my poison-pen pal have a point? Were my comments wide of the mark?

Decide for yourself.

For those who didn’t see the article, my first tip (of eight) was:

“Know yourself. Choosing a career is daunting at any age. Don’t seek advice from careers advisers – they are often out of touch.

“Go and do voluntary work and placements, soak it up and see what works for you. This builds your confidence and social skills.

“You should have and idea about your personality, what you’re good at and what you’re passionate about. Start with yourself and work outwards from there; don’t try to pin yourself to a career on a list.”

What do you think – good advice? Bad advice?

Okay, so I could have been a bit more polite. After all, careers advisers are generally well-meaning bods who are trying to help.

And there are pockets of them who are doing a good job.

(As Dude’s readers will know, when writing the book I worked with the fabulous team at  The Careers Group – part of the University of London – who were super-helpful and switched-on).

But, by and large, do I think careers advisers could be doing a better job?

Absolutely.

And I stand by that.

Why? Because this is what YOU tell me.

Since writing Dude, I have received hundreds of emails from readers saying how helpful you’ve found my book – and how unhelpful you’ve found the advice you were given by your university careers advisers.

Your top four complaints are these:

1. You say that careers advisers can’t help you unless you go to them already having chosen your career (and no, those computer quizzes don’t help, you say). So instead, many of you spend months at home scratching your heads hoping it will “come to you” – or you go travelling, hoping to be “inspired”. Or – worse still – you get yourself even deeper into debt by doing an expensive MA, assuming it will boost your chances of whatever career you decide on eventually. (Often, sadly, it won’t).

2. You say that a very narrow selection of employers are presented to you – seriously skewing your ideas of what options are out there for you. You tell me that these must be the only employers hiring, because they’re the only ones on your radar. (You’re mistaken, but I can see why you’ve been given this impression).

3. You say that in general, the way careers advice is presented fails to engage or inspire you – or prompt you to take charge of your future. This triggers ‘ostrich syndrome’, where you leave it until after graduation to give your future any serious thought.

4. You say that you leave university completely unprepared for the reality of how tough job-hunting is going to be. You say that at no point are you warned that you might have to work unpaid or how much competition there will be when applying for graduate jobs during a recession.

As far as I’m concerned, all the complaints you raise are entirely legitimate.

If my careers adviser correspondent is surprised by them, s/he certainly shouldn’t be.

Hundreds of thousands of you feel this way.

Don’t these people do customer feedback?

As any businessperson will tell you, any service provider’s key concern should be understanding their customers’ needs.

Which is why my mystery correspondent listing the typical matters that keep a careers adviser busy during their day is not relevant.

The only thing that’s relevant is how useful YOU lot feel the end result is.

If you say the current model isn’t helpful to you, then that’s enough to seriously worry me. And it should worry careers advisers too.

If the people the service is supposed to be for say that it isn’t working – then it isn’t working.

In my opinion, the first thing the careers world needs to do is admit that they could be doing a better job.

Instead, their response to this mere suggestion – as demonstrated by this morning’s email – is always one of outrage, that I have dared to suggest they need to get their act together and innovate, sharpish.

With 300,000 students set to graduate in July 2010 – and tens of thousands of you still struggling to find decent jobs after graduating in 2009 and 2008 – I think the role of careers advisers has never been more important.

They need to be getting this right – but they aren’t getting it right.

Pretending there isn’t a problem is complete madness.

Careers advice is a crucial piece of the graduate unemployment puzzle – and I’m amazed at how it’s been completely ignored as headlines have continued to bring us weekly updates of the dire situation in which today’s job-seeking graduates find themselves.

Which is why I’m going to continue to speak up on this topic.

Most university careers advisers are out of touch.

(There, I said it again!)

But let’s look forward, shall we?

When the careers world finally accepts this is true (manage your expectations, people – from that email it looks unlikely to happen any time soon) – what should they do next?

Here are a few ideas I think would be a good start:

1. Re-package the whole idea of ‘careers’ and present it in a way that appeals to the age group and mindset that the bulk of their audience is in. Yes, there are mature students – and yes, some people know exactly what they want to do. But the bulk of their customers – and the people who need advice the most – are 19-22 years olds, who don’t yet know what career path you want to take. (Er, that’s why you’ve come – for advice, see?).

2. Stop pushing students / graduates to ‘choose your career’ if you don’t yet know what sort of path might be right for you. The message that many successful people never make this decision – instead of planning their career, they navigate their path as they go along – is not reaching you, and it needs to. Besides, jobs for life are over – and the world is spinning ever faster (more on this in a minute). So why are careers advisers so obsessed with coaxing you to make a decision, right now, to tie up the next 40 years of your life? Who says the career you choose now will even be there in 40 years’ time?

3. Involve a wide range of companies in careers events – not just the big accountancy, banking and management consultancy firms who have the cash to pay for expensive stands at recruitment fairs and cheap booze at employer presentations. Where are the SMEs (small to medium sized businesses)? Where are the inspirational entrepreneurs who are passionate about their work? (They do exist, I promise). Get them in!

And last – and I think this one is crucial –

4. Include discussion about the way that the world of work is constantly changing – and will continue to do this at a rapid rate – and how this will affect people’s chances of finding work in their chosen industry. I’ve lost count of the number of emails I’ve had from graduates saying “I’m finding it impossible to get into journalism / music / book publishing / TV – what am I doing wrong?” Of course, they aren’t doing anything ‘wrong’, it’s just that they’ve chosen an industry that is right in the middle of undergoing the greatest challenges it’s ever known – in the form of the digital revolution (and the recession hasn’t helped). If we have a new government later this year, public spending will be cut, which won’t just affect careers in the public sector, but also private companies that work with the public sector. My point is, graduates need to see their job hunt in the context of the wider world, to be trained to spot where the brightest futures are (and aren’t).

Is there any good news?

Yes, actually. I honestly believe that there’s a new breed of young, switched-on careers advisers out there who agree with me – and know that their industry needs to change.

At present, they are constrained by their old-fashioned bosses, who insist on continuing with the old model, “Because this is the way we’ve always done it.”

Within several institutions, I have personally witnessed this culture of fear. It’s a fear of challenging the old ways (that don’t work) and innovating to find new ones (that just might work).

To conclude (sorry, you know what I’m like when I get going)…

If we agree that the world of work has changed, then the advice we give to those entering it needs to change too.

Careers advisers have a crucial role to play in helping graduates at this notoriously tricky stage in their lives. Throw in the typical levels of graduate debt and the fact that leaving education to join the world of work requires a seismic shift in mindset and careers advisers have a big challenge ahead.

So perhaps, rather than sending me ranty emails, they would be better off spending their time asking themselves some tough questions about how they’re going to tackle this new challenge they’re facing?

CULT CAREERS BOOK FEATURES IN ‘STELLA’ MAGAZINE

Well, Dude is having a thoroughly lovely Sunday - enjoying a cup of coffee and a croissant and basking in the glory of starring in today’s Stella magazine (the style section of the Sunday Telegraph).

What am I doing in a fashion magazine? You might well ask.

(I like to think I know how to dress - but most of my tops are by TopShop, not Chloe).

Answer: I was invited to give an interview as part of their Special Teen Issue (10 January 2010).

I kid ye not. Flick to p49 of the magazine’s glossy pages, where my wisdom (!) appears under the heading ‘How to get a foot on the career ladder.’

I’m thrilled with the piece (not least because they mention this fabulous blog) and would like to thank the lovely ladies at Stella for having the nous to pick me over some of the more yawnsome / crusty careers authors out there. God knows, they had plenty to choose from.

; )

Whispers also reach Dude that one of Stella’s hawk-eyed editors has already snaffled their publicity copy of the book - to give to her daughter, currently struggling with her career choices. We hope she gets as much from it as Dude’s other thousands of readers have.

Welcome to Dude’s Army!

Thousands of bosses don’t know the difference, shock new survey reveals

Astounding but true – new figures show that almost a third of the UK’s small to medium sized businesses (SMEs*) don’t know the difference between basic qualifications attained through the country’s education system.

Graduates seeking work will be dismayed to learn that the latest Centre for Enterprise survey revealed that:

29% of company bosses thought A-levels were graduate level qualifications

and

18% thought GCSEs were equivalent to a degree.

No joke.

In fairness, Dude understands that the people running small businesses have a couple of other things to worry about right now (like keeping their business afloat during these tough times – which is fair enough).

But really people, surely this is pretty basic stuff, no?

And the news that the qualifications bright young things spend years (not to mention thousands of pounds) toiling for are not even understood by such a big slice of recruiters is certainly dispiriting.

Unfortunately, the Bad News Fairy – sorry, Centre for Enterprise – had some even more dismal statistics to dish out.

Of the 502 cash-strapped SMEs quizzed, 9 in 10 (88%) admitted they were not planning to hire graduates during the recession, 32% said nothing would make them hire a graduate in the next year, 48% had no vacancies at any level, 39% said they did not need graduate level skills in their business… (“STOP STOP, WE CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE!” you cry…)

Okay, I’m stopping with the bad news.

So was there any good news?

Actually yes – in this pile of reeking manure there was one twinkly gem…

Almost half (48%) said they would consider hiring a graduate if the government offered them a subsidy to do so.

Ooh.

Interesting.

Yes, it seems that when it comes to struggling small firms and their worried bosses, money talks.

Now, Dude is no economics whizz.

But might some sort of scheme along these lines be a better plan than the string of lame – sorry, disappointing - government initiatives that graduates that have so far been treated to by their out-of-touch government? (Yes, we’re talking to you, Graduate Talent Pool and Parent Motivators Guide. Tsk – Dude sometimes wonders what you people were on…)

Okay, yes, offering financial sweeteners for hiring graduates would be pricey in the short-term – but surely that would be preferable to dishing out the dole to a whole generation of super-bright, qualified graduates who are eager to get stuck into the world of work?

*SMEs are defined as having between 2 and 249 employees. They may be small, but together they pack a punch, accounting for 99% of all companies in the UK and three-fifths of private sector employment.

Read the full story in the Guardian here