Offering local job advice to graduates is one effective way to retain them and encourage local growth, a recent research reveals. Extending a golden handcuff’ to them to stay back and work locally will serve as an impetus to the local economy, according to the RSA think-tank’s report.
Analysing the prominent role that can be played by higher education in pushing up growth, the study says that the onus is on universities that get public money to provide necessary support to promote local development. It is unfortunate that only a small percentage of graduates preferred to remain and work themselves in the cities from where they did their degrees, says Jim O’Neill, chairman of the Royal Society of Arts City Growth Commission, in his foreword to “Universities: The Knowledge to Power UK Metros.” A majority of graduates either vanished from the scene “back overseas or down to London to employ the fruits of their enhanced minds elsewhere”, he opines.
He noted that it will be wise to consider introducing a fresh set of initiatives to offer essential support to graduates and ensure that they stay in the metros from where they obtained their degrees. At the same time, employers must also get extra help to gather resources, thereby enabling them to declare, and support, golden handcuff initiatives across many industries and sectors.
Taking up new concepts such as running “Refreshers Weeks” with universities striving to encourage students to stay in their cities after graduation, can yield great results.
Introducing a “graduate clearing system”, accepting discarded graduate recruitment resumes and passing them to local companies where there are job opportunities, can be a winning idea. Reinforcing global competitiveness of universities through their metro share can also work wonders, according to Jonathan Schifferes, report co-author and RSA senior researcher.
There are many advantages for both job seekers and the local economies for as much as possible being done to make such choices attractive to new graduates.
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