Graduates, alongside small and medium sized businesses (SMEs), are forgetting the importance social media can play in expanding their careers, reports Fresh Business Thinking.
Research from IT managed services provider Iconnyx states that while one in five graduates pro-actively seek employment with an SME, just one in ten use social media platforms to do so.
The analysis was complied using data from a range of UK SMEs, recruiters, Twitter and Linkedin. It found that most graduates believed it was only the largest of organisations that could offer them the best chance of a job.
Only a quarter of respondents said they pro-actively sought out SME opportunities as opposed to larger businesses.
Iconnyx’s managing director Tim Walker is critical of universities for not alerting active students to the opportunities presented by social networks that are optimised for business use, like Linkedin.
Iconnyx’s study found that only 10 per cent of graduates had even heard of the fast-growing professional network – famous for connecting people via social media content – and only one in three were told about its existence by university staff.
“The issues for both ‘top talent’ graduates and growing SMEs alike are frustrating in that there is no obvious forum for the two to connect and ‘sell’ to each other,” he said on RealWire.com.
“It’s frustrating to see that high-growth companies typically lose out on the best of graduate talent for these reasons. Universities should invite SMEs and networks like LinkedIn into the student community far earlier,” Walker added.
