Growth in demand for graduates shows no sign of falling off

Every autumn the graduate milk round begins again, and Irish, UK and multinational companies descend on third-level campuses and careers fairs around the country, eager to sign up the cream of the latest crop of final year and postgraduate students. The recent growth in demand for graduates showed no sign of abating this year, and the 2006 job market is already looking positive.

The accounting sector can be relied upon each year to take on a large number of commerce graduates, as well as a limited number of graduates from non-business backgrounds, and 2005 has been no exception.

Grant Thornton, one of the six largest accounting firms in Ireland, doubled the number of graduates hired this year due to the substantial growth that the firm is experiencing.

Increased numbers of trainees were required for all areas of the firm, from audit to specialist services such as business consulting and forensic services, and according to Marilyn Phillips, HR director at the company, it plans to maintain this level of recruitment in 2006.

Both KPMG and Ernst & Young, two of the "big four" firms, intend to increase their trainee intake in 2006, while BDO Simpson Xavier plans to take on the same number of graduates as in 2005.

Most accounting firms wrap up their graduate recruitment drive by Christmas, and their latest batch of recruits will be signing their three and a half year contracts soon. Other employers, such as Bank of Ireland, have a more drawn-out milk round process, which runs until spring.

Bank of Ireland generally hires 60 graduates each year onto six different programmes, but this will increase in 2005/2006 due to a requirement for extra trainees in its accounting programme.

Recruits joining the bank's graduate programmes generally go into growth areas of the business, so it is likely that its demand for graduates will remain strong in 2006/2007.

The decision of internet giants such as Yahoo!, eBay, PayPal, Amazon and Google to locate in Ireland has been fortuitous for graduates. Google, whose European headquarters are in Dublin, recently signalled another boost for the graduate job market, with the announcement of plans to create more than 600 high-level jobs here over the next two to three years. The search engine company will be recruiting across the business, from customer sales and operations to finance and human resources, and many posts will be aimed at multilingual graduates.

Seán Gannon, head of the careers advisory service in Trinity College Dublin, is optimistic that the 2006 market will be buoyant, and says that the huge success of the graduate recruitment fair held in the RDS in October, which attracted over 100 companies, is indicative of the strength of the market.

Gannon's optimism is echoed by Sheila Byrne, a work placement officer in UCC. Byrne has noticed an increase in the demand for graduates over the past two years, particularly those qualified in business disciplines and also in civil engineering, and anticipates that this growth will continue in 2006.

Both Gannon and Byrne have noticed a shift by employers towards careers fairs, which offer a ready audience of several thousand students, in preference to the traditional milk round approach of hiring a room on campus or in a hotel and inviting a target audience.

In fact, UCC has had to introduce a spring recruitment fair in addition to its existing autumn fair, in order to accommodate the growing number of employers wishing to attend, employers who Byrne says have given "very positive indications" in relation to their graduate recruitment needs in the coming year.