With a recently released report announcing that high numbers of students will be repaying their university debt well into their fifties and some never at all due to changes to the university loans and fees system, flexible recruitment experts at the Skills Hive have uncovered a major flaw in the system that students and employers alike can and should be aware of.
In a vastly competitive market, young people are now finding new and different routes into work after graduation, including volunteering, consulting and freelance project work. Whilst designed to hit higher income graduates the hardest, the new government model is based on outdated, linear recruitment methods where students graduate, interview and work their way up the corporate ladder within one company or industry. However, with the rise in those choosing to go into business now outstripping the growth in traditional employment at a rate of almost three to one, there are now 4.37million self-employed people in the UK - accounting for 14.5% of the total UK workforce. Therefore, clued-up graduates can simply freelance on a self employed basis whilst keeping their income below the newly increased threshold of £21,000 as they accumulate experience and navigate their own career path.
Skills Hive founder and advocate of innovative recruitment solutions, Mike Orchard explains: "Employers need to benefit from the best and most savvy talent out there and if graduates are showing a level of initiative that allows them to work with many, varied employers and benefit by exponentially expanding their skill sets, then forward thinking companies should reward that shrewdness and scoop them up.
Having a diverse set of talents combined with savvy lateral thinking can only be an asset to any organisation. We should be supporting young people in their innovative 21st century approach to employment, as flexible working is the future for employers big and small."
Skills Hive helps students test their talents on short term commercial projects to prove their value and build a network of employer contacts. At the same time the students help businesses stay agile and become more sustainable, responding to business opportunities without creating fixed cost employment overheads.
A recent study by the RSA, predicts that freelancers will outnumber state workers by 2018, which is supported by the fact that many companies are now turning to innovative project based recruitment solutions such as Skills Hive to find flexible workers as opposed to full time employees as businesses become more agile and responsive. With Skills Hive experiencing a 100% increase of employers cottoning on to the new trend of creative recruitment within the last twelve months alone, it seems that the enterprising climate and government legislation will increasingly support this trend.