Alistair Leathwood, managing director, FreshMinds Talent

At FreshMinds Talent, we speak to scores of graduates every week. And the same question comes up again and again – how will the credit crunch affect my chances of getting a job?

Of course, the answer isn’t all that straightforward.

Most graduates needn’t be worried - there are still a lot of jobs out there and, in fact, our graduate recruitment team is busier than ever before. However, nine times out of ten when graduates ask “can I still get a job”, what they really mean is “can I still get the job I want?”

Economic climate

Now that’s a very different question, and one that should concern some employers. The issue is that while graduates are worried about how the economic climate will impact on their job hunt, they aren’t prepared to translate that worry into lower expectations. Many would rather be unemployed than in a job that doesn’t engage or adequately reward them.

Much more than their predecessors, today’s graduates place an extraordinarily high stake in their job and the companies they work for. According to some extensive research we FreshMinds did at the beginning of the year, 38 percent of people in their twenties define themselves by their success at work, and 41 percent believe the company they work for say something about them as an individual. Both figures are far higher than for older generations, and are tied up with some of the typical frustrations university leavers can feel in the workplace. For example, after years of encouragement from the government for students to go into higher education, 42 percent now believe they are overqualified for their current role.

What does this mean for employers?

Well in theory, after years of companies battling for the best graduates, now that things are becoming tighter across the economy it should be a sellers market. But don’t expect the graduates themselves to see it that way.

Ones to Watch

Every year we run a peer nominated awards scheme called Ones to Watch at the UK’s top universities. It aims to pinpoint the shooting stars of tomorrow while their still undergraduates. Back when we selected our 200 Ones to Watch in March, 78% wanted to work in the financial services sector. And interestingly, those expectations and desires don’t seem to have shifted much over the course of the last six months, during which time we’ve seen the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and the take-over of Merrill Lynch (all companies that our Ones to Watch specifically named as aspirational employers).

Graduate recruits

So organisations if you wanting to recruit the best graduate talent, you are going to have to try just as hard as 18 months ago. That means appealing to graduates’ hunger for quick career progression, more money and responsibility at work – even when times are hard. The good news is that there’s actually no better time to do it.

Setting visible hurdles

If cost cutting has to happen, the price of one reasonably high powered executive’s salary will easily cover a handful of new graduate recruits. The key then is being open about exactly what those graduates have to do if they want to get that high powered executive’s old job a few years down the line. Set clearly visible hurdles they have to leap over to earn promotion and progress their career. The better they can envision their future at the company, the less likely they are to disappear when the big investment banks open their doors to new starters once again.

Rewards package

Most importantly of all, getting your rewards package right can make or break a successful recruitment campaign. It can seem counterintuitive during an economic slowdown, but our research and personal experiences at FreshMinds Talent tell us that while graduates value benefits like free gym membership or contributory pension schemes, there is no substitute for earning more money. Indeed, a lot of graduates’ feelings of being overqualified or undervalued stem from them really just thinking they deserve a bigger salary. And in the long run, misjudging that balance and underpaying your graduate employees will simply increase churn and undermine their value as the potential future leaders of your business.

So really, the best way to make the most of your graduate recruitment during the credit crunch is to act as if the credit crunch isn’t happening at all. Because, frankly, there is every chance that’s exactly what the graduates themselves will be doing.