Small Businesses and Graduate Recruitment in Australia and the United Kingdom
Clive Potts, Alireza Nazarian

Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate graduate recruitment by small businesses from a small business perspective. With the growth in the number of graduates, non-traditional sources of employment, in particular small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) have come to be viewed as a source of graduate employment. However, do graduates have the skills that small businesses are looking for? Design/methodology/approach–A qualitative approach was adopted to this small-scale study. Ten interviews, five in Australia, and five in the United Kingdom (UK) for comparison, were carried out with the owners or representatives of small businesses. These interviews were recorded, then transcribed onto Word documents, and then interfaced into the computer program NVivo where coding and analysis took place. Findings – The findings from the interviews indicated that in general the small businesses interviewed are not having difficulties recruiting graduates with the right skill sets (which were defined as self-reliance skills, general knowledge skills and technical skills). However, there were exceptions from both the UK and Australia, with also a possible question mark over the technical skills of graduates. Research limitations/implications – The paper reports on a small-scale qualitative study, therefore further study using a larger sample is suggested. Originality/value – This paper makes a contribution to the knowledge base by looking at graduate recruitment from the small business perspective.

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