The UK’s most widely used graduate recruitment website* – Milkround, today (Wednesday 18^th September 2013) publish the definitive guide to Britain’s most sought-after graduate employers for a third consecutive year.

The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers List is produced annually by High Fliers Research and the 2013 rankings have been compiled from face-to face interviews with 18,252 final year university students from the ‘Class of 2013’.  The new rankings provide an invaluable guide for student and graduate job hunters and celebrate the country’s most prestigious and successful graduate employers.  The 2013 rankings of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers are published as a hard-backed book and the rankings are also hosted on Milkround as well as being featured in the September edition of the Graduate Career supplement in The Times.

Milkround’s General Manager Jenni Joplin said: “We’re extremely excited to once again to be working with High Fliers Research – The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers List has become a key feature on Milkround over the past three years and remains an important resource to student and graduate job hunters.”

Martin Birchall, Managing Director of High Fliers Research and Editor of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers added: “This year marks the fifteenth edition of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers, celebrating Britain’s most prestigious and sought-after employers, and we’re delighted that Milkround is again helping to bring the new rankings to the widest possible audience of students and graduate job hunters.”

The September edition of the Graduate Career supplement which is published and distributed in The Times today (Wednesday 18^th September 2013) focuses on the launch of this year’s Top 100 rankings. High Fliers Research’s Managing Director Martin Birchall explores the risers, fallers and outstanding performers in this year’s rankings. Milkround’s Content Editor Abbie Baisden provides expert advice on how students and graduates can get noticed by top employers, and the supplement also features case studies from three graduates who are currently employed by Top 100 employers.

You can find the September 2013 edition of the Graduate Career supplement here.

Discover who made The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers List 2013 and view the new advertising package available in our onsite infographic.

To discuss out how you can advertise alongside the online listing please email sales@milkround.com or call 020 3003 4000 to speak to one of the Milkround team.

*High Fliers Research 2008 – 2013.

As announced in an article featured on The Guardian yesterday, the UK’s number one graduate recruitment website, Milkround, are banning the advertisement of all unpaid internships across their website.

Working alongside careers blog Graduate Fog, Milkround has united with other recruitment industry leaders including Monster, Total Jobs, Prospects, Target Jobs and Guardian Jobs, to stop the promotion of any roles that do not meet national UK minimum wage legislation.

The aim of the campaign is to support students in their struggle to find full-time employment after university, ensuring that they are being properly reimbursed for the use of their skills and expertise. The job boards involved are also backing the introduction of legislation that would make the promotion of unpaid internships illegal, as well as the roles themselves.

Jenni Joplin, General Manager of Milkround has provided a full statement on the decision to ban the ads, and has also commented:

“We are proud to be joining forces with our industry peers in banning the advertisement of unpaid internships. We always strive to support students and graduates in the pursuit of their future careers, and strongly feel that gaining real work experience with real pay should be the accepted norm. No student or graduate should feel excluded from an opportunity because they cannot afford to support themselves. Only advertising internships that meet at least the national minimum wage will level the playing field, offering equal opportunities to candidates from all backgrounds.”

Tanya de Grunwald, founder of Graduate Fog says:

“It is great news that the UK’s biggest job boards have listened and responded to pressure from young jobseekers. By banning adverts for illegal unpaid internships from their websites, they are effectively saying to exploitative employers ‘We don’t want your money’, shaming the shrinking number of organisations who think it’s okay to take young workers’ labour without paying them a wage for it.

“It is also encouraging to see that the majority of the big UK job boards – including Milkround – would back the introduction of legislation making it illegal to advertise unpaid internships. It shows that the industry is keen to do the right thing, and ensure that all legitimate job boards abide by the same rules so that they only promote high quality opportunities to their users.”

Dan Robertson, Diversity & Inclusion Director at the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion stated:

“There is a clear difference between work experience which is short term and longer term internships.  Many enei Members believe unpaid internships widen the growing gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged and as such, they offer ‘Earn and Learn’ Internships which recognise the need for young people to be able to pay their way in society.  The practice of asking young people, often with a mountain of debt following years of study, to work without pay is morally questionable.

By banning the advertisement of all unpaid internships across their website Milkround are sending a powerful message to UK businesses; it is a message that many enei Members wholly support”. 

Creating an effective job advert can often represent a daunting task. The usual questions run through your head: what should I include? How detailed should it be? How can I ensure I get the best response possible? Well Milkround are here to guide you through the minefield of job-ad writing with our five top tips…

1.      Request a job advert template from your account manager, especially if this is the first time you’re promoting a position. Remember that your account manager is there to advise you, providing direction and support to ensure that your advert gets the strongest response possible.

2.      Use a hook line to draw candidates in. Job hunters scan through page after page of job offers every day and it’s often easy for them to scroll straight past your advert. Using a catchy, one line title will help minimise the amount of potential candidates overlooking your post, and encourage them to click your link to read more…

3.      What to include? Be sure to include a job title, location details and where possible the salary. Be clear and honest about what experience and grades are required to ensure you only receive relevant applications.

Avoid using too many bullet points and keep your job and company descriptions short, snappy, clear and concise. Provide detail around the tasks they’ll be carrying out within the role, and exactly what is expected of the successful candidate so they can begin to picture exactly how they can fit in and contribute to the bigger picture.

4.      Remember, the job is your product and the candidate is your customer, so sell the job and your customers will come! Put yourself in the candidate’s shoes and consider what you would want to know if you were applying. 

Your job advert will carry your brand so make sure the brand personality is present throughout; consider your tone of voice and where possible avoid being too corporate.

The input of staff performing a similar role can be extremely helpful when writing the job and company descriptions as they have experienced the role first hand and can provide some insight into the company and team culture.

5.      Don’t just expect quality applications! Quality applications will come with a quality advert. Remember your adverts will appear alongside those of your competitors and could be the difference between hiring a good candidate or a great candidate!

Leading graduate recruiter, Milkround have teamed up with MyKindaCrowd in a pledge to continue to help students improve their confidence levels and employability skills.

MyKindaCrowd specialise in setting challenges to provide young people with the chance to get their talents noticed by top companies and to improve their employability. Combining this with Milkround’s expert knowledge, resources and contacts in the student and graduate arena, Milkround and MyKindaCrowd are, together, able to provide opportunities for young people to get noticed in an increasingly competitive jobs market.

The partnership allows both organisations to raise the awareness of their services to a wider audience, with MyKindaCrowd being brought to the attention of Milkround’s students and graduates, and Milkround being given the spotlight in front of the school leaver audience.

Alexandra Sydney, Head of Marketing at Milkround commented “We are extremely excited to announce our partnership with MyKindaCrowd. As a business MyKindaCrowd really support Milkround’s vision of providing career confidence, providing young people with opportunities to get noticed by companies and get rewarded for their ideas at the same time”.

William Akerman, Managing Director of MyKindaCrowd, noted “Our unique proposition of using corporate challenges as resources in the classroom delivers benefit to both educators and young people. Quite simply, MyKindaCrowd aim to level the playing field for young people in connecting them with the world-of-work. Our partnership with Milkround helps highlight career opportunities amongst our 2,500 school and college members.”

Alongside the announcement of this partnership Milkround and MyKindaCrowd are offering students the opportunity to win a place on a content writing master class held at Milkround HQ. Click here for further information.