Graduate scheme application filtering process could change as 'new' universities come of age

A recent report by the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) could change the way applications for graduate training schemes are handled by recruiters, which could be good news for graduates. Traditionally, many recruiters have restricted their training scheme intake to graduates from Russel Group universities, leaving job seekers from other institutions to look elsewhere for vacancies.

The new research suggests that top students are now basing their university choices on the reputation of specific courses, rather than the university 'brand'. HECSU researchers, based at the University of Warwick, have created a new UCAS entry tariff based ranking system, ordering universities by their difficulty of entry. The new rankings aim to give a much better reflection of which institutions attract the best students.

The report encourages recruiters to change their recruitment processes to better reflect the changing landscape of higher education. Commenting on the outcome of the study, Jane Artress, director of research at HECSU says: "This strongly opposes current views by many employers that they can only find exceptional candidates from the Russell Group. This simply isn't the case - the net should be cast much wider."