Publications

This paper presents an audit of graduate recruitment websites that was jointly funded by IES Research Networks and the Council for Industry and Higher Education. Two students, one undergraduate and one postgraduate, conducted the audit to inform the research from graduates' perspectives. The Times Top 100 Graduates Employers polls UK students about who their ideal graduate employers are, then collates and showcases the results in a 'top' 100 ranking of graduate employers by their popularity among students. The web audit used this ranking to explore in more depth the qualities and characteristics of these organisations.

Managing careers in large organisations looks at the changing context of career development, processes for managing careers and career development roles and organisational capability.

The purpose of this document is to try to bring together the existing literature on secondments, so that the process can be accurately defined, its usage assessed, and lessons learnt. What is clear is that the subject is, so far, largely ignored by the academic research community and so the information available is drawn primarily from case study examples.

Despite the relative lack of empirical work about survivor syndrome, there seems little doubt of its existence, and the challenges it poses not only to the HR function, but also the organisation as a whole. Strategies for tackling such an issue are highly organisation-specific, but there are several overriding themes and considerations that may help inform approaches to current, and future, organisational change.

This research examines how employers' graduate strategies are changing in the light of recent business, labour market and other changes. It identifies three main drivers of a good strategy: clarity of strategic intention for recruiting graduates; appropriate internal organisational arrangements, in particular the degree to which there needs to be corporate involvement; and providing varying amounts of planned, structured development to meet different business and graduate needs.

Retention levels of new-graduate staff can vary amongst employers according to a number of factors. These include company size, industrial sector and the type of role on offer. Employers also vary in their level of commitment to monitoring retention, and in the range of methods used to retain graduates fresh out of university.

This report summarises research undertaken in a consortium of major UK employers into employees' experience of effective career discussions at work. The research shows the importance of informal discussions about career issues and gives detailed analyses of the skills needed by those giving and receiving such support.

This report gives an account of how succession planning is conducted and where it fits with other HR processes and business priorities.

Many major UK employers moved during the 1990s to more open internal job markets. These give the job of filling internal vacancies to the line manager (who 'owns' the vacancy) and employees who will see the job advertised and apply for it. This report looks at how this change has been working in practice in both private and public sectors, examines the dilemmas and offers a model of how to balance key tensions.

There is a growing recognition of the need to enhance graduates' employability for them to find suitable jobs in an increasingly diverse and competitive labour market. The 'employability' debate has centred on the adequacy of the skills graduates develop during their courses. There is growing consensus that it is no longer sufficient for graduates to possess traditional academic and subject specific skills. Nowadays graduates need to develop a range of interpersonal and transferable skills to be able to adapt to changing market circumstances and organisational needs.