A secure prospect for job-hunters

Symantec, best-known for its Norton anti-virus software, is launching its first graduate recruitment scheme in Europe and hopes to hire up to 25 graduates from the UK. The American IT security firm, which employs 17,500 staff globally, is set to visit a number of universities this autumn and is using Facebook to promote its graduate vacancies.

Linklaters prefers a good cause

Anyone visiting Linklaters, the law firm, at a graduate careers fair this autumn may find its stand unusually sparse. Instead of handing out branded pens, USB keys, stress balls, mousemats and the like, the firm has committed £18,000 from its recruitment budget to support a literacy festival for children in Hackney, East London. “Over the past couple of years, the so-called freebies that are given away at law fairs have become more and more elaborate,” Matthew Keats, Linklaters’ graduate recruitment partner, said. “After feedback from students, we decided to do something better with the money.”

Banking giants arrive on campus

After cutting their graduate hires by up to half in 2009, the City’s top investment banks are recruiting with a vengeance for their 2010 intake. In the past ten days, banks including Barclays Capital, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have hosted more than 30 on-campus recruitment presentations at Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Bristol, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Birmingham, Durham and London universities. Further events are planned.

Unemployment warning

As today’s figures illustrate, unemployment among the young in the UK remains at crisis point. David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, foresaw this. “Youth unemployment is a special problem,” he says in an analysis produced for the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Part of the problem is that the youth population is at an all-time high and there are 15 per cent more 23-year-olds in 2009 than there were ten years ago, he writes.

UB’s taste for graduates returns

United Biscuits (UB), maker of Hula Hoops, Jaffa Cakes, Penguin, Twiglets and McCoys crisps, has reinstated its graduate programme after a seven-year gap. “Nineteen graduates joined UB last month through our new corporate recruitment programme,” Tim Walker-Jones, talent and reward director at the company, said. “We’re recruiting graduates who will quickly become managers and then take on senior roles in the future.” UB expects to recruit a further 20 graduates for its 2010 programme, with vacancies in manufacturing, sales, marketing, procurement and HR.

www.ubgraduates.com

www.symantec.com/careers

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