Graduate Opportunities

In Graduate Careers Australia’s 2006 Graduate Outlook survey, employers were asked to record what they felt to be the least desirable characteristics in graduate applicants. The below characteristics were identified as the top 10 “least desirable” according to Australian employers.

1. Lack of interpersonal & communication skills, lack of leadership skills (40%)
2. Lack of drive, motivation, enthusiasm and initiative (25%)
3. Arrogance / selfishness / aggression / dominating (18%)
4. Poor teamwork skills (16%)
5. Poor or inappropriate academic qualifications or results (16%)
6. Inflexibility / inability to accept direction, challenges or change (12%)
7. Other (10%)
8. Poor attitude / lack of work ethic / approach to work (9%)
9. Lack of emotional intelligence, self-awareness or self-confidence (9%)
10. Lack of commitment / high absenteeism / lack of loyalty (9%)

Other interesting findings from the survey include:

• The top three key selection criteria used for recruiting graduates were:
  
  • Interpersonal and communication skills (57%)
  • Academic qualifications (35%)
  • Work experience (27%)
• When asked to rank their 2006 graduate applicants on a variety of characteristics, 92% of graduate recruiters ranked the academic results of their applicants as good or excellent, with 80% ranking the level of extracurricular activity as good or excellent. An applicant’s knowledge of an organisation was ranked as poor to fair by over 50% of graduate recruiters surveyed.