Are Small Companies More Likely to Hire Recent Grads?

http://www.michaelpage.com.sg

If you’re recently out of college and have limited work experience but a whole lot of passion, where should you focus your job search — small, medium or large companies? Probably the first, best answer is anyone who is hiring. In this job market, no one can afford to turn their nose up at a possible opening. Still, no one, no matter how dedicated a job searcher, has unlimited time, so everyone has to make decisions about how to prioritize possible tasks. Fill in a lengthy online application for a large corporation or call up some smaller companies you’d like to work for and ask about openings? Work your social media network or attend a job fair?

When it comes to questions like this, Stuart Schultz writing on website Gradspot has one strong opinion: for grads, focusing on smaller businesses may pay dividends. Schultz points out small and medium-sized businesses (a category he leaves undefined) “account for 95 percent of businesses in the US,” and “tend to be less bureaucratic about hiring.” His contention: these businesses are more likely to be open to the a passionate pitch from a grad and the hiring manager is more likely to actually hear that pitch as there are fewer layers separating the candidate and the manager. If you accept the premise that successful smaller businesses are better for grads, Schultz has a resource to suggest:

The difficulty is in actually finding these successful, private, small companies. Lucky for you, magazine just published their 2009 Inc. 500, a list of the 5,000 (yes, even though it was started as the 500 it now lists 5000) fastest growing small businesses in America. That looks like 5,000 job opportunities to me.

The question of whether Schultz is on to something remains open, but in my experience, as soon as I see a humongous, bureaucratic online application form, I can pretty much guarantee that the company will be a resume black hole for me. This sort of process may work for candidates with shiny new Ivy league qualifications and name-brand internships who tick all the HR boxes and set off software alarm bells, but they seem to rarely have the flexibility to appreciate the quirkier resume. Have you noticed any differences in the willingness of companies of different sizes to take a risk on recent grads?