Prospects have improved for college graduates. Recently-published gradireland research shows that 65% of companies surveyed are hiring more graduates because of an increase in business. This is up from 44% last year.

Just under 7,500 students were surveyed as part of the gradireland research, and 17% of students said they planned to leave Ireland to get their first job. This is down from last year’s figure of 32%.

Below is just a flavour of graduate recruitment taking place in Ireland at the moment.

Smyths Toys

If becoming an adult and entering the real world doesn’t appeal to you, then why not consider buying toys for a living with Smyths Toys. Smyths says: “When we’re through with you you’ll be the best of the best – elite – the Yoda or Padme Amidala of retail!”

Smyths Toys has three graduate programmes, one in buying and merchandising, one in retail management and another in IT.

For the buying role candidates are based in head office in Galway, where they are exposed to several of Smyths’ business functions.

One placement is dedicated to the buying department, where candidates begin in buying admin, working their way up to eventually becoming a buyer who travels, buying toys and going to toy fairs.

Candidates on the retail management programme spend time learning on the ground in store. Candidates will be predominantly mirroring a store manager with the aim of becoming a retail store manager, running their own store.

For the IT programme, candidates spend some time in store to understand the systems. They spend six months on the helpdesk and they are allocated to a project team, which runs for 18 months.

Visit www.smythstoys.com/careers.

Aldi

Aldi is offering an area manager graduate programme with a starting salary of €61,000 (that’s not a misprint!) and a fully expensed Audi A4 “to get you to and from your stores”. The salary rises in stages to €95,750 after four years.

The minimum – and only – requirement is a 2.1 degree in any discipline and a full driver’s licence. Why is Aldi making such an amazing offer to people straight out of college? “We do offer a very, very competitive strategy,” an Aldi spokesperson tells Irish Country Living, “but that’s because we want the best-calibre candidates and we do want to reward them, because candidates are responsible for three to four stores.”

Aldi hasn’t put a cap on the number of graduates it will hire. “If we’re fortunate enough to get more excellent calibre candidates than what we were originally looking for, we’ll hire all of them.”

There are two key strands to the role of area manager: the candidates will have an auditor function as well as being a personnel leader to their store staff, and managing the store managers.

“It has to be somebody who enjoys a challenge, loves working with people, loves managing and leading people, someone who is methodical, pragmatic, disciplined, motivated, and very driven,” says an Aldi spokesperson, who also warns the hours are not correlated to a standard nine-to-five job. “Because we’re in retail, you’d work weekdays and weekends.”

There is no closing date for applications. Those who are interested can apply at any stage. Visit www.aldirecruitment.ie/graduate.

EY

EY (formerly known as Ernst & Young) is recruiting for 300 graduates across five distinct areas: assurance, advisory, tax, transactions and IT, and data and cyber. EY says the majority of graduate opportunities with them are in assurance and tax. While many of the graduates will be placed in the EY office in Dublin, a number will also be placed in Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Galway.

An EY spokesperson tells Irish Country Living they are interested in candidates with a range of academic backgrounds, including those with arts degrees and from engineering and technical backgrounds.

“All of those have the skills that can be applied to that kind of assurance area, but we also have opportunities in other areas. I think most people, when they think of EY and professional services, think: ‘I have to have good accounting and business’ – but that’s not the case at all. We’re looking for a variety of people who can bring a different way of thinking to the work we do with our clients,” said the spokesperson.

“We’ve about 2,000 people in Ireland and 50% of our people are under 30, so it’s a young, vibrant environment,” said EY’s spokesperson.

The Dublin office is located “in the centre of all the action just off Camden Street”. (Near Coppers, for those of you looking for a landmark!).

“The guys have really good fun, but they work hard. They get an amazing training, they get great time off to study.

“On the advisory side, there are other opportunities where they don’t have to do exams. The people who come in there would advise our clients on loads of different areas. It could be anything from biotech to government to financial services. Again, we look at people coming from all different areas. A new area for us is professional advisory service where we will advise organisations on HR issues, talent issues, organisational behaviour and more,” the spokesperson said.

Davy

Getting a place on stockbroking firm Davy’s two-year graduate programme is no mean feat.

A Davy spokesperson tells Irish Country Living the applicant will meet HR in their first-round interview and will pitch a stock to four members of senior management in their second-round interview. In their third-round interview they will meet more senior management, while the fourth-round will usually see them meet the CEO.

Graduates are rotated through four departments during their time on the programme and spend six months in each. These departments are: wealth and asset management, which is the biggest part of Davy’s business; another department is capital markets, which is stockbroking, sales and trading; then there is Davy research, which is analysing individual stocks on a daily basis, so it’s financial modelling; and then the final section is corporate finance, which is mergers and acquisitions – companies buying out other companies.

When candidates complete the two-year graduate programme they will go and work in the department in which they got on best.

Graduates who enter Davy tend to have business-related degrees, such as in economics and finance, or in commerce. A Davy spokesperson tells us the degree background is not really confined to these streams, however: “Once you show some sort of interest in the markets, it’s fine, as long as you have a 2.1.”

Last year, Davy took on eight graduates. Davy employs approximately 670 people across offices in Dublin, London, Cork, Galway and Belfast.

The deadline for applications is midnight on Sunday 23 October. Visit www.davy.ie/graduates.

Kingspan

Kingspan is a sustainable building products manufacturer, which was set up and founded in Ireland, has its group global headquarters in Kingscourt, Co Cavan, and employs 10,000 people nationwide.

Kingspan makes high-perfomance insulation – such as insulated panels and insulation boards. Kingspan has 90 sales and manufacturing facilities globally – with eight in north America for example, and another two coming on stream there this year.

A Kingspan spokesperson tells Irish Country Living the company isn’t looking for a specific number of graduates from particular disciplines, rather they will take on the best candidates they can get and develop jobs around the graduate’s core competencies and core skills.

Closing date for applications is Friday 20 January 2017. Visit www.kingspan.com/careers.aspx CL