Find a graduate job: using recruitment intermediaries
Thinking about using intermediaries?
The best source of graduate vacancies and internships for Bath students is MyFuture. The featured employers want Bath graduates or postgraduates; there are about 800 employers advertising at peak times, and our database contains around 5,000. We do not charge to advertise, and of course our advertising is precisely targeted at Bath students, which is what most employers want. It’s hardly surprising that agencies can’t usually match that.
Where intermediaries are most useful
Intermediaries are, however, often useful for:
- finding temporary jobs
- getting into certain sectors where there is little open advertising, such as the media, computer games, pharmaceutical sales and clinical trials. Specialist agencies which have long established expertise and regular clients in a narrow field can be very helpful.
- more experienced candidates looking for senior roles, such as MBA graduates
- getting into SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), where the company has no HR department and no experience in graduate recruitment.
Points to consider
If you want to get into a mainstream graduate job, making direct applications is the best strategy; it will be easier to convince the employer that you really want to work for them, and you will keep control of your life.
Submitting your CV to an agency sounds like it could save you time, but remember that intermediaries’ are commercial and their income is from employers - your welfare is not paramount. If you depend on them, you could become disheartened. They advertise to attract students to register, offering incentives in order to harvest your contact details or your CV. Having a large cohort of Bath students’ details improves the agency’s chances of attracting employer clients, but they are selective about who they place.
Regulatory Standards
There is very little regulation and although they cannot charge you
for finding a job (Employment Agencies Act 1973) they may have
various other services where charges do apply. The Recruitment
and Employment Confederation (REC) represents the industry in
the UK and has a voluntary Code of Practice. Their site includes
a database of members which you can search by specialism and location
- select 'Details of REC members'. The REC
Code of Professional Practice ( 
[601Kb])
is also available online.
Finding information
- We keep files on specialist intermediaries. In the files you will also find an index to help you choose which intermediaries are appropriate.
- Specific vacancies for named clients are advertised in MyFuture.
- There are also commercial sites with directories of recruitment intermediaries, e.g. Agency Central.