Why you should keep investing in Early Careers, even when the market is a mess.
The job market right now feels messy. Budgets are tight, headcounts are tighter, and everything feels a little bleak.
A knee jerk reaction from many companies is to look at their Early Careers programmes and strategise to save. Maybe you’ll pause hiring for a year, or cut back the campus activities and ‘nice to haves’. But it’s a short-sighted move.
Times like these are exactly when you should double down on Early Careers. Not only to maintain brand reputation, but also because it's a smart long-term business play.
Here’s why:
When competitors slow, you can build your talent pipeline.
When the market is strong, everyone’s fighting over the same grads, apprentices, and interns.
But when the market dips? A lot of companies quietly exit the race – with an 8% decrease in graduate opportunities reported in 2024/25.
That’s your moment. You’ll gain;
Better access to top early-career talent with less of the battle
Room to hire for potential, not panic
A long-term edge, because when hiring bounces back, your pipeline is already trained, loyal, and ready
Talent doesn’t disappear in a downturn, but competition often can. That’s a big advantage, which can put you ahead in the long term.
Early talent is a cost-effective way to solve skills shortages
Hiring seniors is expensive, hiring contractors is expensive and ignoring skills gaps or shortages is very expensive. In fact, skills shortages are estimated to be costing UK businesses around £6.1 billion a year in recruitment fees, higher salaries, temporary staffing and training for hires lacking the right skills.
Early talent gives you fresh skills and perspectives, lower salary expectations, and the chance to grow capability from the ground up, building a loyal, adaptable workforce that delivers strong long-term return on investment.
In many fields – tech, data, engineering, to name a few – juniors don’t just fill gaps, they future-proof them. Hiring one experienced specialist can cost the same as building an early-careers cohort. Yes, you’ll need to train and support them. But you’ll gain in the long term for the support you give them to grow, allowing your budget to stretch even further in the future.
Hitting pause on your programme becomes expensive later.
Early careers is a flywheel. Easy to keep spinning, and difficult to restart.
Pausing will create a future talent gap, leaders will have no succession pipeline, and you’ll begin to rely heavily on external hiring to fill semi-senior and senior-level skills gaps.
When 58% of UK employers report it’s harder to hire skilled mid-level talent; The cost to rebuild and recover from the knock-on implications is often far higher than the cost saved when you hit pause.
Innovation thrives when you bring in early talent.
Tough markets demand new thinking, particularly in the wake of AI.
Early careers talent are digitally immersed – they aren’t scared of new trends or technologies, they lean into them, with around 54% of graduate roles in the UK now listing AI skills as essential. When given the opportunity, they’ll be catalysts in driving your business forward with innovation and creativity. And they’ll take the rest of the workforce on the journey with them.
Early talent helps future-proof diversity.
Early careers hiring is one of the most effective, sustainable ways to build diverse pipelines, with research showing that 70% of UK employers report an increase in diversity when targeting early careers. You should leverage this.
You’ve got a larger candidate pool, with fewer barriers to entry, allowing you to build a diverse organisation from the bottom up. Leading with skill-first assessment psychology will allow you to unlock the potential in candidates, instead of polish.
If you’re relying on mid-level and senior hiring to diversify your organisation, you’ve already lost a share of the available talent pool.
You protect your employer brand when it matters most.
Candidates pay attention. Brands that stay consistent earn long-term trust, and those that disappear fade fast.
Early careers talent see who shows up on campus, and have their fingers on the pulse who’s recruiting and when. Out of sight, out of mind.
When the market rebounds, candidates remember who showed up — because 88% of job seekers evaluate an employer’s brand before applying, and 92% would consider switching jobs for a better reputation. Staying visible and consistent now means you stay top‑of‑mind later.
Early careers are a long-term investment, and long-term thinking wins.
When the market isn’t on side, the first reaction is often to cut back, but this isn’t a smart move. Those who keep investing in early careers now will end up with the best people, the strongest pipelines and the ability to grow and bounce back when the market stabilises and early careers scale once more.
