Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - companies which employ fewer than 250 people - account for 99% of UK companies (and about 55% of UK employment). The sector is doing well at the moment, with a recent report highlighting that about 15% of smaller companies plan to step up their recruitment this quarter.

Because of the sheer number of them around, there have always been a lot of graduate job opportunities with SMEs, and they represent an alternative to the large corporate graduate training schemes which also take on many graduates.

SMEs often provide a very different working environment from the larger companies; firstly obviously their smaller size means you are likely to get to know everyone in the company, including senior management, much more quickly. This can also translate to early responsibility, fluidity of roles, and more chance of having your ideas implemented – to have an effect on the way the business runs. It might also make for a less formal working environment – there’s less likely to be a centrally ordained set of company policies which everyone must follow.

The diversity of the sector and its capacity for innovation mean that the roles on offer are often more niche and unusual than those within the larger corporations. For example recent roles advertised by SMEs on Milkround have included port engineer, computer game designer and golfing holiday operator – not all at the same time!

In addition, SMEs often offer a less-structured career path, which carries both potential advantages and disadvantages – whether or not this is better is really down to the individual. Large corporate training schemes tend to have a set timetable for training, progression and promotion, often taking the form of a two or three year formal programme, which you “graduate from” at the end. With SMEs, it is more often down to the individual to hit the ground running, learn on the job, take advantage of the training on offer and request more as and when they identify a need. Naturally this suits those who are more entrepreneurial and independent by inclination.

We were interested to find out what candidates think of SMEs, and conducted a survey recently among 350 of our subscribers. It turned out that 31% of respondents who aren’t working would prefer to work for an SME, compared to 21% for a large company. 48% had no preference. Of those already working, 64% were working for an SME, and 36% a large company. This suggests that despite the way large companies predominate in the marketing scene, SMEs do employ more grads and are also marginally preferred by candidates.

While preferring SMEs, candidates highlighted that large companies would be likely to provide a better salary (60% said large and 7% small) and career prospects (44% and 19%) – this shows, interestingly, that salary and career progression are not the top priorities for many graduates.

A clue as to why SMEs are preferred comes from graduates’ responses to questions about their working life:

93% of those working with an SME said their manager would be amenable to a flexible working arrangement; 98% said that it was a friendly and informal work environment; and similarly 96% had an example of a time they had suggested an idea for a change to working practises or processes, which had been implemented by the company.

Meanwhile in the big company camp: 87% of employees said their workplace was friendly and informal (which is also reassuringly high); but only 43% said they had had an idea for a change implemented; and 57% that they would be able to negotiate flexible working.

In terms of marketing their opportunities, SMEs sometimes struggle to reach the same levels of exposure that larger companies, with their greater budgets and manpower, are able to attain. It’s often out of the reach of small firms to spare personnel to visit careers fairs around the country, let alone to pay for branded blimps or projections onto university buildings (as have been used by some large firms)!

In this way Milkround Online, which has literally brought the graduate milkround online (!), has been a beneficial development for smaller firms, allowing them the same national exposure their larger competitors are used to.

Of the 400 or so employer advertisements we have carried over the past year (263 are live on the site at the time of writing), around a third, about 130, were from small and medium-sized companies; the remainder large corporations and professional and legal firms.

There is still a gap, perhaps inevitably - 83% of candidates said they saw large employers more widely advertised, while 9% said small companies, and 8% said they didn’t see much difference.

In conclusion, SMEs have much to offer graduates on the hunt for something a bit different - for variety in their role, early responsibility, and an informal working culture. Milkround Online, as an SME, is proud to bring you opportunities to work for the UK’s best graduate-employing SMEs!