The Graduate Placement Programme is offered by the Highland Council through Business Gateway. It is available to businesses across the Highland Council region who have growth aspirations and require to deliver a project aligned to their growth plans. The Grant available could pay up to 50 per cent of the graduate wage for up to six months, or a year depending on the project.
Your local Business Gateway adviser will help you with the information requirement and assist you with your growth plans. For more information contact your local Business Gateway office here (www.bgateway.com/local-offices)
The video below has been produced by one of the businesses who have hired a Graduate Marketing Officer thought the Graduate Placement Programme. The business has produced a short video to promote their Business. Please have a look at the video which is an example of how the Graduate Placement Programme can help your business.
I’m John Mckenzie, founder and director of GlenWyvis community benefit society. In 2013 at Knockbain farm in Dingwall we brought Scotland’s first one hundred per cent cooperatively owned wind turbine to fruition. Since then, we've been working on the GlenWyvis project on my own farm.
GlenWyvis distillery builds on the incredible history in and around Dingwall and we're offering everyone both locally and further afield the opportunity to invest in a first for Scotland and Dingwall. We aim to make Dingwall the craft distilling town for Scotland.
I was brought up working in the livestock auction marts in Dingwall and together with Ross County that remains the backbone to the town today. The auction mart itself began as a cooperative many, many years ago.
I'm standing in the whiskey bar in Culloden House Hotel where people come from all over the world to enjoy what Scotland has to offer; history, great food and drink and amazing sights. I hope you enjoy our short video which serves to display what your investment will build upon. As a community whisky investment, we aim to provide various benefits in the early years as well as long term investment.
Hi I'm Craig Macritchie. Supported by The Highland Council for the last year, I've been working as the marketing and sales assistant for GlenWyvis. Your investment will see me continue with the project, expanding my roles and working for you. I'm very enthusiastic and passionate about our national drink and everything that makes Scotland great.
Hi I'm David O’Conner. I'm a director of the GlenWyvis community benefits society. I was the police commander in Ross, Cromarty and sky for five years where I spent a great deal of time promoting community safety in the area i often talked about the fact that Ross and Cromarty - the Highlands is a safe place to live, to work, to visit and to invest. It's not just restricted to Dingwall this will be open to people from far and wide; right across the Highlands and islands, right across the United Kingdom and indeed beyond. And this is a unique opportunity to invest in the GlenWyvis distillery.
We're Kenneth and Leslie Mackenzie, this is our family we own highland farm cottages. We are particularly keen on the new GlenWyvis community benefit scheme because we think will bring tourism and investment to Dingwall and the local area.
I'm Stuart Nickerson; I've worked in the Scottish whisky industry for over thirty five years managing many of the distilleries in Scotland. I’m over in whiskey live Australia and I’m looking forward to coming back here in a few years’ time, representing GlenWyvis Highland single malt whiskey.
For more information about the Graduate Placement Program contact your local Business Gateway adviser.
The grant is funded though European Rural Development Fund and the Highland Council. Read more about the European Structural fund.
The Graduate placement program provides you with funding along with specialist recruitment advice to employ a Graduate.
The Graduate must deliver a project of significant importance to the growth of your business.
The Graduate placement program is operated jointly between The Highland Council and Business Gateway.
Business Gateway work with you to support the development of your business project and application and can provide specialist advice where required.
The Highland Council assess and administer the applications and process and pay the grand claims. Businesses including social and community enterprises are welcome to apply. The business must employ less than 250 employees to be eligible and you must have a clearly defined growth plan.
Priority will be given to the businesses in growth sectors which identified in the Scottish Government economic strategy.
The business will be responsible for paintings the Graduate’s salary with a minimum wage of £16,500 per annum and a maximum wage of £20,000 per annum and The Highland Council will fund fifty percent of Graduate’s salary in arrears for micro SME’s and 40% of the Graduate’s salary in arrears for medium SME’s.
The graduate will have qualified within the last four years and will hold an HND level qualification or above.
The Graduate must deliver a project that is important to the growth of the business, the project must be clearly defined and have measurable outcomes. The project should last a minimum of six months and a maximum of twelve months. The Graduate will work full time with a minimum 21 hours and a maximum of 45 hours per week to undertake specific and innovative projects.
The project can deal with challenges including developing new markets domestically and internationally, developing new products, improving structures and processes and making more effective use of information technology.
My working circumstances before applying for this position, I was in university in Glasgow and I was then unemployed for four months and I moved back to the Highlands to be with my parents.
Well I graduated from Aberdeen University in July so I had a number of part-time jobs nothing serious, nothing related to my degree.
Luckily I was given the opportunity to work for Good Highland Food and it’s actually proved really successful and allowed me to apply everything I learned
So I’ve had to encompass various different skills, anything from taking pictures of houses going up, small videos to put on our social media presence.
I’m involved in a lot of the sales and marketing, developing the new products and services that we offer.
I design heating systems with renewable technology such as biomass heat pumps with the inclusion of solar systems as well.
I've been able to apply a lot of the skills I learnt during my degree. In particular we focused a lot, during my degree, on marketing communications and online marketing and I've been able to be actively involved in online marketing campaigns and social media campaigns are you for retail and food.
As a student everything you’re doing is based on theory then moving into position of employment everything becomes real so you've got real risks to deal with.
I certainly I think that many of the skills I learned in my degree were very transferrable and yet slightly different and I’ve had to tailor them in my own way.
In this job I think the best skill I’ve picked up while being here so far has been networking, I’ve had my eyes opened as to how important that is in the business world.
Being part of the graduate placement program has been a really good experience.
I definitely think the Graduate Scheme here is 110% a worthwhile scheme.
I’d highly recommend the graduate program to all small businesses there's a wealth of talent out there in the Highlands.
I would certainly recommend the graduate scheme to any business who's keen to develop. I feel that we would also like to possibly in the future maybe take another graduate on another division within our business and I would certainly go with Business Gateway to help us do that.
I think for businesses it’s a great opportunity to see the potential that young people and graduates have to offer to the work environment.
I have loved the placement, I feel confident in my abilities.
It allows you to learn a whole new range of skills which you can use as a stepping stone to a new career.
It’s a very worthwhile experience; it’s enabled me to get my foot in the door and work for an organization which I’d like to work for.
I’ve had a great time out of doing it and I’d recommend it to anyone else thinking about applying.
If you have identified a suitable project or you would like help to deliver your business plan for growth you should contact the Business Gateway advisor.
The recruitment advisers of Business Gateway are there for you and I think that businesses can gain a lot from using the recruitment service.
The Graduate placement program of course has two distinct elements to it. There’s the funding of course which is very important and the support that we offer as recruitment advisers from business gateway and our role is to help businesses access the funding for the Graduate placements and to make sure that they recruit perfect Graduate for the post that they have, but also to help them explore what type of projects and they could have within their business or what type of role that could help their business grow