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Â鶹´«Ã½ (Â鶹´«Ã½) is calling on businesses to sign up to an innovative new scheme offering intensive work placements for graduates who are looking to boost their career prospects.

Â鶹´«Ã½ Graduate Champions is planning to offer recent graduates the chance to take up the month-long placements with firms in Leicestershire and further afield to enhance their CVs and help them stand out from the crowd in a furiously competitive jobs market.

Each graduate will be contracted and paid for by Â鶹´«Ã½ for 18.5 hours a week, and the university will pay the Living Wage of £7.45 an hour. It means businesses will have free access to some of the brightest and best graduates emerging from Â鶹´«Ã½ when the scheme starts in January.

Â鶹´«Ã½ has an excellent employment record with an above average 88 per cent in work or further study within six months of graduating, but the university wants to improve on this. The national rate of unemployment for 16 to 24-year-olds currently stands at 21 per cent.

Jo Cooke, Director of Student and Academic Services, said: “Â鶹´«Ã½ owes it to its students to constantly seek to improve still, further what are already good employment rates for our students.

“At Â鶹´«Ã½ you study with us, and graduate with us, and you will always be part of the Â鶹´«Ã½ family.

“That means we will continue to offer as much support as we can as our graduates seek experience in specialist areas and embark on their career.

“Graduate Champions is part of our continuing commitment to enhance employability.

“Business people have the chance to benefit from an intensive injection of graduate-level expertise and innovation. Therefore the advantages to them are clear – free access to some of the brightest and best graduates in the UK. 

“For the graduates, these placements will bring sought-after opportunities to gain valuable insight into work that is relevant to their chosen degree. 

“We believe this will give our graduates a significant boost in the race for employment but, importantly, we believe it will also stimulate innovation and demonstrate the benefits made possible by our talented graduates.

“They also get the chance of impressing a potential future employer. There is no doubt that a Graduate Champions placement is a placement to be prized.

“I would therefore call on businesses from across the region to come forward and sign up to the scheme to offer our graduates an excellent four week work placement.

“At the same time, any graduates who would like to join the scheme should get in touch as soon as possible and we will be happy to help.”

Anyone wishing to find out more about the scheme can email champions@dmu.ac.uk 

Â鶹´«Ã½ asks that businesses wishing to enrol get in touch by Friday 25 October.

The placements will be scheduled to start in mid-January 2014.