Nottingham has more commercial surveying practices per capita than anywhere else in the country bar London. In this competitive property world, and building a successful career can be challenging. But one Nottingham agency is nurturing ‘home grown talent’. NG Chartered Surveyors’ latest graduate recruit, Henry Henson, explains how he is following in the footstep of his predecessors.
Final-year university students have been through the mill over the past year, with rocketing youth unemployment and the few employers still hiring spoilt for choice. The property sector is one of the worst hit. With hundreds of graduate surveyors preparing to leave university this year in Nottingham alone, the question is, just where are they going to go?
Richard Sutton from NG Chartered Surveyors says it’s a big concern.
“Young people are the life blood of the property sector,” he says. “But it’s up to us as business leaders to ensure that we provide maximum opportunities, which includes training and support to graduates.”
NG is a company putting its money where its mouth is. Over the years, it has seen a stream of graduates who have gone to work at their office and have risen the ranks.
Richard said: “At NG we like to grow our own talent and we have had considerable success including William Wall who started out with us and has now gone to be a director at a Lincoln-based firm. More recently, Sunny Landa joined the firm on a placement year, returned as a graduate and is now MRICS –his hard work here has paid dividends. Our faith in our graduates is justified by their loyalty and work ethos, Sunny has an exciting career ahead of him at NG.
Henry Henson is NG’s latest graduate recruit. He says there are lots of surveying graduates fresh out of university already looking for work – let alone
the new swathe of eager trainees about to enter the world of work.
He says: “After graduating from Nottingham Trent University in 2011, I was conscious that I was entering the workplace in the midst of a recession, but the combination of sheer determination, hard work, and a little bit of good fortune secured me the graduate position.
“What attracted me to NG was their attitude to nurturing home grown talent, and the team’s ambition to succeed in a difficult climate. As an agency it understand the challenges that the industry presents, but equally it understands how to grow its new recruits to deliver the best service for clients in a tough economic climate. Previous graduates have gone on to achieve partner positions here and at other firms.
“In order to succeed you need the right frame of mind. It’s a stepping stone towards a future career, so be mindful to pay back your employees for giving you the opportunity to learn. Don’t be afraid to put in the extra hours or come up with ideas of your own which will benefit the whole firm. So to succeed, not only do you need a strong work ethic, but also an employer who sees the long term benefits of growing its talents. That’s the winning formula.
“It has been a busy couple of months, but I’ve learnt so much from the leadership of NG partners’ Richard Sutton and Jonathon Seddon – less than two months in and I have completed my first deal.”
Richard added: “It must be very disheartening for those graduates who have worked so hard at university yet are now unsure of their job prospects, particularly as the effects of the recession are likely to create a backlog of jobseekers for the next couple of years. But at NG, we are supporting talented graduates who will go on to work hard – and achieve top positions within NG.”
