Reviewing a wide range of secondary data
sources concerned with graduate careers and
the concepts of careers and career
development, two notions, namely selfawareness
and opportunity awareness, are
deemed particularly significant.
Transferable skills and qualities are
identified as elements of self-awareness.
However, Stewart and Knowles suggest that
much of the research into the value placed on
transferable skills by employers has
concentrated on large organisations,
inferring that inadequate attention has been
devoted to the small and medium sized
enterprise (SME) sector. To support this
contention, they note two important
conclusions from a review of the literature
on graduate recruitment and selection. First
the Association of Graduate Recruiters
(AGR, 1995) states that more graduates are
entering the SME sector. Second, that report
also makes reference to this trend presenting
considerations not only for undergraduates
who are preparing to enter the ``world of
work'' but also for SMEs in relation to their
recruitment and selection processes. For
example, the AGR speculates that unfair
discrimination may become more evident as
a result of recruitment by non-specialists
within these organisations. Moreover,
recruitment implications exist for SMEs with