Graduate placement programme

This scheme was established to help provide opportunities for graduates who wished to return to the areas they had been brought up and to help local businesses provide quality jobs.  So often, students leave the islands to study and do not return because of a lack of opportunity to use their skills.  The scheme helps new or very small businesses to employ additional staff, minimising the risk of this additional cost, by meeting a proportion of a graduate's wages for their first year of employment.

AURORA ENVIRONMENTAL LTD
A recently established environmental consultancy business took advantage of the graduate placement scheme twice to help grow the business.  Aurora Environmental Ltd in Stromness was established in 1999 and soon had to take on its first graduate, Lesley Sinclair.  More recently the company was able to employ a second graduate, Craig Smith, who holds a BSc (Hons) in Marine Biology, to co-ordinate and carry out the reporting for salmon farm hydrographic and seabed surveys.

HIE Orkney part-funded Craig's wages for his first year of employment.  Without this assistance, the company could not have afforded to take on another full-time employee at such an early stage.