In your final year you're often torn between taking a job and the allure of foreign travel. Ah well, you can't have both. Oh yes you can, says Alice Wignall

Saturday December 2, 2006
By the Guardian

It's practically the whole dilemma of the human condition summed up for you. On the one hand, there's the promise of security, responsibility, status and money. On the other, there's the lure of wide horizons, an unknown road and, quite possibly a nice beach and a cold beer at the end of it.

And no one is more vulnerable to the paradoxical pull in each direction than final-year university students when trying to decide what to do next. What if you could combine the two? An impossible dream? Not, apparently, if you choose to work for Sainsbury's. It has announced the launch of a new scheme to lure food science graduates onto one of its training schemes.

The Taste the World programme provides graduates with a £1,000 air ticket, insurance, a year off with a guaranteed job at the end of it and introductions to suppliers around the world. People on the scheme are expected to complete several placements with the firm's international partners in between some more traditional graduate gap-year activities of bungee jumping and island hopping.

Liz Jarman, head of product technology at J Sainsbury, explains how the idea emerged. "We had a student from Reading University on a placement with us who told me that she'd really like to work for Sainsbury's but that she wanted to go travelling as well. So we got chatting about that and I was saying that I'd been here and there all over the world meeting with suppliers. It made us wonder if there was a way to facilitate graduates going travelling as well as increasing our graduate intake."

Jarman makes no bones about the fact that the new scheme is intended to entice graduates. "We need quality people to work in food technology," she says, "and we have struggled to recruit them if I'm being honest. That's not just us, it's across the industry. There just aren't that many graduates in this area and therefore the competition for them is very high. We came up with this idea to encourage students to come to Sainsbury's."

Of course, foreign travel as part of a graduate training scheme is nothing new, especially if the company you opt to work for is a multinational that not only has the ability but also the need to create a globe-hopping workforce. They'll make the most of the opportunities for seeing the world they can offer you, and graduates are savvy about taking them up on it.

Charlie Bowie, who is on the executive graduate programme with HSBC, says: "One of the most important aspects of HSBC to me was that it was a global operation with the chance to do international work. I'd spent a short time in Africa and I knew I wanted to do more travelling." But rather than opt for a career-boosting stint among the skyscrapers of New York or Hong Kong, Bowie chose to spend six months in sunny Armenia. "It was good work experience," he says, "but it was a personal experience, too. I was pretty sure that I wanted to spend time abroad and I needed to see if I could handle it."

So, in the scramble for graduate recruits, an air ticket out of the office can be a useful thing to wave under a few noses. Great for the employees, but companies believe they benefit, too. Liz Jarman of J Sainsbury expects the graduates who return from the year-long jaunt will bring back more than photos and some suspect souvenirs.

"They'll have a better rapport with and understanding of our suppliers, an understanding of our supply chain and hopefully they'll get to experience the culture of the way our partners work and the passion that goes into making great wine or growing great fruit. It's an amazing insight."

Victoria Walton, who has just completed the food technology scheme at J Sainsbury, agrees that there's no substitute for firsthand experience and when you're working in a global company that means international travel. "It's absolutely essential," she says. "It gives you a way to understand the pressures they experience and the areas they focus on." And although she hasn't benefited from it herself, she thinks the new year-long scheme will only enhance the experience of the new employees. "Often with us it's a case of fly in, visit the factory, fly out again. To have the chance to spend several weeks with one supplier will be great."

But although international work experience is seen as a positive for employees and employers alike, a note of warning has been sounded. Research carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers has shown that companies risk losing their investment and talented staff by failing to handle their international assignments properly. They found that employees who had spent time abroad were susceptible to a "career wobble" when they returned to their home office, with the turnover rate of international assignees being four or five times higher than amongst the normal workforce. George Yeandle, a partner in the human resources group at PWC, who worked on the report, says: "The expectation of people who get to work abroad is that they are on the fast track. While they are overseas they are developing their internal network but also their external network. They've experienced different, more exciting jobs abroad. They come back when their expectations are high but the world in their home office has moved on. It's a trigger time for them."

But Yeandle insists that it is worthwhile for companies to send graduates abroad, as long as they manage the careers of their international workers upon their return to the home office. "International experience is increasingly important as people move up the organisation," he says. "Getting it early is obviously a benefit. And, in fact, once they're through the difficult reintegration period, our research shows that having spent time abroad helps an employees performance levels and chances for promotion."

So, no matter who you are, international work experience is a good thing. As Charlie Bowie says: "Now I'm home, it's certainly made me stand out. It's quite a niche posting: I'm the person who went to Armenia. It was interesting from a work point of view, to see how trust in the banking industry is being rebuilt following the post-USSR collapse.

"And from a personal point of view, it's a great country, and I got to mix with the international community of Armenia. There were about a dozen of us! I might have missed out on networking in a big city but because most of my friends from there have moved on to different postings I've got holiday destinations all over the world now."

Source: http://jobsadvice.guardian.co.uk/graduate/story/0,,1961978,00.html