Why small businesses offer big opportunities for graduate jobseekers

Competition for training and development scheme places with major employers can be intense, so what do you do when the dust settles and you find that you didn't get one of them?

Are you left wondering if your career is already over? If so, you're not alone. High Flyers Research identified that the Times Top 100 graduate employers recruited only around 17,000 graduates onto their schemes in autumn 2013.

What happens to the other 95% of graduates? One answer lies with SMEs – or small- to medium-sized enterprises. These are defined by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as organisations that, among other criteria, employ up to 249 people. Amazingly, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) calculated that SMEs represent 99.9% of all private sector businesses in the UK, and provide 59.3% of all private sector employment.

So, bereft of an offer and on an unexpected job hunt, if ever you wanted a huge neon sign to point the way to a brighter, employed, future then one labelled "SMEs this way" would surely be it.

There are, however, a few issues when it comes to finding these jobs. Newcastle University Business School has conducted a survey of members of the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS). They discovered that SMEs, when seeking to recruit, find it hard to reach graduates, and this means that graduates often won't see SMEs on their job hunting radar.

In addition, SMEs don't have big recruitment budgets, which means they commonly recruit via referral and personal contact. Such jobs form part of the so called "hidden" job market.

The message is clear: if you're a student or recent graduate, you should target SMEs operating within your field of interest and proactively engage with them. They'll likely be grateful and you might just find yourself on one of their shortlists.

Reasons to be cheerful

If you choose to work for an SME, you're not settling for second-best. Big company schemes are certainly valuable due to their strong salaries, development schemes and professional support, but there are drawbacks too: the constraints from supporting departments can sometimes stifle your initiative, competition to climb the hierarchy will be intense, and you can risk your career stalling – possibly for a decade or more.

Inside an SME, things look very different. Your salary may be lower initially, but it'll be less constrained in the future. You might not get so much support either, but your level of responsibility will go higher, faster, and while it is likely there will be no internal career path mapped out for you, recognition can be swift and your rise through the ranks meteoric. After only a short time you'll know how all of the primary functions in the business work – including board level decision-making.

By following the SME route, it's entirely possible that, within five to 10 years of graduating, you could be holding down a board-level job in a company growing at breakneck speed.

SMEs are frontiers of opportunity

Richard Dyson, currently managing director of Trilogy Lasercraft, spent the first four years of his electronics engineering career with a large telecoms company. He said: "I couldn't gain the experience that I knew I would need for the future of my career."

He described himself as "pigeonholed and fulfilling a needed role from which there would be no escape." He left to follow the SME route: "In a smaller organisation you have a lot of scope to negotiate your own role and thereby create your own career opportunities. In a large organisation you're just a role filler."

Richard Green, operations director of FMB Oxford, a leading UK high-tech SME engineering company, also referred to being pigeonholed. He started his career with one of the UK's largest space and defence organisations but left to "work for a smaller company where individuals were valued and there was more scope to get involved with the whole business." He observed that: "Big companies don't like you to break the pattern that they've set."

My own experience was similar. For me, the SME route wins hands down, but it's important to consider your ambitions, personality type and what sort of environment you want to work in.

If you're a self-starter and land a job with an SME you've got a great opportunity to shine, but it's down to you. If you make something happen, it's easy to see who was responsible and the rewards will come. Independent thinking, proactivity and creativity will be the order of the day.

Just bear in mind that there is nowhere to hide in an SME. It's often full throttle and intense, all day, every day. If you want to ride your career like it's a mission to Mars – if you crave responsibility, excitement and possibly risk – then an SME may be right for you.

Now, where would you like to work?

Jon Gregory is the founder of win-that-job.com, providing job hunters with free answers to personal search, application and interview issues.

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more content and advice like this direct to your inbox, sign up for our weekly update and careers ebook.