Sussex is home to 6,000-7,000 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and many are on the lookout for bright, motivated graduates who can fit easily into a tight-knit team.

Although there is always the risk small businesses can go under, they can offer greater scope for staff to take on responsibility early in their careers and learn skills that can prepare them for starting their own business.

However, for people fresh out of university it is important not to treat SMEs as a homogeneous group.

Firms in the tourism and catering industry are less likely to employ graduates, according to a recent report by Luke Pittaway, lecturer in entrepreneurship at Lancaster University Management School. He conducted a survey of 139 SMEs in the South in the tourism, hospitality and leisure sectors.

He found that 45 per cent of firms thought they would not benefit from employing graduates and only 26 per cent had taken on university-leavers.

However, unlike other cities, Brighton and Hove has an expanding pool of small creative start-up firms looking for bright graduates.

Links between these companies and the city's two universities are getting stronger every year and have been reinforced by the recent opening of the Centre of Vocational Excellence in Digital Media at City College Brighton and Hove.

Graduate starting salaries at smaller companies are generally lower than in the corporate world.

A graduate can expect to earn £10,000 to £15,000 a year compared with £25,000 in big business but there is likely to be more scope to become a director or shareholder further down the line.

Trevor Freeman, of the Brighton and Hove branch of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "It is unlikely you will get the big financial rewards that there are in big business but you generally find you have a much more varied life and a much more committed life.

"Employers might demand a lot more from you but they often give a lot more back."

For more details about small companies, visit www.step.org.uk or www.ktponline.org.uk

Wednesday February 11, 2004