Leeds based SportsAid Yorkshire & Humberside is a small charity that provides funding for talented sporting youngsters in the region.  They award grants to young sportsmen and women to help them reach their potential and are the only major organisation to provide funding to emerging talented athletes in the UK.

Rob was recruited by SportsAid several years ago as an admin officer through the Yorkshire Graduates service.  He has since risen through the ranks to become Regional Development Manager for the charity.

He feels that small companies can really offer a lot to graduates.  "We might only be a small team" says Rob, "but unlike larger employers graduates can gain experience in a wide variety of different activities and start getting hands on experience from the start."

Whilst he understands that as a relatively small operation the charity cannot offer a wide variety of opportunities for advancement internally, the skills which graduates can learn and develop within the team are essential for their next step.

"We recognise that graduates will not stay with us forever as we can't always offer the long term career progression they crave. We can, however, give them a couple of years of genuinely challenging and interesting work and help give them a great start to their career."

As a graduate himself Rob is enthusiastic about the benefits that graduates can bring and is also a great example of how graduates can be taken on at ground level and grown into the future leaders of the company.

"The enthusiasm and creativity that graduates bring into their roles is key," says Rob. "They tend to be fresh minded and committed to succeeding in their early careers and can often give a new perspective."