Increasingly, some graduates are starting their own business rather than pursuing the traditional graduate training scheme, seeing self-employment as a more flexible way to live and earn. One of the keys to success is creating or nurturing your enterprising streak - thinking creatively, using your initiative and making the most of opportunities to learn and develop new skills.
If you are considering starting your own business soon or sometime in the future, now is the time to build on your skills and seek opportunities to widen your experiences - in other words, become enterprising. This may simply be to undertake an internship or part-time work in a small business so that you can see first hand what it is like to run a company, participate in University activities such as Manchester Gold, SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) and the Manchester Leadership Programme, or explore study options through the Manchester Enterprise Centre.
Ways to test your business idea include entering competitions, and seeing how others have fared through their business start-up phase can provide useful hints and tips. There's lots of information and support available for enterprising graduates and budding entrepreneurs, and a good place to start is our downloadable 'Starting a Business' guide (see link top right).