As my colleague said, especially where there are small and medium-sized enterprises, which hire the most students, our research has indicated that 50% don't use social media, job boards or anything in order to recruit these students. They simply call some of their peers, who are also not connected. Work-integrated learning allows a student a connection through academia directly to employers who would never know that their talents exist.
Going back to what we were talking about before and what we called the soft skills—we would say success skills—the federal government has funded, there is no better way to inculcate those skills than through the practical application of them in business. Those are simply the skills that are most valuable. Our labour market research says that those soft skills—things like what we are doing today with presentation skills—can't be learned from a book. You have to do these things to then be able to do them, and you can only do that on the job.
We're finding that those soft skills are even more valuable in my vertical of biotechnology, which is one of the highest-educated verticals in the world. Those soft skills are absolutely critical for small and medium-sized enterprises, which have so few employees that they're doing way more than just what their job title and job description entail. The student placement program has given the connection to employers who didn't know this job market even existed, and it immediately gets them those soft skills that are really challenging for colleges and universities to inculcate.