Several police forces, including Britain's largest, the Metropolitan Police, already have graduate recruitment schemes.

BBC: Police officers, Bristol

It comes after a survey found SMEs account for more than half of private sector employment but have relatively low graduate recruitment.

BBC: Career women handshake

The AGR said these figures compared favourably with employment statistics overall and suggested graduate recruitment was beginning to emerge from the recession.

BBC: Graduate salaries 'stay at ?25k'

It shows that major employers are still investing in graduate recruitment schemes and that the jobs market is still expanding - but it also shows tougher times on pay.

BBC: Graduate literacy 'worries firms'

Despite rising number of graduates and a struggling economy hitting recruitment, the graduate jobs market has remained relatively resilient.

BBC: Graduate jobs market 'better than feared'

Sotomayor got a taste of such ignorance in her third year of law school, when during a recruitment dinner, a lawyer from a Washington law firm asked the summa cum laude graduate from Princeton whether she thought she would have gotten into Yale Law School if she hadn't been Hispanic.

CNN: Commentary: Latino in the Ivy League