I have to explain perpetually to acquaintances and strangers why deciding to start a recruitment business in the recession was not bonkers.

The inevitable “so what do you do?” question from people is usually followed by a look of sympathy and a pitying “that’s nice”. People appear to be so accustomed to misery and doom that the idea of bucking the trend is, seemingly, madness.

I graduated from the University of Nottingham a year ago and have since founded Recruitment Squared. Our mission is to make graduates more appealing in the recession and, eventually, out of it.

Like most businesses, mine operates around the theory of supply and demand. There is an overwhelming supply of talented young people coming out of education. This is coupled with the demand from companies in all sectors to keep their cost-base as low as possible.

Guide to Clearing: essential information on universities in the clearing system

John O’Leary outlines some of the pros and cons of 40 UK universities likely to be offering the most places through clearing this year

• Act fast to snap up a university place through clearing

• Full universities leave A-level winners unable to trade up

• A degree of control over your future

Related Links

• Healthy recipes for ketchup addicts

• Older and wiser but excited to finish what I started

Multimedia

• Good University Guide

We facilitate this need by letting firms “try before they buy” by taking on a free graduate intern for two months.

Recruitment Squared hires graduates to work on the internships and matches them up with companies. Clients pay a fee only if and when they hire the candidate on a full-time basis.

I came up with this idea because I believe that the recruitment market should exude as much agility in these tough times as any other sector. In the car market, for example, the Government’s scrappage scheme shows a marketplace aligning itself with harsh reality. When the chips are down, compromise and flexibility should rule the day.

At the same time, internships of late have gravitated towards the dangerous territory of exploitation, with no limit on the period of time graduates can be kept on in the hope of a job. When designing a model to propose to companies and graduates, I was mindful of this increasingly significant issue.

So Recruitment Squared gives companies an intern for two months, after which time they are encouraged and expected to give him or her a full-time job and pay us a fee (though there is no formal obligation on them to hire). This means we can identify time-wasting companies that may not have the intention or means to employ.

Our internships are capped at two months because, while this period is long enough for both parties to gel, it is not long enough for the company to have enjoyed maximum value from the graduate since they will not have achieved their full potential.

We insist that companies pay a small living allowance to interns to cover their expenses. Companies cannot have more than one free intern, unless they hired the previous one, or unless he or she left before two months and they need a replacement.

The blood, sweat and tears seem to be paying off and businesses are buying into the prospect of risk-aversion and flexibility. The uptake from graduates has, unsurprisingly, been overwhelming.

Times recommends

• Students face big rise in university fees
• Students to rate lecturers online
• Lord heads team to look at raising tuition fees