The Changing Lanes Of Graduate Recruitment
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Do you remember the days of placing a graduate advert online, receiving thousands of applications, spending weeks screening and interviewing, offering 20 people jobs (with all of them accepting) and most are still with you?
While this may have happened pre-Celtic Tiger, most normal companies out there are experiencing the very opposite: Spending a fortune on an advertising campaign, using “social media”, spending most of your working week with the colleges trying to be a bit more hip, receiving 11 relevant applications, inviting 30 (including non-relevant applications), 6 turn up, 4 get offered, one starts…
While this is a bit of an extreme example it’s designed to illustrate some of the frustrations employers are facing when recruiting graduates. Unfortunately, the market is saturated with companies looking for bright, clever and quirky graduates to join their business and the choice open to students these days means companies are getting more and more desperate in their attempts to secure the right talent. This in turn has created a very unhealthy culture in that graduates are often in the driving seat when it comes to decisions over which job to take.
This shows a level of commitment on their part and will mean an employee likely to stay with your business a lot longer. Here are some tips on how best to evaluate your graduate recruitment and ensure you target the right talent:
Career Site
Is your graduate career site linked to you main website and if so, how are candidates able to identify the graduate culture from that of the rest-of-the-business culture? Make sure your graduate career page is different, interesting and has content that will genuinely engage those who visit it. Video content and blog content are incredibly relevant to what graduates are looking for now
Social Media
Who runs your Facebook page? Have you got a LinkedIn Careers Page? When was the last time Twitter was updated? If you’re going to use Social Media, make sure your content is up to date and edgy. Students these days spend so much of their time glued to some form of device so they can interact more fluidly with your brand if ensure you update and blog as often as possible. Talk to your marketing team and get their buy in.
Culture
This is the one thing that can make or break a recruitment campaign so get this right from the beginning. When you’re interviewing a graduate, look at their motivations as well as their capabilities. If someone gives the impression they may not agree with your company’s ethos, then take a step back. A graduate represents the very foundation of your future business and is the cornerstone of your succession planning so if anything, culture should be your number one focus
Learning & Development
Is your graduate programme challenging enough? Students these days have jumped through so many academic hoops companies should be rejoicing in the fact that graduates are brighter and quicker off the mark than ever. Taking a look at your training schedule, give it a shake up and don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion. If it works though leave it but you should always evaluate your programme every year to make sure you’re up to date with everyone else
Running a graduate programme doesn’t have to cost a fortune and you don’t need to spend a lot of time in designing it but ultimately it will cost more if you don’t get it right at the start so put the effort in, figure out what you want, who you need to help you and go for it. Graduate recruitment has become one of the top routes to growing your company and it can help you as a business grow both in terms of stability but also culture and diversity.
Marina Morrissey is Operations Manager for Sigmar Managed Services, the RPO division of Sigmar Recruitment Ireland. If you would like to find out more about the work carried out by her team, please feel free to contact direct at mmorrissey@sigmar.ie or +353 1 4744611.
