A graduate recruitment strategy is central to many UK employers and is a great way of hiring fresh talent. In the same way that the UK business landscape has changed drastically due to COVID-19, the way businesses should approach the task of hiring graduates has changed too.
Why Have A Recruitment Strategy for Recent Graduates?
The graduate market in the UK is highly saturated. Students who graduated during the pandemic had little opportunity for internships or placements, so students from 2020 all the way through to the most recent graduates are all applying for the same jobs. Employers have seen an increase in the average number of applications for graduate positions, which has made finding that perfect person to hire that much harder and the talent pool that much bigger, hence why a good recruitment strategy is so important for recruiters to have.
Here are some recruitment strategy tips in order to recruit, hire and retain the right graduates for your organisation in this high-volume and ever-shifting graduate recruitment landscape:
Graduate Recruitment Strategy Tips
Find new ways to source talent
A large part of a graduate recruitment plan is ensuring that recent graduates are seeing job vacancies in the first place and applying for them. Graduate employers should consider finding new ways to reach students and potential candidates for open jobs. These recruitment tools can include social media, niche job boards or newsletters - in addition to more established job sites and job fairs.
Social media (such as Twitter or LinkedIn) is a fantastic way to get high-quality graduate job seekers' attention as job descriptions and postings can be shared easily and quickly. It also helps recruit passive candidates who may not be actively looking for openings advertised on job boards or sites.
Taking steps such as these makes it much easier to attract students and potential candidates organically that will be better suited to the specifics of the role.
Screen for skills
Once you've advertised the job posting, your applicant pool may be quite large. The next stage in the recruitment and searching process, in order to narrow down your search to find that top talent, should be to have each candidate take a Skillsarena skills test in order to ensure they have the career skills required of the specific job.
Skills testing will start to streamline and simplify your recruiting process to save the time and energy of graduate employers and job seekers alike. Recruitment can be a daunting process, but having skills tests that fit an employer brand and company culture helps the interview process be much less arduous.
Interview virtually
Another way to find the right university student or graduate for your job vacancy is to pre-interview them virtually. With our video interview service, you can prepare pre-interview questions, personalised for your employer brand, that candidates will record themselves answering. This will simplify the selection process by allowing you to see, hear and listen to the candidate before you have even scheduled an in-person or online interview.
Virtual pre-interviews ultimately save all recruiters and candidates time. There will be fewer candidates to interview in person if there are pre-screening measures in place, helping you find the university students and graduates that truly stand out.
Test their personalities
To search for a certain CV or set of attributes that match a job description is not the only factor when recruiting top talent graduate candidates starting their careers. It is also important to look at soft skills during the recruitment process and how the university students or graduate talent will fit in within your company culture.
Consider implementing a psychometric personality test into your recruitment strategy. This will allow you to gain further information about candidates' attitudes and personalities during the selection process in a data-driven way. Personality testing will give graduate candidates the opportunity to show graduate recruiters who they are and how they would fit into the employer's brand and culture during the recruitment process.
Next steps after recruitment
An essential part of any good recruitment strategy is not only recruiting and hiring new talent but also retaining hires long-term and making them feel appreciated and fulfilled in their work. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this is a particularly challenging feat. Here are some next steps to not only increase graduate recruitment, but also retain those graduates for years to come.
Work from home readiness
Along with strategising for graduate recruitment, it is important to make sure that your team is equipped with the proper knowledge and tools to successfully work remotely to at least some degree. In 2022, most university students and graduate applicants will need and expect to work remotely in some capacity, either in the immediate or long-term future.
In order to prioritise graduate applicant recruiting, your organisation should be ready to provide the relevant onboarding and have a plan for how the organisation will be successful with these candidates working from home part-time or full-time.
Investing in employees
Upskilling
Another important factor in an effective recruitment strategy for graduate applicants is to ensure that they feel like they gain something from working at your company. Many university students want a job where they will learn new skills and have opportunities to grow whilst at work, which will help them develop their careers at the company.
In order to make recruitment into your organisation attractive for graduates, make sure that there will be ample training for advancement of skills and exciting opportunities for growth. Upskilling your recruits in this will ensure that they feel valued by and important to their employer.
Career Services
Entry-level employees, on top of the opportunity to try new things, also find career services and career advice to be helpful aspects that attract them to graduate jobs. If your company is looking to recruit graduates, make sure it can provide professional guidance and advice to them along the way.
Recruiting graduates in 2022 is dramatically different than before. But with the right recruitment plan, job benefits and talent pool strategies, the perfect graduate candidate is just a few steps away. Explore our skills tests, personality profiling tools and video interview services to make graduate recruitment a success at your organisation.
