At the start of every hiring round, your goal quite obviously is to find the best talent out there that will help your teams and business thrive towards success. While many recruiters are focusing their efforts on sourcing talent that is experienced, some have turned to place their focus on sourcing fresh graduates. Hiring graduates can, in fact, lead to some very positive & surprising long-term benefits.
However, hiring graduates doesn’t come without its challenges. In this blog, I’d like to share with you the 4 most common challenges companies face when recruiting fresh graduates and how you can avoid these pitfalls!
- 4 challenges when recruiting fresh graduates
- How to avoid these pitfalls when recruiting graduates
- This is how Equalture can help
4 Challenges when recruiting fresh grads
They don’t meet the list of job requirements
With every new requirement, you eliminate one more candidate from your talent pool. The more qualifications or requirements are listed as must-haves, the more likely a candidate viewing the description will not see themselves as fit for the job. That’s why carefully consider which requirements really matter.
For example, by setting a high GPA minimum for fresh graduates you could severely be hurting the diversity within your teams and company as a whole.
Graduates do not like your Employer Brand
The competition for top-notch talent is fierce, especially in a candidate-driven market that’s why every company is trying to stand out in some way to attract top talent. If graduates do not identify with your Employer Brand or find it old-fashioned, then they will not apply for a job there. In today’s market, it’s all about the vision & mission, and whether people truly identify with it or not.
In fact, 69% of individuals that are actively seeking a job would deny a job offer if they would perceive that a company has a bad reputation or employer branding.
Your sourcing strategies are too narrow
If you’re always looking for graduates in the same places (so, from the same schools and posting job ads on the same job boards), you likely will only end up hurting the diversity in your company as well as perpetuating unconscious biases.
You place the majority of your focus on CVs
What we see often is that most entry-level positions ask candidates for x years of experience. Which if you think of fresh graduates is often quite impossible, as they have dedicated the past years to acquiring their degrees.
What most companies fail to understand is that this lack of experience does not automatically imply that they are not equipped enough for the position they apply to. And the misconception here is that there is an assumption that if an individual has acquired a certain skill in another job position, that means they will immediately be productive at another company. When in reality the success of this person and their job performance highly depends on the company they work for.
How to avoid these pitfalls when recruiting graduates
Think twice about your hiring requirements
What I urge you to do is take a step back and reassess whether all of these requirements are absolutely necessary. Know and understand the difference between essential and desirable criteria. The more requirements you list, the more candidates you will end up unconsciously eliminating from your talent pool.
P.S. Check out this hiring guide from Homerun to learn more about creating a seamless internship hiring process!
Become an employer of choice
Everyone wants to work at a company that aligns with their values and beliefs. That’s why having a powerful & clear vision is the first step to ensuring that you attract (and retain) the right people. Especially when it comes to hiring recent grads, having a purpose-driven mission is a must. Here are some tips on how you can become the employer of choice:
- Don’t underestimate the importance of company culture
- Emphasize your commitment to ensuring DE&I
- Offer both professional & personal development
- Find a way to make your company stand out from the rest
- Offer an application experience that is innovative and appealing to individuals that are born digital.
Source graduates via different recruitment channels
Finding the right talent starts with knowing where to look for it. That’s why before sourcing graduates take into consideration that:
- Some job boards might be more effective than others
- Targetting multiple schools is better than targeting just one. This way you will be able to source more diverse candidates.
- Participating in campus events, whether it be career days or internship events, can broaden your talent pool.
- Social media is the new place to recruit. Try sourcing graduates through different social media channels: Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, even TikTok.
Look beyond the CV: because past experience is not the only determinant of job success
Research by SHRM highlights that when hiring especially for entry-level positions, it’s important to understand that someone’s past experience is not the only determinant of their future job success. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to understand that often hard skills can be taught on the job, whereas personality, behaviour and cognitive abilities cannot.
If you want to hire the best of the best, consider looking beyond educational requirements or past work experience – hire more for skills & potential. A great way to do this is by using pre-employment assessments as they allow you to focus on what matters most: organizational fit, culture, behavioural traits and cognitive abilities when on your next hiring round. Continue reading to see how Equalture can help you with this!
This is how Equalture can help
Here at Equalture, we develop gamified psychometric tests that help companies make better hiring decisions. Our games not only assess the cognitive abilities, behaviour and personality of candidates but also your current teams.
All in a fun, objective, data-backed and reliable way to allow you to hire the best out of the best!
Get in touch with us & we’ll gladly tell you more about it!
Cheers, Anete
