Written by Alanna Harrington, Managing Research Consultant
Hiring recent graduates can be a challenging, yet incredibly rewarding endeavour. Tapping into this demographic can often be the spark that your organisation needs to keep moving forwards in a rapidly changing climate. Therefore it’s important to design a recruiting process that gets to the heart of what’s important to these young professionals whilst properly assessing their skills. So, which competencies should you be measuring to predict success in a group that has little to no work experience? Our experts surveyed hundreds of early career professionals and hiring managers to design a solution that addresses this need.
Challenges of hiring early career candidates
Before designing a selection process for early career roles, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the competencies and skills required for success. This can be challenging for several reasons:
- Hiring early career professionals is just the beginning of how to build a talent pipeline. Many organisations aim to hire individuals who not only possess the right competencies and skills for their initial role but also show potential for future success in the organisation.
- Early career professionals are often hired into training schemes or programmes where they might rotate between different roles and departments, thus requiring a broad skill set.
- The rapid pace of technological and societal advancements means that the competencies and skills required for these types of roles are changing frequently.
A multi-faceted approach to understanding early career competencies
With these challenges in mind, we wanted to understand the requisite competencies and skills for early career roles. In doing this, we sought to identify a core model that balanced current role demands, the potential for future growth, and adaptability to the evolving workplace. To achieve this, we took a balanced approach that combined survey data and research with expertise and experience.
- Survey research: We conducted a global survey study seeking input from employees of these roles who are likely to be the most knowledgeable about the job requirements. We also surveyed managers who can have a broader perspective on how the requirements for the roles relate to organisational strategy.
- Scientific research: We reviewed scientific research conducted in this space over the past 10 years.
- Expert insights: We leveraged our expertise in this domain at Talogy by collecting importance ratings from our early talent subject matter experts and combined this with a review of job analyses we conducted for early career roles within the past five years.
Spotlight early career model
Combining these three data collection strategies, we arrived at a final model of 11 competencies and skills critical for success in early career roles, which we refer to as our ‘Spotlight’ model.
As represented above, this competency-based framework is grouped into two clusters: foundation and future. The foundation cluster of the Spotlight model represents key competencies that are essential for early career success and have been consistently linked to high performance across roles. The future cluster accounts for competencies and skills that are growing in importance. These skills will help prepare early career professionals for the changing nature of work and develop into roles with greater responsibility in the future.
11 essential competencies and skills for early career success
1. Teamwork
Teamwork emerged as a top priority from both early career professionals and managers surveyed during our research. It aligns closely with building relationships which was consolidated under this competency due to significant overlap. Collaborative work is vital in most early career roles, enabling individuals to contribute effectively within diverse teams. The importance of teamwork is supported by extensive research emphasising its role in fostering organisational success.
2. Concern for Others
Concern for others aligns with emotional intelligence, which research has shown adds incremental validity to predicting career success. Emotional intelligence wasn’t directly included in the manager and job holder surveys as it is considered a broader metacompetency, but related skills like empathy and the ability to embrace diversity fell just outside the top 10.
3. Communication
The ability to communicate effectively was consistently ranked among the top competencies by both employees and managers. Effective communication in the workplace helps facilitate the exchange of ideas, ensure clarity in expectations, and promote positive interactions. Research further substantiates the importance of communication in achieving team and individual goals.
4. Prioritising and Planning
This skill was identified from expert consensus and previous job analyses. It reflects the need for early career professionals to manage competing demands effectively. By demonstrating strong planning abilities, individuals can enhance productivity and ensure goal alignment.
5. Accountability
Accountability was a key competency endorsed by managers and experts for early careers. The ability to take ownership and responsibility is essential for success in hybrid and less-supervised work environments. It also encapsulates related competencies like quality focus and integrity that were highly rated by both groups of survey participants.
6. Drive for Results
While not featured in the top rankings by survey participants, drive for results was integrated into the model based on scientific research and expert insights. This competency is tied to conscientiousness and includes behaviours such as goal-setting, persistence, and self-regulation which are essential for not just early talent but high job performance and long-term career success.
7. Resilience
Resilience was highlighted through expert insights and scientific literature. While it did not appear as a top-ranking competency in the surveys, managers noted the importance of workplace resilience in preparing early career professionals for workplace realities and buffering against career shocks. Research also shows that resilience is vital in reducing turnover among young professionals.
8. Adaptability
In a rapidly changing work environment, adaptability is crucial. Both groups of survey participants highlighted this competency, reflecting its importance in helping early talent better handle transitions and embrace new challenges. Scientific literature also underscores adaptability as a key factor in maintaining strong performance amidst change.
9. Learning Agility
Learning agility was highly valued by early career professionals who recognise the importance of quickly acquiring and applying new skills. Experts and research support this as it underpins readiness for the unpredictable demands of future roles. Our survey findings suggest that managers may be overlooking the importance of learning agility and expecting too much of a finished product in their early career hires instead of valuing their strong motivation and capacity to learn.
10. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking was highly endorsed by job holders and managers in our surveys as an essential skill for early careers. It reflects the ability to analyse complex information, evaluate solutions, and make decisions, all of which are indispensable for navigating early career challenges and the future of work.
11. Creativity & Innovation
Scientific research identified creativity and innovation as an emerging competency for the future of work. Its importance lies in fostering new ideas and adapting to changing business landscapes. Young professionals who possess creativity and innovation are typically more equipped to handle rapid technological changes impacting the workplace and their roles specifically.
Spotlight on early careers: Adapting to evolving skills
Graduate hiring can be an effective but sometimes overlooked component of your talent acquisition strategy. Talogy’s Spotlight model is designed to help organisations properly assess recent grads by remaining flexible and acknowledging that the key competencies and skills required for early career success are evolving rapidly. While these 11 skills and competencies discussed above provide a solid foundation for assessing a wide range of roles, it’s also important for organisations to learn how to conduct a job analysis to ensure that their selection process aligns with the specific demands of each role and graduate position.
