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Graduate recruitment: Strategies for hiring new graduates

Evaluating graduate candidates requires measuring potential and fit rather than experience.

Attract and select the best graduate talent

It can be difficult to fill entry-level roles with early career professionals who likely have limited experience. Investing in early talent management can feel like a gamble. How do you know which candidates have the highest potential? How do you evaluate a candidate with no past experience in the job? What are you supposed to measure?

In often dense candidate pools filled with people looking to start their careers, tailoring your selection process to focus on potential is key.

Our top 6 tips for successful graduate hiring

woman posing with hands on hips

1. Online screening tools

Screening tools can help narrow down your applicant pool. Make use of assessment technology to convey your message and show off your branding. Keep in mind that the candidate experience is crucial – it should be smooth and engaging and should offer candidates feedback in return for their time.

2. Personalise your approach

Considering the impact of graduate characteristics on the expectations of their first job and workplace, employers should personalise their graduate selection programmes. This shows candidates that you are flexible, open, and willing to accommodate specific needs.

3. Be clear – your expectations and offerings

Be clear about what you can offer to your graduates from the outset. Lack of clarity or over-selling can lead to confusion and unrealistic expectations. Remember, economic prospects and career growth are crucial for current graduates; so emphasise your offered development opportunities, career paths and extrinsic rewards.

4. Show that you care

Show you care about your people, their job satisfaction and career development. If you want to retain them, you’ll need to demonstrate from the start that you appreciate their commitment to your company, as well as to its mission and values.

5. Highlight work-life balance measures

Graduates entering the workforce today are much more likely to seek a work/life balance than many of their predecessors. To differentiate yourself, you need to show them that you can offer flexibility where possible.

6. Emphasise social responsibility

As an employer, you can best attract young graduates if you put forward your mission and how you serve society as a whole.

Proven expertise in new graduate recruitment

Freshening up graduate assessment exercises

How the Co-operative group partnered with Talogy to implement two new assessments designed to give candidates an interesting, yet business-relevant experience during the hiring process

The exercises now offer greater consistency between assessor ratings

Female graduate hires increased from 26% to 64%

Streamlining recruitment at Currys

How Britain’s largest electronics retailer streamlined their graduate assessment process amid a high volume of applications received annually

Identifying successful entry-level manufacturing team members

How an American tool manufacturing company engaged Talogy to improve the quality of their entry-level manufacturing workforce

The top scorers were almost 3 times less likely to be involved in a safety-related incident

Since initiating the design of the exercises, Talogy have been great to work with … The quality of the exercises is excellent and really reflects our organisation’s values — and all this was delivered well ahead of schedule. – Rachel Rotheram, Graduate Program Manager, The Co-operative Group

Why Talogy

Talent management solutions from start to finish. With constant innovation and endless creativity, Talogy crafts screening, selection, and development solutions. Talogy can help you customise a complete talent management programme. Solving for the talent challenges of today, and tomorrow.