How To Successfully Recruit College Graduates

College graduates fresh from school can be a great resource for a company willing to invest in training and development.

However, recruiting graduates can often be a daunting task as it’s not always easy to identify who will be the right fit for your business.

An A-grade student may not necessarily be the person you are looking for so if you are looking to hire someone straight from college, it’s a good idea to have a recruitment strategy in place.

Below are a selection of creative tactics to employ to ensure you hire the right graduates:

1. Be smart with your hiring calendar

To recruit college graduates, you need to schedule your recruitment calendar to align with the academic year. This ensures the availability of new talent in the market at the time you are hiring. Most graduates that are looking for jobs are wanting to start at the end of the academic year. Begin your recruitment efforts early so you have enough time to find the right fit for your business and take your time.

2. Attract with innovative technology

Today’s emerging generations in the job market are so at ease with technology. If you can demonstrate that you are comfortable adopting smart and innovative business processes, you will inherently be able to attract more talent who will want to work for you. This doesn’t mean you have to try and overcomplicate things by using unnecessary tech for the sake of it.

It could be as simple as using smart business management applications like Jobber to enable your workforce to work at maximum productivity and efficiency. Taking this a step further, you can simply ensure you are using templated documents that promote best practices such as this free contractor invoice template to follow up with clients instead of pulling documentation manually each time.

3. Offer a flexible work environment

Unlike the previous generations, those of today value flexible options in their work environments. So, to get the best out of college graduates, you must be able to demonstrate your organization’s flexibility.

4. Use multi-faceted sources

Part of successful graduate recruitment is knowing which places to look. Instead of searching in one university, you can source from multiple campuses offering the same programs. Today, there are many platforms where you can advertise your vacancies to reach a vast audience. This increases your chances of finding top-tier talent.

Note that recruitment doesn’t stop at on-campus job fairs. You must research where to best reach these students, including avenues like your company website career section, professional platforms, and recruitment software.

Internet technology helps your company communicate and share recruitment information with the graduates. Also, you can look at the team member referral programs, headhunting firms, and professional clubs.

5. Rethink the hiring requirements

If you were to ask any graduate about their job application process, they’ll tell you they found a great entry-level job, only to fall short because of the years of experience needed. As a company, to be successful in recruiting college graduates, you need to be able to recognize potential.

Hands-on experience may fall short because these candidates are only just entering the job market. Look at the transferable skills and what the students did in school besides studying.

Look at their part-time jobs, internships, and volunteer work to determine if they’re a good choice for your company. This helps you to gauge the graduate’s skills in equity, leadership, self-improvement, and professionalism, which are transferable. 

6. Be clear on the company vision

The current Gen Z and Millennials focus on employers whose mission aligns with their values and goals. In this regard, clearly define your values, mission, and what your company stands for. With this, you easily find graduates who resonate with your ideas, and they’ll help bring your company mission to life.

This group wants to do what’s meaningful and pushes the company forward. They want to fully contribute to the organization’s greater goal. So, have a clear mission, and your recruitment will be far more successful. 

7. Use objective assessments in recruiting

A major part of being successful in your graduate recruitment process is having the proper selection process in place. It’s vital to be objective in the selection process to uncover the qualities of your applicants and increase talent diversity. Being objective means you have the right questions and avoid being biased.

In essence, objectivity removes any bias regarding age, race, or gender in the recruitment process. It ensures you pick candidates by merit and not personal preference. The recruitment questions should be structured to accommodate all individuals.

8. Employ social media screening

Currently, most 18-29-year-olds use one social media platform or another. With this platform, you can easily engage and find recent college graduates. Graduate students not only belong to social networks for entertainment but also use them for job hunting.

Essentially, social media can help successful recruitment by helping you brand your company, find statistics on what graduates look for, and show off your current workforce to attract college graduates. On the other hand, you can use social media to screen the graduates and find out if they fit into your organization. You could assess their values and ideologies by looking at their posts and comments. 

Conclusion

Regardless of the lack of experience, college graduates have untapped skills that can really benefit your company’s workforce. Remember, these recruits are a different generation from your existing employees. Hence, they’ll offer your company a current and innovative perspective that’ll push your organization forward and close the skills gap in the personnel.

Through the strategies above for recruiting recent college graduates, your business has a chance at continuity and great management in the future. These recruits will gain skills and experience as they work for your organization, forming its legacy. So, go ahead and build relationships with the universities in your area and pick from their graduates whenever you have an applicable open position.

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