Reviewing Your Graduate Recruitment Program
Collecting Statistics
The obvious way to provide feedback is to look back at all your records, to see if any planned activities didn't turn out as you expected. There are many questions that you should ask yourself relating to the working documents that you will have used and should have kept.
For example:
- If you calculated your required filter ratios at the beginning, how did the real ones match up with what you expected?
- Did you pass more or fewer candidates through one of the filters than you expected, and how did this affect the subsequent process?
- Was your expectation for the number you would put forward to the final stage from a specific university actually realistic?
- Should you amend your list of preferred institutions to reflect those from which you have recruited?
- Did the group exercise you devised actually provide the information you wanted?
- Which of the advertising media provided the biggest number of students who passed through to the last stage?
- Did any interviewers assess candidates differently from the others? For example, did one interviewer recommend a number of candidates for the final assessment centre who were not up to the standard required?
It is extremely important to hold onto all recruitment documentation. This ‘trackability’ will make the process easier next time and will also show your superiors what you’ve done and how you did it. Record your views of the process as you go along, perhaps in the form of a spreadsheet. You may have found that you did not plan enough time between the invitation letters and the assessment centres, thus denying you the opportunity to invite new candidates to take the place of those dropping out.
There are some easy statistical checks that you really should do. You should monitor the way that gender differences, ethnic differences and people with disabilities are reflected in the different stages of your recruitment process. Is there a part of the process where, for example, a smaller proportion of men are recommended for a subsequent assessment than were processed at an earlier stage? If you wish to be recognised as an equal opportunity employer, this is one of the checks you should make.
There are quite a few recruitment software programs on the market. They are easy to use and take the effort out of setting up databases and spreadsheets – you just need to insert the information. These programs also give structure to the process, as well as helping with planning, and provide a valuable indicator of performance and productivity when a graduate’s longer term performance is compared to their initial assessment.
Another useful form of feedback is a survey presented to determine your incumbents’ views on their recruitment, induction and career development plans. Surveys can be conducted internally by questionnaire and interview, although an externally conducted survey usually provides more honest feedback. Surveys are useful as they may alert you to a potential retention problem, and they demonstrate your commitment to the graduate recruitment and development process.
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