Conducting a Graduate Recruitment Program

Targeting the Right Graduate Recruits

Along with reducing the number of application forms from students who probably won't be successful in the recruitment process, concentrating recruitment effort at a relatively small number of institutions is an another way of capitalising on the resources available.

A reduction in the number of universities where, for instance, you make presentations or attend Careers Fairs, allows you time and money to build stronger relationships with the universities and departments you do select. The difficulty comes in knowing which institutions will provide you with candidates you want. If you've recruited before, the universities of previous graduates can help, but remember that your requirements may have changed, graduates may have been selected using critera that is now inappropriate or out-of-date, and indeed the university course itself may well have altered.

There are a number of sources of help (apart from your network). Managers within the business area where the graduates are destined will have a view, particularly on technical matters. But avoid the 'That's the university I went to, so it must be good' syndrome. Look at university handbooks and department course outlines, and match them to the technical skills required. You can accept the popular views (which are sometimes unsubstantiated) of a university's excellence, but remember that your requirements may not match those who promote these popular views. You have to consider the expectation of the graduates themselves too. It is no use in the long run to waste time and effort on someone who aspires to more (or less) than you can offer. What you offer must match the aspirations of a recruit.

In time, you will develop your own list of preferred universities and departments, but you should continually update the list, depending on your changing requirements. Remember that targeting is used to highlight students from certain departments who might be more suitable than others. This applies equally well to those who have left that particular department, and perhaps taken a year off. Don't just use your targeted universities as an administrative convenience to quickly eliminate some students from the process.

It is tempting, once you've produced your list of preferred courses, simply to reject any candidates from other departments. You need to consider what this means to your graduate population – that it will reduce the variety of your workforce. There are many high quality students (measured according to your own criteria) who did not attend any of your preferred institutions, and they should not be dismissed as a matter of convenience but purely for pragmatic reasons. For further course information visit the various university websites directly. These can be accessed from the Campus Contacts section of this website.

Knowing What You’re Looking For

It is very important to have a clear understanding of what you're looking for in your new recruits. If you don't know, cannot write down precisely or tell others how to recognise the people you want to recruit, you probably won't employ the right people. For example, if you are recruiting graduates to undertake a technical role, do they all need to have leadership skills? If your recruits have these skills, but are not then allowed to use them, what will they do? They will leave.

There are a number of ways you can arrive at an understanding of your requirements, but it depends on how much time (and perhaps money) you have to devote to the problem. The first decision is whether the graduates need to have certain technical skills, because they're going to undertake specific technical roles (at least in the short-term), or whether you are looking for people from any discipline – but with proven intellectual ability and the capacity to learn. Technical skills are relatively easy to quantify, and most CVs and standard application forms are full of them. A good indication of intellectual ability can also be gleaned from an applicant’s CV and academic record.

In addition to the above, many organisations want their employees to possess a range of personal and interpersonal abilities which, broadly speaking, fall into three generic areas:

• interpersonal skills and leadership
• analysis and implementation
• results orientation and planning.

Which of these skills will your graduates need to have? When you have discovered this, you need to be able to recognise them, rate each individual's ability and rank candidates according to a scale. But how do you find out what you're looking for? The first step is to understand what the graduate is going to do in your organisation in the medium- and long-term (assuming that the short-term is going to be a period of learning and adjustment).

By careful examination of what makes some people successful at these roles and others not, some distinguishing characteristics can be determined. Each of these characteristics can then be broken down to a logical sequence of increasing complexity and difficulty. You then end up with a series of continua, each of which describes personal abilities that contribute towards job performance.

This is a lengthy and time-consuming process. Check that it has not already been undertaken in your organisation before you begin, and perhaps bring someone into your organisation to do it for you. You can also learn a great deal from what has happened in other organisations. Again, networking can be extremely useful.