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Any recruitment process requires that applications be elicited whether via the internet, through the mail or through a third party recruiter. Requesting applications may be achieved in a number of different ways, and some will be more appropriate to your plans than others. Some organisations simply place an advertisement in a newspaper, while others may choose a number of different activities including sponsorship, work placements and Careers Fairs, as well as national advertisements. For more about applications go here*******************.

After application forms have been received, the candidates are taken through a sequence of selection activities. Usually there is some screening of the application form, perhaps a preliminary interview and possibly an assessment centre. Some or all of these stages may be missed out if the recruiter chooses, and other activities substituted in their place. At the end of these activities, the assessors choose their preferred candidate/s.

When the successful candidates have been identified, an offer is made and the candidates are obliged to accept or reject the offer.

Even in a relatively simple or ‘one-off’ recruitment activity, there are strong arguments for thorough and professional management of the process. Successful graduate recruitment programs are expensive – unsuccessful ones even more so. Furthermore, those applicants may one day be customers or suppliers. Lessons learned need to be acted upon to initiate change.

Clearly, in the case of organisations that recruit annually or in large numbers, analysis of the process is vital prior to commencement of each new recruitment cycle.

The graduate recruitment process should not exist in isolation from other activities, internally or externally. Gathering feedback provides information on how the process can be improved, from sources internal to the process. Questionnaires, for example, completed by applicants and university department staff, can also provide feedback from outside your organisation.

There are also more pragmatic issues to pursue: agreeing on a start date, finalising a long-term development plan and conveying information gleaned during the recruitment process to those who manage the recruit's development.

Added to the above steps are the feedback process, and the induction and development stage. Note that the process doesn't end here: clearly graduate development is a long-term activity, and the recruits of this year may be involved in the process in future years.

Project planning is paramount. Underlying any project activities are measures designed to ensure that objectives such as complying with time and cost constraints are met. Process management is also very important. For most recruitment activities, some form of control and process management (paper-based and/or computer-based) is employed to manage communication and other parts of the project (expenditure and billable hours, for example). This control mechanism produces reports on activities carried out so far, provides easy ways of determining which stage of the process a particular candidate has reached, as well as many other areas of process management. This means that any recruitment-related activity can be tracked at any time.

It is worth remembering that anyone taking part in a graduate recruitment activity will gain valuable personal and professional growth. This may take the form of exposure to new computer systems, the experience of managing the assessment centres or attending courses to qualify as a facilitator of personality questionnaires. Nearly everyone involved with the recruitment process comes into contact with senior managers within the organisation, hence there is the opportunity to raise your profile and gain insight into how senior management operates. The personal and professional growth prepares an individual for a higher role in the next recruitment process, or for a more general role where the skills and experiences gained will be extremely valuable.

Another control is quality assurance, which involves taking a series of measures which ensure that you achieve what you want, and includes making adjustments to the process while it is continuing. It does not rely on quality control measures, that is, achieving an end result and realising you have not got what you wanted, which are a waste of time and effort in this context.

This article was originally published as part of Graduate Careers Australia’s graduate recruitment guide The Graduate Recruitment Handbook for Australia and New Zealand.
Author: Karen Sims
© 2002-04 Graduate Careers Australia

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The Generic Graduate Recruitment Process

Overview of a Typical Graduate Recruitment Program