Exam room to boardroom: should graduate recruitment be your business priority?
According to the SAGRA Employer Survey, graduate vacancies are set to increase by 9.8% in 2014. However, despite recruiters continuing to receive record volumes of applications for graduate roles, we frequently hear from employers that there is a shortage of high-calibre graduate applicants with the right skills.
Worryingly, companies are also losing considerable amounts of money and resources because of poor graduate retention: our research suggests that nearly one in four graduate hires have no intention of staying in a particular position for longer than 12 months.
These numbers don’t stack up and employers are faced with a candidate conundrum:
- How can they be sure the graduate talent that they’ve selected has the right capabilities for the role today and the business tomorrow?
- Are they motivated to forge their career at the company that’s chosen them?
- How can businesses find the best talent before their competitors?
Graduate selection 101
There is strong evidence to suggest that previous academic performance is not an indicator of future potential or success in the workplace. However, a large majority of employers is still using matric results only as the basis for their selection. Some employers even go to the extent of not considering any graduates unless they have a pass rate of 65% and above. It’s a bit risky to base a selection decision on academic results alone especially with the challenges facing South Africa’s education system.
Recruiters may be focusing too heavily on the ‘best’ and ‘brightest’ graduates in terms of cognitive ability. There’s no guarantee, however, that this top talent will perform in the workplace. This approach is widely adopted across South Africa and could be creating unprecedented levels of competition and demand for the same talent, which also indicates that businesses aren’t opening the door to a wealth of other capable candidates with great potential.
Measuring competencies, softer skills and personality traits, alongside cognitive ability, will provide a more holistic view of each graduate, how they will fit into organisation and predict their future success.
Understand their motivation and aspirations
Today’s graduates’ workplace values and expectations certainly differ from those of their predecessors. The strongest motivational factors for generation Y are:
- Competition,
- Progression, and
- Personal growth.
To keep this demographic engaged, companies need to facilitate sustained career progression for these graduates and encourage them to advance within the organisation. These insights also need to be reflected in the way that work is rewarded and how contributions are recognised.
Get ahead of the curve
All too often, the structure of a graduate scheme is based on what’s been done previously. The focus should be on developing broader, more flexible talent pools to strengthen talent pipelines and lessen succession risks.
Organisations also need to remember to ‘keep it real’ and graduate campaigns need to reflect the organisations’ brand and culture accurately. Graduates see through a façade and hone in on any mismatches between the external brand and culture, and the image organisations project on campus visits.
There is no doubt that companies need to be placing their graduate strategy higher on the talent agenda. How organisations introduce current and future generations of graduates into the workplace will be critical to the future success of the business. There continues to be exceptional talent emerging and those businesses which understand what talent they need and what motivates these individuals will be well placed to achieve their organisational goals and impact the bottom line.
