Member Article

How to hire – and retain – recent graduates

Chief Operating Officer at Software Advice, Austin Merritt, writes that there are a few important points to bear in mind if you are thinking about hiring recent graduates.

Too often employers are left with graduates who simply aren’t prepared for the working world, because they haven’t done the necessary homework to identify what to look for when hiring them. Below are some pointers on how to hire – and retain – recent college graduates.

There are many challenges involved in hiring graduates which employers need to be aware of. For starters, they might be prone to job hopping when they land their first job, they may be disillusioned with the working world, and they also won’t have any previous work experience to compare their current position to.

This all means they could be a potential flight risk, so employers really need to be careful about who they hire and ensure that the adequate screening systems are in place.

How to Hire the Right Graduates Successfully:

• Employers must realise that they are looking for raw talent above all else, and develop a hiring process that will help identify those raw talents in candidates.
• During the interview process, try to determine if candidates know what they really want to do, look out graduates who have already faced many challenges, ask about their near and long-term goals and their role models, and make sure that they’re committed to the job at hand for a minimum of two years.
• Don’t pay too much attention to academic performance, what a candidate majored in, or whether they have completed an internship. None of these are a decent indication of the graduate’s future career path and professional goals.

Remember, from an employer’s perspective, you’re going to have to interview several candidates before you find the right one. Furthermore, there are very few recent graduates out there today who will live up to these criteria.

However, if you know what to look for before and during the interview stages, you’ll already be separating the bad apples from the good ones. If you remain patient and persevere with your candidate hunt, bearing in mind what to look for and what to avoid, you’ll be able to hire and retain valuable talent within your organisation.

Article written by Kim Grove, taken from EmployersJobs.com’s blog.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by employersjobs.com .