Is the war for graduate talent over?
07/07/2010, Author: Alan Redman
Yesterday’s survey results from the Association of Graduate Recruiters that the number of applications per graduate vacancy has risen to nearly 70 this year is only surprising because it seems low based on my experiences with graduate recruiters.
One retailer I work with received over 3 times this number of applications per vacancy during their 2009/2010 scheme - I can’t see this decreasing this year.
I think the bigger issue is that surely we can finally call off the ‘War for Talent’ in graduate recruitment. Unlike other well known wars on abstract nouns (‘terror’, ‘drugs’ etc) the talent war is a metaphor that surely can’t be sustained in the face of these figures.
These are golden days to be a graduate recruiter. Never has there been a more plentiful pool of high quality candidates to recruit from. It is no longer a case of numerous employers fighting over a limited graduate talent supply. The tables have been turned - now the talent is fighting over the limited supply of graduate jobs. It is a time of plenty; we are shooting graduate-fish in a barrel.
(If you’re not recruiting this year I’ve got nothing for you. Except perhaps to stress that there has never been a better time to recruit so maybe you should be).
As anglers of graduate fish the challenge is to be using the most accurate fishing tools; you’re going to need the sharpest shooter to snare the best graduate fish from the barrel. The trouble is when you open a graduate vacancy the response is more like trawling an ocean of graduate talent. With a sniper rifle.
Perhaps it’s a good time to abandon the fish metaphor.
But the point remains - you are in a great place in terms of hiring the best talent because of the shortage of competition in the market and plentiful supply. But to do this successfully you need the right process and tools in place. Here’s the top 5 techniques deployed by effective graduate employers in times of fish/barrel graduate recruitment:
1. Carry on attracting. Just because these are days of plenty doesn’t mean you should put your feet up in terms of communicating the distinctive career opportunities you offer to graduates.
2. Be ready for the rush. You are going to get a lot more applications. You need to be ready to deal with the volume and not lose any diamond candidates as a result of an overwhelmed recruitment funnel. Why ask for CVs if you can’t possibly have the resources to review them all effectively?
3. Use the sharpest sifting tools. Insisting on a 2:1 will cut down the numbers; but the same AGR survey shows that nearly 80% of graduate recruiters are employing the same sifting technique. Does this level of academic achievement actually correlate with subsequent job performance? My instinct is probably not. Why not use sharper, more performance specific sifting criteria to get the numbers down? This will also differentiate you from 80% of graduate employers, give you a bigger potential pool of candidates to choose from and avoid missing any great candidates with a 2:2.
4. Deploy multiple online assessments. Whether or not you choose to sift using the 2:1 approach you need to ensure that your online application process includes a variety of sifting techniques to accurately pinpoint the most talented candidates. The most powerful sift comprises online psychometrics (tailored or bespoke to your specific organisation) with a scored application form (not CV; these just contain what the candidate wants to tell you, not what you want to know) and multiple opportunities for self-selection (enable non-suitable candidates to recognise their lack of fit with the job early on and remove themselves from the process).
5. Make courageous hiring decisions. By this I mean relax and don’t rush to fill your vacancies. There is more talent right now; you can be choosier. If no candidates look good enough at the end of an assessment process you should throw them back in rather than accept second-best.
Which brings us nicely back to a fish metaphor. Throw back the tiddlers; keep the big ones; and don’t let any get away.
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