Graduate candidates are becoming a more vital aspect of the modern economy by the day, and modern companies can’t afford to miss out when it comes to recruiting the best talent. Despite how vital it is that you recruit and properly train the best graduate candidates, however, many of today’s HR departments are at a loss when it comes to how to properly nurture these candidates, and make foolish mistakes that end up costing them big in the long run.
How should HR departments be nurturing their graduate candidates, then, and what are the key steps towards creating a talent pipeline that will ensure you only get the best of the best? Always keep the human nature of your graduate candidates at the forefront of your mind, and be prepared to invest properly in your human capital, and you’ll soon be nurturing the greatest candidates who have the most potential.
Companies aren’t doing enough for candidates
Today’s companies simply aren’t doing enough for their graduate candidates, and recent political developments like Brexit are only making things harder. After all, a whopping three-quarters of students surveyed reported that they had grim expectations about a limited job market in the future thanks to Brexit, and many other economic and political dilemmas facing today’s youth are being unaddressed by those companies in charge of recruiting them. So how can your HR department focus on welcoming in these candidates, and nurturing them in such a way that they become valuable and permanent members of your team?
It all comes down to workplace culture, and investing properly in the employees of tomorrow; today’s companies aren’t necessarily welcoming to new employees, and youthful workers in particular often feel out of place in modern workplaces, especially those that continue to shun tech despite it’s critical role in the modern economy. Your company shouldn’t be buying the latest gadgets for no reason, but if you’ve yet to modernize your workspace and ensure that all your employees have the tools they need to succeed, you can’t possibly hope to lure in those graduate candidates who could become the leaders of tomorrow.
A pivotal part of securing the best talent is understanding that, while you may not be able to hire a particular graduate candidate now, you could possibly use their services in the future, and keep in touch with them so that later on you can make them an alluring offer. Too many of today’s HR departments are failing to keep in touch with those graduate candidates they didn’t initially select for a position, which leads to a serious shortage of talent later when a position suddenly becomes vacant. Don’t burn your bridges with those candidates who didn’t immediately get hired by your company, and keep engaged with them (particularly on social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn), and you’ll have a secure pool of talent to tap into in the future.
Check out the best practices in graduate student recruitment, and you’ll see some common trends; namely, those companies that are the best at it are incredibly engaging on social media, and often have a strong web presence. After all, why would a graduate candidate find your workplace appealing if it felt old-fashioned, hadn’t gone through an incorporation process and didn’t even have a presence on social media platforms which are essentially imperative to modern networking and business?
Don’t stretch your staff too thin
Far too often, today’s HR departments are failing because they’re spreading their resources too thin, especially when it comes to the workload they’re placing on their best staffers. You shouldn’t expect your HR employees to be able to tackle too many graduate candidates at once, and should stress a fair and balanced workload if you’re not to overstress them, thereby dooming their jobs to failure from the get-go. Graduate candidates want a speed up system that doesn’t leave them hanging, meaning your employees need to be able to dish out swift responses and create meaningful connections, which they can’t do if their bosses have put too much on their plates.
Furthermore, many modern HR departments are shunning old ways of recruiting that are still relevant today; job fairs, for instance, are regularly ignored despite the fact that they remain as crucial as ever, and you may be surprised at how many great candidates you encounter at one. A double-headed effort that sees your staffers exploring job fairs in person while browsing for candidates on social media sites will virtually guarantee you meet the best graduate candidates out there.
Above all else, don’t be afraid to invest in your graduate candidate’s futures; if you’re not offering fair wages, decent benefits packages, and a diverse workplace where they all feel welcome, your efforts will be doomed from the start. Today’s graduate candidates don’t want to be pandered too; they merely want a fair chance to show off their skills. Offer them that opportunity, and you’ll be up to your neck in stellar recruits in no time.
