Graduate Recruitment Opinion Piece - Mike Fetters, Totaljobs Graduate Sales Director

Recruiting graduates is becoming harder and harder, with companies deluged with applications for their graduate positions as the number of students completing university courses continues to increase. Graduates are also churning out ëidentikití CVs, with similar results and almost all having taken a gap year. As someone who spends a lot of time talking with recruiters and who also gets to see a high volume of graduate CVs on a daily basis, due to my role with totaljobs.com, I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight some of the main challenges recruiters currently face in identifying and attracting the best candidates, as well as offering some potential solutions.

Academic results
Candidates are achieving more 2:1 (and higher) degrees than ever before. Recruiters need to delve deeper and understand what graduates have done with their spare time. For example, has the applicant been an active member of a club or society, had a part time job or perhaps volunteered for a charity? All of these can help candidates develop softer skills like communication, team work and leadership, as well as teaching them how to manage their time more effectively.

Universities need, in my view, to take more responsibility when it comes to educating students about the benefits of taking part in these activities, as well as encouraging greater student participation in clubs, societies and volunteer schemes. There is also an opportunity for recruiters to engage with potential candidates earlier: exploiting these ëdown timesí by helping graduates prepare for the workplace.

ëGeneration Yí behaviour
Recruitment organisations need to bear in mind that they are targeting graduates from a generation that accesses information differently. Current graduates are ëdigital nativesí: internet savvy and information hungry. Recruiters need to meet their needs with informative, inclusive and engaging marketing campaigns across multiple online platforms.

More importantly, and as mentioned already, recruiters need to hit university campuses earlier. By engaging with jobseekers from the beginning of their academic career, employers can introduce them to a variety of real-life work scenarios and issues (either virtually or through placements/sandwich courses). This will help bridge the skills gap: covering off the areas not currently addressed by academic institutions.

Apparent lack of quality
Though they might be digitally aware, it is clear from looking at applications and CVs on the totaljobs.com site* that graduates are ill prepared when it comes to creating a compelling application or devising a CV that will encourage recruiters to shortlist them. The quality of talent is there, itís just not being communicated effectively.

Employers, as well as universities, need to do more to educate graduates about what they want to see from them. Social media platforms add another dimension, by allowing graduates to present a more complete picture of their skills, attributes and ambitions. Obviously, clear boundaries need to be defined so that they do not feel as though employers are prying into their private lives and scrutinising everything they say or do.

Competition for the best talent
Often the only competitive edge an employer has is the creativity and innovation it injects into its attraction campaign. Some of the best attraction activities companies can deliver consist of getting students involved in competitions, games or setting up a small business to demonstrate and develop their commercial skills.

Companies need to get creative and ensure that they are using online platforms and rich media content to tap into Generation Yís habits. An example of a company that has done this well is Aviva. They produced a mini horror film (delivered via YouTube and various other channels) featuring graduates trapped in dull offices where ëhauntedí machines kept killing them. The strap line was ìescape the horrorî and it clearly resonated with the graduate audience. In fact, it was so successful they won an award for it.

To take another example, somewhat closer to home, GradU8, the totaljobs virtual fair offering, received 54,000 visits and 6,000 applications in the week it was run. By comparison, the average graduate fair typically has around 8,000 visitors through its doors in two days!

I have highlighted some of the main challenges recruiters currently face; there are more but these are, in my view, the key areas to tackle. The core message to recruiters is: get involved earlier with potential candidates. In addition, they need to revisit their existing attraction efforts and look at whether they are tapping into current graduate behaviour and habits. The potential is there, it just needs to be uncovered by exploring the right channels. Relying on tried and trusted methods simply is not good enough. With the tough economic climate and government plans to further increase the number of students entering the higher education sector, the pipeline of graduate talent is not going to slow anytime soon. Which means identifying the best candidates is not going to get any easier. My main concern is that if we do not look after our brightest graduates, we will begin to suffer a ëbrain drainí as they choose to further their careers abroad instead.

*Totaljobs currently have in excess of 352,000 registered graduate candidates. This database is cleansed every 12 months.