Attracting graduates to your business: Why create a graduate talent pool?

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Considering creating a talent pool of graduates, but unsure as to how much this will benefit your company?

Are you wondering, ‘why do companies hire fresh graduates over candidates with more experience’?

There are actually countless benefits of hiring new graduates and attracting graduates to your business, even if this may not seem clear at first.

And while creating a talent pool can be useful, it’s crucial to understand the importance of hiring new grads in the first place.

So, we’ll first address the benefits of hiring new graduates, then discuss how to attract graduates to your company, via graduate talent pools and other graduate talent solutions.

We’ll guide you on how to recruit graduates, revealing expertise on why talent pool is important.

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Why hire fresh graduates?

Hiring recent graduates is undeniably valuable to companies.

The graduate market is a source of intelligent, dynamic individuals who are willing to take on responsibilities and grow through your company.

Graduates tend to look for roles with development opportunities, as they are at the learning stage of their career. Therefore, there is a good chance you’ll be hiring a strong employee for the long-term.

Therefore, graduate talent acquisition is useful across multiple industries and different types of businesses.

 

Startups

Having graduates in your talent pool is very advantageous to larger companies, but it is particularly instrumental to hire graduates at your startup. One of the main things that link a graduate and a startup is their equal drive and ambition. Both parties are looking to develop and expand their opportunities, and can work together to help one another achieve this. 

 

IT Sector

Employing graduates in the IT sector can bridge the skills gap in tech-heavy roles. If your company invests in training and development of new graduate hires, then these employees will already have the skills required for the more technical roles further down the line. This saves your company precious time and money in hiring and training entirely new candidates. This also benefits the graduate themself, as it provides them with a clear progression plan and opportunities for development. This maintains employee stability and promotes company loyalty.

FinTech

It’s no secret that tech makes up a massive part of how a company functions. In an industry that is focused on technology, it’s that much more important that your employees are efficient in working digitally and are quick to learn new tech skills. Employing graduates at your tech company means that they will rarely require intensive IT training. This is particularly important in more fast-paced companies, such as those within the FinTech industry.

SDR

The sales industry is consistently fast-paced and often target-driven. For a candidate to thrive within this role, they need to be able to meet the demands of the industry. As eager and keen-to-learn candidates, graduates come well equipped with the skills needed for this type of environment. Graduates will be an ideal fit for your SDR team as they tend to have a lot of drive, ambition and patience, qualities which are crucial when it comes to an SDR role.

 

Short-term benefits of building a graduate talent pool

 

Let’s start with the short-term benefits of hiring new graduates. 

Creating a graduate talent programme and hiring recent graduates is a surefire way to positively impact your company.

But what exactly are these impacts? 

  • Fresh graduate recruits tend to ask lots of questions when joining a new company, bringing a new perspective to the table. 

    This is the beauty of hiring recent graduates – they can help to reassess dated approaches in your company.

    They can find improvements for your company that you may never have considered before.

    It’s important to remain current in today’s business climate, which is something a fresh graduate will already know how to do. 

    Graduate hires are also very willing to learn.

    As they are new to the world of business, joining a company offers the chance to gain as many skills as possible.

    So, lack of enthusiasm will never be an issue. 

    Make sure to ask your graduates for feedback on their onboarding experience.

    This way, you can continue to improve the process with future hires.

    A positive onboarding experience is incredibly important in gaining employee trust and retaining graduate hires.

  • It’s not always important whether the degree a graduate has studied at university applies directly to your company or not.

    The fact that a candidate has a degree under their belt means they come well prepared to the workplace with a vast range of transferable skills. 

    The majority of university degrees involve enhancing important skills that can be applied later down the line in the world of work. 

    These transferable skills can include research, communication, teamwork, and leadership skills.

    These are all valuable abilities that a fresh graduate recruit can transfer directly into the role as soon as they begin working within your company. 

    The more graduates you hire when expanding the graduate talent pool, the more transferable skills these candidates will collectively be able to bring to the table.

  • Having spent a few years transitioning from the workload at school to university, graduates will already be well versed in adapting to a different pace of work. 

    Graduate hires learn very quickly.

    The ability to take on numerous individual tasks and frequently switch between different responsibilities is invaluable. 

    By expanding your graduate talent pool through building a graduate talent programme, you will create a team that is enthusiastic and willing to learn and adapt.

    This will help to improve your business method in ways your company may not have tried before. 

    Establishing a graduate talent pool has countless short-term benefits that will come into effect almost immediately upon taking on graduate recruits.

Long-term benefits of building a graduate talent pool

By employing graduates, your company will begin to see long-term benefits of hiring graduates over time.

Graduates are digitally aware and can have a very positive impact on the lasting culture of your company.

Let’s take a look at how fresh graduates can strengthen your company in the long-term.

  • Recent graduates have likely grown up alongside the development of technology, so using tech and social media platforms will be second nature to them. 

    Social media specifically is hugely important for companies in today’s digital landscape.

    On the whole, graduates are more likely to actively use social media platforms in their personal life.

    They will be exposed to brands more regularly across more channels. 

    As a result, graduates can use this insight to contribute to an effective social media strategy and build a presence within the digital landscape.

    This will see countless benefits in the long-term, including higher client exposure and brand awareness.

  • In recent years, the conversation surrounding mental health has become a huge priority, whether in the workplace or daily life. 

    Younger generations have utilised social media to bring this topic to the forefront, highlighting its importance from a fresh, open-minded perspective.

    As a result, graduates are much more likely to prioritise mental wellbeing in the workplace. 

    92% of graduating students say employers should offer mental health benefits, with 36% saying they would apply first to companies that offer mental health benefits. 

    As a result, recruitment for graduates will have a positive impact on your company culture as it will help bring this open-minded attitude into your workplace. 

    Employing graduates can therefore help your business establish stronger mental health awareness and wellbeing resources, such as the option for flexible working.

  • Hiring first-level managers externally is often very difficult.

    Even if their management skills are strong and they have years of experience, they lack knowledge about your team and your corporate culture.

    Entry-level recruits allow you to, in time, promote those top-performing employees to critical, supervisory roles.

    To recruit graduates into your company means you have not only great ambassadors for your business, but also a brilliant advert to the next generation of talent.

    Graduates can grow through your business, and progress into leaders who really understand your company values and culture.

    One of the best ways to go about hiring new grads is to keep a graduate talent pool.

    As recruiters, we can help with creating a talent pool for your company by answering the question ‘what is talent pool management’, teaching you why talent pool is important, and helping to establish a useful database of fresh graduate candidates.

What is a talent pool?

A talent pool is a collection of candidates who you think could be good to hire, either for a particular job or a general type of role.

Created by an internal or external recruiter, talent pools can help you be more strategic in your hiring.

It demonstrates a good degree of business planning, as you’re essentially lining up ideal candidates for when you’re ready to commit to further hiring.

This way, you can be more agile with your recruitment, as well as more reactive when you need to hire new personnel. Talent pools encourage dynamism, and that is why talent pools are important.

While it’s extremely hard for companies to secure talent, creating a talent pool is smart.

It’s all about tapping into the market of active and passive jobseekers, and making sure you’re constantly engaging with a broad graduate network.

What is talent pool management?

There’s no point in assembling a talent pool if you don’t know how to manage one. 

Managing a talent pool is the process of engaging with the graduates in the pool. It is about making sure your talent pool is still full of candidates who are ideal for your company.

Candidates are normally sourced into talent pools actively with search platforms, or sometimes referred by recruiters. 

Applicant tracking systems are useful tools to help talent pool management, and will let you segment and organise your graduates into useful lists.

Finding and organising talent is difficult, however, and sometimes it’s best to outsource this to a company who has the time.

With over a decade of graduate recruitment experience, Give a Grad a Go can help you build your own talent graduate program.

How do I go about attracting graduates to my company?

The upside of hiring new graduates is clear, as is arranging them into a talent pool.

But, the issue of how to attract graduates so that you can reap these benefits is potentially the most difficult step.

Let’s make it simple with 3 direct steps:

  • If you want to know how to hire graduates, you need to be where graduates are.

    In some sense, this demands a clear presence in print and in-person marketing, like on public transport and at careers fairs.

    Huge numbers of graduates visit careers fairs at their universities, with many unsure what direction their career will take after university.

    This is the perfect window to make your brand known: the process of attracting and employing graduates begins before they’ve even graduated!

    Equally important, though, is a good social media presence. This is at the heart of attracting graduates to your business.

    Instagram and TikTok content and ads are both fundamental to getting younger generations aware of your business, and the opportunities you may have for them.

  • As we’ve discussed, graduates are constantly willing to learn, and always look at progression as a key factor in their early career.

    It may seem obvious to advise that you make the job appealing; but sometimes, it is hard to know how to make the right job appeal to the right type of person.

    If you’re wondering how to hire fresh graduates, you need to ensure your company is offering solid and actionable development plans.

    Graduates are at the start of their career, and want to be assured they’re not entering a stagnant role.

    You can make development plans clear on your website, on job descriptions, in interviews, and crucially while onboarding graduates.

  • The quickest and most effective way to attract and hire new graduates is to outsource to a graduate recruitment company.

    Hiring a graduate is a difficult process.

    Competition is tough, and often it can feel hard enough attracting talent to your company, let alone securing the right hire.

    Recruitment companies have plenty of experience attracting and sourcing graduates, creating talent pools, talent pipelines, and working from talent databases.

    They can handle the talent pool management for you, and provide you with shortlists of graduate talent.

    Using an external recruiter also means you can dedicate your time to other internal business matters.

    Why do it yourself, when you can rely on experts in attracting graduates?

Attracting graduates to your business is very important.

It gives you the chance to hire adaptable, eager candidates who’ll add value to your business in both the short and long-term.

Create a graduate talent pool so you have a resource of useful candidates ready to approach once you need to hire. 

For more detailed insights into hiring grads, check out our statistics on graduate employment.

And, if you want this whole process simplified for you, let us help you grow with our recruitment services and our graduate job board.

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