With this years’ graduation ceremonies fast approaching, we have already begun to witness the start of the annual surge in recruitment of University leavers. And with an increasing number of businesses dipping their toes into the graduate talent pool, we don’t imagine this interest to show signs of slowing down any time soon.
When looking to hire new and enthusiastic team members, businesses often question why they should hire relatively fresh graduates over candidates with more experience. So we decided to share our ideas on why sometimes, experience isn’t everything.
The business benefits of hiring recent graduates over candidates with more than three years’ experience can be divided into two parts; the immediate benefits to hiring managers, and the longer-term benefits to the business, developed over time.
You may find your new graduate recruits repeatedly asking ‘Why?’ (Why is it we do it that way? Why don’t we try it this way?) Their willingness to repeatedly question why, encourages you to analyse your own, possibly dated, approaches. But while they may ask a lot of questions initially, they are likely to have a keen enthusiasm to get on-board with new concepts and ideas. This often makes graduates easier to manage than more experienced recruits and the fresh set of eyes can introduce new ways of thinking.
With a rapidly changing business world and new tougher competition always emerging, to make your mark means not only being agile, but being able to thrive on fast-pace change. Luckily for you, recent graduates have a habit and an enthusiasm for trying new things. This adaptability makes them fantastic candidates for change, able to take on numerous unrelated tasks and frequently switch back and forth.
It may come as a surprise to read that hiring experienced recruits is often more of a risk than taking on University leavers. Taking graduates on initially as interns, allows you to see them in a working capacity prior to making any long-term commitments. This option ensures less hiring errors, while allowing new candidate to gain an honest insight into your organisation.
University leavers with up to three years’ experience are full of insight into the youth market. If your business aims to target the younger generation, working alongside graduates allows you a far better understanding of your audience. You could find this translates into improvements to your products and services, leading to an increase in sales.
Your graduate recruits are yours, and only yours, to lose. When hiring a new graduate, you have the chance to keep them forever. If your business treats them well, with great retention and prospects for career development, they may well remain with you for the length of their career. This rare opportunity is often not presented when hiring more experienced candidates.
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 graduate recruits allow you to, in time, promote those top performing employees to critical, supervisory roles. Not only will they be great ambassadors for your business but it’s also a brilliant advert to the next generation of talent considering where their career could go within your business.
With such great business benefits for recruiting new talent over experienced pros, it isn’t hard to see why graduate recruitment is on the rise. It’s time to start engaging with and hiring these new graduates – that’s where we come in. While we agree that you’ll have positions where this type of new talent simply won’t work, our experience has shown, there are many roles in which graduates are the perfect fit.
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Stephanie Bessant FIRP is the Director of Rust Consult – a train
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