Introduction

When hiring the best graduates, you’ll likely get a lot of energy and enthusiasm in return. They’ll be eager to learn the ropes, work hard and help your company grow. But how do you ensure they’re right for the job?

If you’ve struggled with hiring graduates in the past, it might be worth revisiting your interview processes. Below we’ll give you some tips on that and go into detail about the types of jobs that grads are best suited for.

New grads are hungry to learn and know how to work with a team.

They have the potential to be very successful in your company, but they also have some unique needs that you should be prepared for. Here’s what you should know about hiring new graduates:

Graduates are excellent candidates for these six jobs in particular.

They require a lot of learning, but not a lot of specialized skills. Grads are often looking for entry-level positions that will allow them to learn on the job and grow within their organization. These jobs can be found in many industries (e.g., call centres and retail stores), which means they’re accessible to a wide range of universities and colleges.

If you have a job that doesn’t require a specialized skill set, such as call centre jobs or some retail roles, consider hiring someone fresh out of university.

This is particularly true if your company trains new hires extensively and promotes from within. It’s also a good option if the job requires a lot of customer interaction or problem-solving. The ideal hire for this type of position will be bright and able to work independently—they’ll likely have worked on teamwork in class but haven’t yet had any real-world experience with it yet.

Hiring managers should take several steps to ensure they’re hiring the best graduates.

1. Define the job description

It’s important to be clear about what you are looking for in your new hire, as this will help you narrow down who is a good fit. The clearer you can be about the job, the more likely it is that only the most qualified candidates will apply and make it through your screening process.

2. Establish a structured interview process

When hiring graduates, it’s best to use one or two interviews rather than a series of conversations with all candidates—this helps ensure consistency across interviews and reduces bias toward those with easier-to-get-along-with personalities (which may also come across as less serious).

3. Be clear about what you want from the start

Define the role and the skills needed: Be very clear about what you want from the graduate at this stage, as they will be the first step on their career path.

Describe the company and its culture, get feedback from your board members or colleagues and make sure you know what kind of person is best suited for this position. This can help to impress upon them that you have thought about this job in detail.

Set expectations for salary and benefits: You should also set out your expectations for salary and benefits so there are no surprises later on down the line when it comes to pay rises or new opportunities within the organisation.

If possible, include a clear job description which outlines exactly what will be expected of them in terms of both tasks/responsibilities but also relationships with colleagues or customers/clients etcetera (this might be different depending on whether they work directly with customers).

Be sure to provide all candidates with an interview plan which includes details about who will conduct each element of interviewing; ensure there is someone present who has interviewed before so that they can offer advice based on past experience!

4. Create an interview process tailored for recent grads

Create an interview process tailored for recent graduates. It’s natural to want to ask questions that can easily be answered with a simple “yes” or “no,” but this approach isn’t effective at evaluating the qualities you’re looking for in candidates. Instead, use a structured interview process that tests your candidate’s problem-solving skills, communication abilities, and cultural fit with your company. To do so:

  • Ask open-ended questions. When conducting phone interviews or one on one interviews, start by asking open-ended questions about their education experience and career goals as these will help you understand what makes them tick and why they’re interested in working for your company specifically. Try starting off with something like: “Tell me about yourself.”
  • Test their problem-solving skills by giving them hypothetical scenarios with multiple possible solutions (i.e., “You just got promoted from intern to junior designer at a new agency but don’t have any prior experience designing websites—how do you handle it?”). Ask how they would solve each scenario if it were real life by having them walk through the steps using their own words and reasoning behind those steps instead of answering directly (i.e, not just saying “I would ask my supervisor what I should do”). This shows whether they are able to see past the surface details of problems into deeper solutions while also showing off some practical knowledge about how businesses operate day-to-day so that they know how things actually work which is essential when working within them!

New graduates are eager and talented workers who can add value to any company.

You might think that new graduates are inexperienced, but they are eager and talented workers who can add value to any company. They are young, so they are not set in their ways. They have fresh ideas and approaches to problems, which makes them more flexible and willing to take on new challenges. These qualities make them great employees for startups or small businesses because these companies need change-makers who aren’t afraid of taking risks. In addition, new graduates are less likely than older workers (and even many other employees) to leave your organization as soon as another job offer comes along.

The biggest reason why you should hire new graduates is that they’re loyal! The more time an employee spends with your company, the less likely they will be loyal towards it—but this isn’t true of young employees: A study by Gallup found that millennials’ loyalty increased over time while Gen Xers’ decreased over time…

Assess skills

It’s important to assess the skills of your candidates, but it’s also important not to make a mistake by focusing too much on their resumes. For example, say that you are hiring someone for an entry-level position in your company. In this case, the most important thing is to make sure he or she has all of the technical skills necessary for the job.

He or she may have a lot of experience with another type of software program and might have worked at a more prestigious company than yours, but if he doesn’t know what HTML stands for and how it works (and therefore cannot use it as part of his work), then that’s going to be a problem!

To assess whether or not someone has all of these different types of technical skills while still being able to do well in an interview setting, one good way is through behavioural interviewing techniques (see below).

Have a sound structure

When hiring, you want to ensure that your process is sound. If a candidate gets through the first round of interviews, it’s essential that they’re assessed using a variety of methods. You could use an online test, in-person interview or even a personality challenge (such as a puzzle or creative task). If this all sounds complicated, remember that what matters most is ensuring fairness and balance.

Match the right assessment to the role

The first step in hiring the best graduates is to make sure your assessments are relevant to the role. Don’t just pick an assessment because it’s popular or easy for you—it has to be a good fit for the job and candidate. Your assessment should also be fair and balanced, not focused on one skill over another (like creativity over logic). Finally, make sure your assessments are engaging! This will help candidates feel more engaged with your company overall and make them more likely to accept an offer from you.

Design an assessment flow that’s fair, balanced and engaging

You’ve decided to hire a graduate, and you’re ready to put them through their paces. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of designing an assessment flow, it’s worth noting that there are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Use a variety of assessment methods. A candidate should not just be tested on their knowledge and skills (which is where most tests stop), but also on how they apply those things under pressure. For example, if they don’t seem like they can handle pressure, this will come out during an interview or when solving problems under time constraints. You want your assessment method(s) to test for these qualities too!
  • Make sure the questions are relevant to the job. If you’re hiring for an account manager role then promote yourself as one who cares about their clients – this is reflected in the questions asked at the interview stage!
  • Make sure all questions are fair and balanced against each other (so no one question has more weight than another). Also, make sure that none of them are so easy that everyone gets all marks; conversely, no one question should be so difficult that only one person gets all marks either – shows favouritism/discriminates against certain groups

Involve expert humans

Hiring managers should involve expert humans in the hiring process. Expert humans can provide valuable insights into the candidate’s ability to perform the job, but they also provide insight into how well a candidate will fit into your company culture. This is especially important when it comes to selecting new graduates, as they are often inexperienced and haven’t yet had a chance to develop their personalities or opinions on various issues.

There are steps you can take to hire the most qualified graduates.

To hire the best candidates, you need to know exactly what you want.

Be clear about what your company needs and how each candidate can contribute toward meeting those needs.

A process that’s fair and balanced will help you achieve this clarity.

Involve expert humans in your hiring decisions; they are excellent at reading between the lines of a resume or cover letter, and they will know if someone is trying to pull one over on you!

Conclusion

If you’re ready to hire the best graduates, take these steps:

  • Define the role clearly and make sure it matches what the graduate wants out of their career.
  • Create a structured interview process that’s tailored specifically for recent graduates by using relevant assessments and expert human review.