hiring graduates with a hiring platform

Hiring Platform

5 Useful Tips to Improve Graduate Recruitment with a Hiring Platform

June 21, 2023

Tima Rassool

Tima Rassool

Content Writer

When it comes to hiring graduates, competition is now stiffer than ever. Each year, recruiters get an influx of applications from graduate students. On average, 4 million students graduate each year, so one can only imagine the avalanche of resumes that flow into a recruiter’s inbox!

So how can recruiters wade through their inbox to find the most talented graduates hidden amongst all the other candidates?

Primarily, they’ll need a hiring platform.

Recruiting graduates in today’s digital world is now paperless, shorter, and far more engaging thanks to advanced hiring platforms.

In today’s blog post we examine some of the best ways to attract, recruit and hire recent graduates with a hiring platform.

Future-proof graduate expectations

candidate using a hiring platform

Chances are, graduates who applied to your job vacancy applied for dozens of others too. All too often, graduates find that there’s a mismatch between the reality of the role and their expectations. And when this happens, graduates lose interest and drop out of the hiring process faster than a penny.

Initially, you’ve got to be clear and transparent right from the start. A hiring platform can help you set the right expectations and requirements during the graduate recruitment process without the hassle. In essence, it helps you create clear job descriptions that are accurate and straight to the point.

We know that writing compelling job descriptions that entice graduates can be challenging, especially if it isn’t a recruiter’s strong suit. Luckily, hiring platforms like EVA-REC can help recruiters create the best possible job descriptions that attract the best talent for your company.

Let’s take our hiring platform as an example. EVA-REC helps talent acquisition teams write accurate and relevant job descriptions that attract top talent like a magnet. It brings more structure to the way job descriptions are created and maintained. To start with, it seamlessly autofill’s the skills section based on emerging jobs and up-to-date job requirements in the marketplace. Therefore, allowing recruiters to post accurate job posts that attract top candidates for the job. Without leaving room for false expectations.

Also, when crafting your job descriptions, make sure you take into account that candidates probably aren’t familiar with the jargon or duties of the role. So be coherent and explicit with your job descriptions. Write an engaging short summary, describe the basic purpose of the job, link the necessary duties, and explain who they will be reporting to.

Build an impressive employer brand

talent acquisition team working together

The truth is, before stumbling upon your job ad, most graduate candidates probably know nothing about your employer brand. With that in mind, it’s best to lay the groundwork in the job description so that they know what to expect before joining.

A hiring platform enables you to build a powerful and strong employer brand that helps new graduates better understand your business. It also helps them see if your company is the right fit for them before they apply. To do that, a hiring platform allows you to build and design a branded career page that does it all. It converts top talent, showcases your company culture, and helps you make the best first impression possible. And the best part? You don’t need to spend big bucks, hire a bunch of developers or blow your recruitment budget. You can do it all on your own and with a few clicks and drag-and-drops.

When new graduates apply to jobs, they’d like to read team testimonials and see if you’ve worked with graduates in the past. Sharing such insights could help these graduates determine whether they’ll fit well with your company.
So by adding testimonials from former graduate hires on your career page, it will ultimately help you to connect with them and peak their interest with ease.

Design a stellar interview process

recruiter video interviewing candidates

If your aim is to engage and hire graduate candidates, then it’s worthy to note that your interview process is going to look very different for different types of candidates. For example, interviewing C-level executives is completely different than interviewing graduates.

Bear in mind that graduates are just about to kick-start their career journey, so it’s important that you alter the process to better suit their experience. At the end of the day, you want to steer clear of asking super technical questions that make them feel uncomfortable. Therefore, we suggest that you let the graduates know in advance what to expect, what the interview process will look like, how many rounds it will take, and if they’ll need to complete any assessment.

The great news is; a hiring platform enables you to customize the hiring process based on your own preferences. Where you can seamlessly build customized pipelines and triggers for every step in the hiring process. So maybe you’ll opt for one phone screening call and perhaps a couple of interviews. Or maybe a certain position entails two interview stages, one video assessment, and the offer. With a hiring platform, recruiters can easily move, edit, add and re-order hiring stages to their own preferences. This way, you can customize your pipelines to suit each role you’re hiring for.

When it comes to graduate interviews, it also pays to have a list of non-technical interview questions in place. Such as:

• Tell me what inspired you to take this path?
• Can you tell me about a time when you showed determination and leadership?
• What resources do you use to enhance your skill sets?
• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• What drew you to apply to this position?

In addition, a hiring platform enables you to invite your team to help you out and keep them in the loop with visual pipelines that show you at a glance where each graduate candidate is,  at any time. Allowing you to save hours of recruiting time and shortlist the best candidates with a single click. Our hiring platform also uses AI to automatically rank candidates in order of qualification, to help you find exactly who you’re looking for, without the hassle.

Creating an innovative hiring process

a recruiter hiring with a hiring platform

Today, Gen Z is entering the workforce, and with the advanced improvements in AI and automation, the jobs of yesterday may not be here tomorrow. And innovation should now be at the at the heart of every recruitment process. Gone are the days of old-school recruitment methods that new graduates no longer relate to.
Luckily, advanced hiring platforms enables you to design an innovative hiring process that helps you stand out from the crowd – and most importantly, graduates.

To find talented graduates, companies need to increasingly use out-of-the-box and innovative techniques. And luckily, a hiring platform can help with that.

First things first, a hiring platform will no longer have you spend endless hours shuffling through your old notepads trying to find the candidate’s number or email. With a hiring platform, you can automate follow-up emails with a few clicks. Candidate no longer will be left in the dark, hearing crickets. They will immediately get an email informing them of the next step. Through fast and breezy communication, you’ll build a better candidate experience, and get some great word of mouth.

If we know one thing for certain, it’s that Gen Z candidates live and breathe on technology. They’re tethered to their mobile devices. An innovative hiring platform like EVA-REC can help you provide a simple, fast, and efficient mobile-friendly application process that graduates will find extremely useful. Where they can apply to jobs directly from their phones and with only a few clicks – wherever they are. This way, when your application process is fast, intuitive, and smooth – you can effortlessly prevent and minimize dropouts through an innovative process.

Reduce bias and embrace diversity

a talent acquisition team collaborating together

The competition for top talent is always fierce.

A vast body of research has shown that the hiring process is often ingrained with bias. So what can recruiters do to spot and reduce these biases early on?

They can leverage a hiring platform!

When recruiters are looking for graduate candidates with particular majors or job titles, they can simply provide a hiring platform like EVA-REC with certain keywords that they expect to see in the candidates’ resumes. Consequently, the hiring platform will filter through these resumes to find the most qualified candidates. This way, recruiters can objectively filter out candidates, without relying on demographics, gender, race or ethnicity.
To make it even easier for the recruiter, the hiring platform will then rank graduate candidates from highest to lowest match, and provide a matching percentage that signifies how closely the candidate’s profile matches the job description.

This can help recruiters instantly spot the best candidates and make the right hiring decision effortlessly, without the need to second guess themselves or invoke any biased decisions in the remote hiring process.

Key takeaways

While graduate recruitment might be somewhat challenging, it’s not entirely impossible. From attracting, engaging, to hiring these candidates – it’s no walk in the park. Especially without an advanced hiring platform.
The pandemic drove us all to make drastic changes in recruitment. Now, recruiters must leverage hiring platforms and cutting-edge technology to source, screen, and retain graduate candidates to align with the new normal.
By future-proofing graduate expectations, maintaining an impressive employer brand, designing the right interview process, creating an innovative hiring process, and reducing bias – you can effortlessly hire stellar, young and enthusiastic graduate talent to join your company.

Turn top talent to employees fast

Hire, assess, onboard and manage top talent for every job. See how Elevatus streamlines everything; from acquire to new hire.

Request a demo

Author

Tima Rassool

Tima Rassool

A wordsmith, storyteller, and content strategist – Tima is an MBA graduate with 6+ years of experience in the world of HR. With over 2,000 blogs under her belt, Tima's expertise and insights have helped businesses across the globe take their recruitment to the next level and stay ahead of the curve.

Turn top talent to employees fast

Hire, assess, onboard and manage top talent for every job. See how Elevatus streamlines everything; from acquire to new hire.

Request a demo