Recruiting Graduates in a Recession - part #1

Given today's financial climate, we all know that this year graduate recruitment requires a different approach. It certainly doesn't make sense to abandon your graduate recruitment programme but you can, however, be smarter about your processes, the tools you use to recruit and adapt your methods to the time.

The bottom line is that there are fewer graduate positions than last year, and many, many more candidates. Some companies report as much as a ten-fold increase in the number of CVs they need to evaluate. At the same time, many graduate recruitment teams have been thinned.

The questions are; how do you find the best graduates when your budget may be limited? Can you be sure you're not overlooking the best candidates, for them to be snapped up by your biggest competitor?

Hints and Tips

Use the technology available - graduate recruitment technology has improved in leaps and bounds in recent years. Systems can help with everything from sourcing and screening, through to onboarding. There are many high-impact, lost-cost options available. You owe it to yourself to check it out.

Be prepared to be inundated - fewer graduate positions and lots of redundancies mean there are more candidates competing for the same positions. Prepare to be inundated with applications. Can you properly process and handle hundreds of CVs? Are you sure you won't damage your brand by leaving candidates hanging and not getting back to them? The key is making sure all candidates are properly assessed and no one slips through the cracks - an eRecruitment system can help you manage this process.

Keep an eye out for the next instalment!

For more information on recruiting graduates during a recession, please download the whitepaper ‘The 15-minute Guide to Graduate Recruiting in a Recession’, from our website.

Comment by pam claughton on May 17, 2011 at 12:00pm: I don't think we're in a recession anymore. Maybe it varies depending on where you are in the US, but in Boston area, it's far different now than in 2009 when it was a full blown recession. We are seeing multiple offers and candidates having choices. It's a very different market now.

Comment by Emily Stevenson on May 17, 2011 at 12:07pm: Thanks for your comment Pam - in the UK, from the conversations that I have had with graduate recruitment managers and with graduates themselves, the word is that there are still too many graduates churning out and not enough jobs for them to go into. I don't know about the US but many people still see the UK as stuck in a recession, even when we have technically risen out of it.

Comment by Emily Stevenson on May 17, 2011 at 12:11pm: I should perhaps moderate the word 'recession' and use 'in the recession recovery period' perhaps..

Comment by Recruiting Animal on May 17, 2011 at 4:37pm: Here's a condensed version of this posting: There's a lot of fresh grads looking for jobs that aren't there. Expect a crowd when you advertise.

Comment by Emily Stevenson on May 18, 2011 at 4:07am: Recruiting Animal - yeah, pretty much and I'm glad you got what I was saying! But you can do that with a quite a few posts I think.. But that doesn't mean it's not good to read what somebody thinks, even if they are writing around a main point-it's nice to see their train of thought around it and as the writer, it's nice to get your thoughts down.

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