Why You Should Hire Graduates

Posted by Niche Recruitment
24th March 2022

CLOSING THE SKILLS GAP WITH GRADUATES

You’ve likely heard, and felt, the storm created by the war on talent, skills gap and the candidate driven market. We’ve certainly put out enough content about it that you should be up to date! If you’re not, get caught up with our war on talent blog here.

With dissertations handed in, a new wave of freshly educated and eager talent is starting to emerge. However, will graduates be utilised, or cast aside? Below you can read a snippet of how hiring graduates has been for us as a business. From both employer and employee points of view!

Nick & Michelle

When we were looking to hire talent into our team at Niche Recruitment, we always wanted to look at finding individuals who we could nurture and develop. We had options to recruit individuals with experience. However, on the back of the pandemic, we wanted to give someone an opportunity to get started in their career. Having taken many calls from frustrated graduates unable to secure a role without having had industry experience, we felt we could help. This approach has worked well for our business.
There are some exceptional candidates with the right ‘Emotional Intelligence’. Raw talent and the right attitude can be nurtured into our processes. We wanted to give individuals the opportunity to develop new skills and bring fresh ideas to meet the needs of our business in an ever-changing recruitment landscape. With the job market so buoyant and many organisations having to ‘fight’ over experienced hires, sometimes paying well over market rate to buy the talent in, graduates are a great option.
The intern and apprenticeship routes are certainly proving successful for us, Izzy and James are testament to this, having really added value to our business from day 1.

James

You won’t be hiring a ready-to-go, well-polished employee when looking to recruit a Grad. However, that’s what makes them such a strong candidate. Choosing to hire a grad gives you the opportunity develop your new hire to exactly what you are looking for. Yes, it may take some training, but you’ll get a hard-working, fast-learning individual at the beginning of their working career. You might even learn a few things from their recent studies?
Although I haven’t graduated yet, I have found the first half of my placement year here at Niche to be extremely valuable. It’s given me the perfect opportunity to gain that real-life work experience that will link closely with my final year at university. It’s also provided me with great insight and experience for when I do graduate and enter the working world.

Izzy

I’ve spoken before at how grateful I am for my current placement. Although every grad in my covid effected boat was affected by the circumstances, creative degrees like mine really fell by the wayside. Along with a lot of my peers, I got stuck in a sector out of necessity. Then, when things started opening back up, I had high hopes that were very quickly dashed. I felt pigeonholed by my temporary excursion in the education sector and every marketing role, from entry level up, wouldn’t give me a second look.
I don’t like to appear like I’m boasting, but I knew I had potential that was being wasted. Luckily Michelle and Nick thought the same and I like to think I’ve been earning my keep since. I would recommend any employer that’s struggling to fill a role to start looking at the graduates putting their CV out on job-boards. If you’re willing to put a little more effort into providing training and development, you could find the perfect person that has bags of potential and is a good company fit to mould into a perfect employee.

Graduates – Bags of Potential

With the issues affecting the market right now, disregarding graduates could be the last nail in your candidate seeking coffin. With fresh education on up-to-date processes and practices, graduates could be that injection of vitality to your team. We have a bank of personal experience hiring graduates and our marketing team is a testament to not discount individuals that haven’t been in your industry for years.

Consider the times you have seen a person with every experience checklist ticked fall flat due to a bad company fit or inability to grow. If you are keen to know more, get in touch. If you’re a soon to be graduate, get yourself registered at the link here!