Recruitment is a two-way street - how can you stand out?

Graduate Recruitment

It’s that time of the year where many large businesses are in the process of searching for the cream of the graduate crop to join their team, with typical graduate schemes looking to run assessment days around March and April, following the rounds of initial applications post-summer results day.

Equally, it’s also the time when graduates are searching for the right company to work for, the one which offers the most attractive package, and an ethos which they can get on board with.

Now more than ever, one of the biggest challenges facing graduate recruiters is that they are not simply looking for great candidates and then offering them work; the best of the graduates is also ‘recruiting’ for the right company to work for and the whole process is a two-way street.

Hand in hand with this, often businesses and recruiters are struggling to improve students’ perceptions of their organisation; how do they stand out in a sea of so many?

(Prospective) Employee Engagement

It’s widely acknowledged that positive employee engagement can increase the chances of business success, contributing to organisation and individual performance, productivity and well-being.  Graduates are not just looking for a decent pay packet, but they want to work somewhere where they feel valued, and able to be fully included as a member of the team, trusted and empowered.

Again, from the business point of view, how can you pick out those that will make this process easier, and those that may well lead to negative employee engagement, candidates who are withdrawn, oppositional and apathetic?

Tools to help

If employee engagement is an intrinsic part of your company ethos, why not bring this to the fore right at the beginning of the process? Team building and problem-solving activities don’t have to be the reserve of current or problem teams; they can actually be used in a completely different way to the perceived norm; an insightful and effective way of observing prospective candidates during the recruitment process, while announcing to them very clearly that you will be committed to their wellbeing at work should they choose to join you.

Our team building activities put participants at ease, while challenging them to reach a conclusion within a given time; under these circumstances we never fail to see the ‘real’ candidate as they lose inhibitions, forget that they are under the microscope and reveal an interesting amount about the way they may or may not fit into your current structure.