Five tips to help your company attract and hire top 2021 graduates
You only want to hire the best junior talent. But attracting top graduates every year can be tricky, especially as a small business owner.
How can a small company compete with big brands like Netflix, Google and Amazon?
To be in with a chance, your company needs a strategy that’s tailored to 2021 graduates. You need to know how to attract and retain Gen Z job hunters!
Now is the perfect time to look at your graduate recruitment strategy. In 2020 the country’s top employers recruited fewer graduates than they did in 2019 due to the pandemic – and some hired none at all – so now is the time to tap into the market while it’s overflowing with talent!
As we’re graduate recruitment specialists, we know a thing or two about what they look for in a job and a company…
1 – A bold salary
Gone are the days when simply writing ‘competitive’ on your job descriptions was enough. Now job hunters are on the lookout for roles with clearly advertised salary bands.
If your job description simply uses ‘competitive’ or ‘DOE’ then you’re missing a trick.
And if it doesn’t mention salary at all, you’re sabotaging your chances of attracting top job hunters! A role, especially an internship, without an advertised salary is a big red flag to job hunters.
This is because there is a possibility that the role is completely unpaid altogether.
Remember: the better university and course your job hunter attended, the more money they will expect in their first role. So do some market research and out-bid the big companies!
2 – Make it fun
Are you looking for your own personal assistant to take over the boring admin that you don’t want to do?
This is great for some job hunters, but I’m willing to bet that top graduates don’t dream of admin roles.
So create a vacancy that’s interesting! Include a little admin, but also fun tasks and projects that your candidates can get excited about.
Be sure to use exciting language when you describe your vacancy too. Instead of saying that your new hire will:
- Take part in regular client meetings, collating client feedback, and ensuring requests are noted and actioned.
Phrase it like this:
- Manage client meetings, gather feedback and action their requests
- Make clients into happy returning customers
3 – Focus on progression
No one wants to kick-off their career in a dead-end job!
If you want to attract the top graduate job hunters, you need to sell the career and lifestyle, not just the role.
Include a few bullet points about the learning opportunities you company offers. Then mention possible promotions, salary increases and their timeframe.
When you get into specifics like this, your job description becomes visual. Meaning that your candidates will begin to picture themselves in this role for years to come, getting excited about it.
Include something like this:
- Great development opportunities from Sales Development Executive to Business Development Manager
- £22-25k basic salary + uncapped commission (OTE of up to £30k year 1, £40-50k year 2)
4 – Diversity and inclusion
Do you have a diversity and inclusion policy? Do you want to attract diverse 2021 graduates to apply to your roles?
If there is one thing we can learn from 2020, it’s that people care about diversity and inclusion!
Gen Z and millennial job hunters really care about it and will only apply to work for companies that have similar beliefs.
This is why so many organisations feature a diversity page on their website and include an equal opportunities statement in their job descriptions.
Here is our equal opportunities statement:
DigitalGrads is committed to being an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, faith, disability or other. We are continually finding ways to improve the way we work, and regularly review our internal recruitment practises.
Something like this will only work if it’s genuine – people can see through fake companies from a mile away.
5 – Look at your socials
And finally, take a look at your socials because you can bet that your interested job hunters will!
Your socials should not be sales pitch after sales pitch. They should hopefully give job hunters and clients an insight into your company.
Whether that’s through promoting blog posts or featuring your employees, your socials should sell your company as a place to work.
Use your socials to advocate for things that your company believes in. Talk about your diversity and inclusion, current events and be genuine.
A genuine, clear company voice that resonates across all of your social media accounts will attract 2021 graduates and show them that you’re an up-to-date, socially savvy company.
I hope that this article helps you attract the top 2021 graduates to your company!
If you need any extra help finding amazing graduates, check out DigitalGrads. We have thousands of candidates ready and waiting to apply for your opportunities!