Frequently Asked Questions from Early Careers Talent Acquisition Teams

Early careers talent is often viewed as the future of the organisation. Hiring and retaining the best graduate, intern and apprenticeship talent is critical to shaping the future skill set of the organisation.

Here are some of our frequently asked client questions to help you navigate the challenges you may face when designing your early careers programmes. Please have a look through these questions and if you need any support with your early careers pain points, please do get in touch.

1.   Graduate or intern/apprenticeship programmes: Where should you invest your efforts?

Ideally both. This is a great question we often get asked, my answer would be to ideally consider both, but look for potential, as future leaders could be grads or may have even left school at 16. Future leaders don’t necessarily need to have a degree. Companies such as the BBC, Google, PwC, Hilton Hotels, Starbucks, Apple, EY and Penguin Random House have removed specific academic attainments. Furthermore, a number of globally recognized brands are run by CEOs who either did not finish their degree course or even start one (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Ford, Apple).

Nevertheless, studying for a degree is the preferred route for some young people as:

·       their career aspirations may require a specific degree for the extra learning required

·       they may not be ready to go into a work environment aged 16 or 18

·       they may not know what they want to do when they leave school or college

·       some may want to obtain a degree as they want the experience of university

As mentioned there will also be candidates who have decided not to go on to university, for many reasons such as:

·       acquiring debt

·       no ability to retain an income

·       they want to start working as soon as possible and learn on the job

·       they didn’t get the grades at GCSE stage, because the education system didn’t get the best out of them

The apprenticeship levy obviously shouldn’t be the main reason to recruit apprentices, as opening your early careers programmes to non-graduates will open up more opportunity to identify talent and improve your diversity.

 2. Do you need different processes for different roles within early careers?

Our clients often feel a fundamental set of behaviours apply across programmes, even across Grads and Apprenticeships, as the Apprentices will hopefully progress into more senior roles just like the Grads will.

There may be ability tests or later stage specific assessment exercises, that are used to differentiate.

Remember having a generic benchmark will allow your hires to move across your business in different roles, rather than leave or even to go to a competitor.

True career mobility can help companies retain their best people. To achieve this, they will need to adopt a more rigorous, data-driven approach to optimize and align career paths to business objectives and the needs of their talent.

At the core of this work is the recognition that career paths are now rarely reflective of upward, ladder-climbing progress. Employees tend to relish the prospect of lateral moves to learn new areas of the business. Early careers talent is likely to have already been part of this through rotational programs.

3.   If qualifications aren’t the best way to measure someone’s potential, what should you be looking for in early careers candidates?

Many applicants won’t have had that much work experience, so the best way to identify those who are going to be right for your business is to understand what behaviours matter for your culture, and for the programme they will be working on. What are the types of recruits you want to join your team? Many of our clients want future leaders. The next generation that are going to problem solve as we face many challenges. Some quite dramatic, COVID-19 is just one of them. But in a fast moving and dynamic working world there are many more.

Our clients are looking at future-focussed behaviours such as…

·       Curiosity – Will they champions change and foster innovation

·       Lifelong learning – Will they develop themself

·       Agility – Will they be flexible and adapt to individual Differences and be able to multi-task

 And supplementary behaviours like  Drive to succeed, Handling data and complexity,·  Strategic solutioning,  Business Acumen,  (Virtual) Collaboration, (Digital) Communication.  

Finally, Resilience. We all need that :).

 4.   How do you encourage your hiring managers to stop recruiting mini me’s, so that you can improve diversity and be more inclusive?

The question is why do they want to hire mini mes? Some hiring managers make decisions on: Where someone has been educated? What qualifications they have?  What courses have they completed?

Most hiring managers feel it is safer to keep to their traditional methods and hire in their own reflection. Have they heard about the companies where CEOs or senior leaders didn’t finish their education? We all know that new ideas, fresh perspectives, result in a boost in creativity.

Think of all the very successful businesses that have swamped more traditional businesses. I mentioned some at the beginning such as Facebook, Spotify and Apple. They are made up of diverse teams that will challenge what you do and often offer alternatives that are worth considering.

Do you want recruits who tick all the boxes or break themselves out of it, to take your business forward? A diverse team is likely to be more open minded and accepting of change which will drive economic growth.

Google, IBM, Netflix and Amazon soon realised that putting barriers in the way of hiring candidates with the most potential and was limiting them in finding hires who would get the job done. Hiring mini me’s is a huge risk and won’t give a great image of your company, which is so important to Early Careers candidates. What sort of employer brand do you want?

5.   What's the best way to screen out large volumes of Grads and Apprenticeships and why? 

It is likely that in 2021 you will receive many more applications than the roles you have. It is also likely that you won’t have loads of resource to throw at this, so online assessment is the perfect solution.

All or a combination of:

Job simulations - ideally chat based for this audience as feels more relevant

Personality assessments that dig deep on their behaviours like the ones mentioned above. Typically, not used to screen out at the online stage, although can be, but the data can be used when interviewing at a later stage, so you know where to probe further.

Gamified ability assessments that can measure things like problem solving, executive attention, multi-tasking etc.

If you have far too many applicants and need another stage of assessment which you can use to filter out more candidates before the final stage of assessment, then use video interviewing with AI to remove unconscious bias and to keep resource light.

6.   How do you get the right balance between using automation and AI and the human touch when assessing?

Screen out the candidates who are unlikely to flourish in your company and give them an automated candidate feedback report to explain their strengths and weaknesses that contributed to the reason why they were not the right fit for this role at this time.

Then use your resource to spend time with candidates where you need to dig deeper before you decide whether to hire, ideally offering a virtual assessment centre which is immersive and engaging where they learn about you and get to meet your team. Assessments like virtual escape rooms or business exercises enable you to see evidence of how they are likely to perform in the role and your company.

7.   How do you ensure high completion rates and low drop-out rates?

Ensure your assessment are quick, fun and insightful. Use clear and constant communications at each stage to explain what they are doing and why, maybe consider insightful videos to show your brand. Remember to give candidate feedback, successful or not.

8.   How do you collect useful data on candidates and what do you do with it?

The data from science-based assessments and information gathered at each assessment stage, will help you understand their strengths and weaknesses in relation to the role they have applied to. You can use this data to improve the process further and as part of their onboarding and ongoing development, throughout their career with you. What other jobs might they be suited to in your company?

9.   How do you get your business to invest enough money in an effective and Early Careers assessment?

The ROI of assessment must be considered. Ask your assessment provider to provide case studies to see the effectiveness of their tools and ask how assessments will help you identify candidates who will perform better and stay longer. Look at data that will help develop candidates throughout their time at your company.

A best-in-class assessment process will absolutely be worth the money you spend. Your chosen assessment provider should be helping you to obtain the budget required to help you identify candidates who will take your business forward.

10. What are the cost implications to consider?

Ultimately, the cost and time needed to replace existing talent and the loss of organisational know-how are immense. Firms are now ready to focus on nurturing today’s early careers talent, providing greater support and signposting career options for them to explore.

‘At the heart of these selection and development actions lie assessment and data’.

These can inform the talent decision-making process and predict potential for future leadership. It provides the insight needed to start and shape the careers of this young talent.

Are you ready to look at your early careers’ selection and development?

Contact us and let’s start the conversation.

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