Hiring Recent Graduates: How to Maximize Potential and Minimize Pitfalls with Gen Z Hires
Hiring Recent Graduates: How to Maximize Potential and Minimize Pitfalls with Gen Z Hires
Recent grads are a valuable source of information, innovation, and talent. Though Gen Z team members can seem wildly foreign to leadership from another era, it’s this cutting-edge talent that can help fortify your company to handle future changes and innovation. Here’s what you need to know about recruiting graduates and promoting retention to boost your business.
Understanding Today’s Graduates
Generation Z encompasses anyone born between 1996 and 2012. Many of these young adults are now finishing college and charting their brazen path into the workforce. Members of Gen Z are digital natives who were born into a world where the internet was already in mainstream use. They interact fluidly with an online ecosystem of apps, web pages, social media feeds, and ever-present mobile devices.
Most of Gen Z had their education interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a McKinsey report, they’re a characteristically pessimistic generation, feeling anxious about the economy, climate, and global unrest. Don’t fall into the trap of making widespread assumptions about Gen Z, however, because this is the most diverse generation on the planet. This generation will likely demand more personalization on their career path, with options like remote work opportunities, flexible hours, and distinctive career paths that are unique for each individual.
Why Hiring Recent Graduates is a Savvy Business Move
Hiring recent graduates is a controversial choice in some companies, but there are a slew of reasons why it’s wise to hire from this pool of applicants:
Fresh Perspectives
New grads are just exiting the academic arena where they’ve spent years awash in the latest research and innovations. They’re free from the preconceived notions and deeply entrenched habits of more experienced workers. If your company is ready to look at the world through a new lens, Gen Z grads have the perfect eyes.
Tech Savviness
Gen Z grew up using the internet. Tech savviness is second nature, which allows them to adapt quickly to new technologies. They’re also likely to suggest innovative options for new applications, software, and solutions.
Cost-Efficiency
Workers with years in the industry are more expensive to compensate, so it pays to hire young. The cost of compensating a recent grad is often much lower than hiring a more experienced employee. The median annual salary for employees between the ages of 20 and 24 is just $39,104, while those between the ages of 25 and 34 have a median salary of $57,356.
Adaptability
Recent grads aren’t set in their ways yet. Being new to the workforce, they’re still learning about corporate environments, but integrating them into your organizational practices from the get-go is highly valuable. This isn’t to say that you can fit just any grad into your business. You still need to interview for cultural fit, knowledge, and skills.
However, you will typically find grads more adaptable. This is especially useful if you’re in an emerging or rapidly evolving industry, where adaptability is critical.
Eagerness to Learn
Fresh from college, new grads are still in a learning mindset. They tend to approach problems with curiosity and interest. They’re ready to ask questions and eager to learn. The right job candidate will readily make up for their lack of experience with enthusiasm for gaining new knowledge.
How to Overcome Challenges when Recruiting Grads
Recruiting grads isn’t without its challenges. However, you can overcome common issues hiring recent graduates if you set expectations from the start.
Lack of Experience
Recent grads naturally have less experience than seasoned employees with years in the workforce. If your job posting is too demanding, you risk missing out on valuable candidates who would excel in the role as an entry-level hire. Consider loosening your requirements and listing more “wants” than “must-haves.”
Once on the team, pair your young hires with enthusiastic mentors. Mentorship can quickly fill the gap in experience while delivering a vast knowledge base that’s specific to your workplace needs, processes, and culture.
Poor Job Readiness
A recent survey by Hult International Business School found that a whopping 77% of recent college grads learned more in six months on the job than they did in their whole undergraduate experience. Concerns about job readiness may not be completely unfounded, but this doesn’t mean you should avoid hiring recent graduates altogether. Prioritize screening for adaptability, growth potential, and readiness to learn to identify the cream of the crop where Gen Z hires are concerned.
Training Costs
You may have higher training costs for a fresh college graduate than for an older employee. However, some of that training expense may be offset by the lower attrition rate. This is especially true if your new hires began as interns. Employees who start with a paid internship are more likely to stay with the organization, according to Shawn VanDerziel, executive director of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
Streamline your onboarding framework to help new hires get up to speed quickly. This can cut back on your acquisition costs and launch new hires into hands-on learning more quickly.
Gaps in Expectations
Career readiness is a top priority when hiring recent graduates, many of whom are adjusting to the realities of the modern workplace. This can translate into untapped potential.
Simply understand that many don’t fully understand what’s expected of them on the job. Post job descriptions that clarify expectations and include an in-depth summary of the daily tasks you expect from your employee as part of the onboarding and training process.
Designing Effective Graduate Programs
Early career programs and graduate schemes strategically meet the needs of new hires who are fresh out of college. These workplace schemes support early learning in a new career.
Incorporate a Shadowing Rotation
Set up a rotational shadowing program to familiarize new hires with each aspect of the job. This could mean shadowing in different departments or shadowing individuals with various roles within a specific part of the company. Employees become more versatile when they gain exposure to different parts of the company.
In fact, Gen Z employees prioritize flexibility, so you will likely find them willing to contribute across multiple projects. Consider restructuring teams so they’re built on members’ skill sets from the ground up, utilizing different combinations of employees for each item on the agenda.
Develop Mentorship Programs
Institute ongoing mentorship programs with employees best suited to teach and train your new grads according to their role within the company. Mentorship programs can help you boost profitability and success.
Of Fortune 500 companies, 98% have mentoring programs, and within the top 50, 100% have mentoring programs. Those with mentoring programs have a median year-over-year growth of 3%, while those without see a median decrease of 33% in employee numbers.
Pave the Way for Advancement
Demonstrate your commitment to employee growth and development by providing a clear path for advancement by:
- Detailing the appropriate steps to different positions
- Recruiting from within as much as possible
Allow and even encourage multi-faceted career growth. Empower diverse visions of career possibilities. Graduates are concerned with taking on roles that offer opportunities for advancement. You’ll improve retention of Gen Z employees by being mindful of this as they are reluctant to stay in jobs where their responsibilities feel repetitive and stagnant.
Don’t confine your team members to a straight and narrow path. Instead, facilitate a graduate program that enables creativity, forward-thinking, and unique pathways to success.
Check in Often
Provide supervised self-check-ins to monitor employees’ growth and advancement. The best graduate programs are those that evolve organically with the employees and organization.
Continually adjust your training, mentoring, shadowing, and educational opportunities to meet the needs of your current staff members. Investing in employee growth among new grads will yield measurable improvements to your employee retention, job satisfaction, cultural fit, productivity, and growth.
Strategies for Hiring Recent Graduates
Implement targeted strategies that are aimed at recent graduates. This will help you capture this valuable talent pool.
Some companies overlook the value of new grads, which leaves even more candidates on the table for your business. Focus on cultural fit, enthusiasm, and dedication to growth to find the best in the bunch. You can effectively target recent graduates with:
- Campus recruiting
- Career fairs
- Targeted job postings
- Social media
Internship-to-Hire Models
If you’re averse to the potential risk in hiring recent graduates, consider an internship-to-hire model. This can act as a trial period. Recruit interns in their junior or senior year of college so you can evaluate their fit with the company and hire them straight out of college if they’re up for the job.
Approach internship recruitment the same way you approach official hiring programs. When you treat interns like employees, you’ll find that many are well-suited to staying with the company for the long haul.
The most successful internship programs:
- Offer competitive pay
- Compensate employees for relocation or housing costs
- Reward candidates with scholarships
- Provide a hybrid work environment
- Include well-planned onboarding
University Partnerships
One way to combat poor job readiness among Gen Z grads is with a micro-credentialing program. These targeted programs close the skills gap by delivering job-specific knowledge.
The narrow range of these training programs packs a powerful punch in terms of job readiness and skill building. They’re not as broad as complete degree programs, but they do far more to prepare students for the realities of their future career.
Consider partnering with a local university or college to offer a micro-credentialing program. This allows you to mindfully train employees with the skills you know they need most if they’re going to succeed in your industry.
Retaining and Developing Graduate Talent
One of the greatest perks of graduate talent is potential longevity. When you hire young team members, you have decades to spend with them.
These employees are the leaders of tomorrow who could shape your company. Focus on developing and retaining top talent so you can enjoy the fruits in the future.
Onboarding and Engagement
Gen Z grads are looking for careers that align with their values and priorities. They want a sense of meaning and accomplishment as much as (or even more than) a large paycheck.
Make sure your onboarding program incorporates an in-depth and evidence-based exploration of your company’s values, mission, and culture. For example, it’s not enough to say that you support the environment. Detail exactly how you’re cutting carbon emissions and what initiatives are in place to minimize your power and water usage.
Continuous Learning and Development
Create a culture of continuous learning. Utilize a company Wiki, learning platforms, and internal newsletters to share valuable insights in bite-sized form. Encourage employees to pursue conferences, classes, and online courses to enhance their understanding.
Get your leaders in on the game as well. No one is too experienced to keep learning in your organization. If upper management creates a culture of learning, your new hires will follow their lead.
Supportive Performance Reviews
Consider incorporating generative AI into your performance reviews to identify learning opportunities for your team members. If you identify a weakness, follow it through to the solution.
Performance reviews aren’t about critiquing failures. They’re about identifying pathways for growth.
Make sure every review identifies twice as many strengths as weaknesses. Encouraging and supporting your new grads will keep them on track for continued growth.
Enhance Your Company by Hiring Recent Graduates
Attract top talent when hiring recent graduates by posting a job to our extensive CareerBuilder + Monster network. Craft flexible job descriptions that allow for applications from less experienced candidates. With the right approach, Gen Z employees can play an integral role in positioning your company for future success. Hiring recent graduates could be just the key you’ve been looking for.