5 Ways Innovative Organisations Are Attracting the Best Graduates

Is your organisation a creativity pioneer? An inclusivity powerhouse? A development dynamo? Whichever or whoever you are, your graduate attraction experience should be designed to be an unforgettable moment in a candidate’s career journey. Done right, your attraction initiatives can allow candidates to remember your organisation and its values well into their careers, regardless of whether they join you now or not.

Drawing on lessons from innovative and award-winning global brands and their approaches to early careers recruitment, here are five methods to help your attraction campaign stand out from the rest and attract the best graduate talent to drive your organisation forward:

1. Forge lifelong connections

A Microsoft study of more than 11,000 people found that for 62% of respondents, belonging in the workplace was more important than a salary. What better time to embed belonging and community in your new joiners than right at the start of the recruitment experience?

There are a myriad of ways to unite audiences and establish a sense of belonging, even in disparate geographies. Consider networking functions or touchpoints, team-based gamified learning, or even competitive leader boards during the assessment process. Offer time with your senior leaders across the business and provide candidates with future role models, guidance, and networking opportunities.

In practice: lululemon sought to create a programme that attracted a global audience of emerging and early talent to join not only their organisation, but their organisation’s vision for the future. We partnered with lululemon to design and deliver a series of events with lululemon’s interns that emphasised group collaboration and discussions, with a goal of creating a strong sense of community and purpose amongst the interns. 100% of participants felt inspired for their career quests ahead following the launch event.

2. Create a dedicated social media strategy

Social media is your direct line to today’s early talent. With the right messaging and a dedicated social media strategy, it can be a powerful differentiator when used to showcase the benefits of joining your organisation. A great place to start is using social media to speak directly to graduate needs.

For example, offering key skills as part of your attraction campaign is an excellent way to speak to graduate needs for development and support. This allows you to demonstrate your organisation’s commitment to learning and development, while simultaneously giving candidates a flavour of the working and learning cultures in your organisation.

In practice: bp sought a pioneering solution that would set them apart as trailblazers in graduate attraction. We partnered with them to create a dynamic digital learning platform accessible anywhere in the world, on any device, to any student, for free. The multi-award-winning initiative used social media to broadcast on-demand skills sessions that would allow students to prepare themselves for the future of work. Now in its third iteration, the attraction programme continues to impact the lives of millions around the world and boost bp’s brand as a supportive and collaborative employer of choice.

3. Engage candidates early

Engaging with potential candidates early by starting the recruitment process while they are still studying provides a great opportunity to discover and build relationships with the best future talent. This early engagement can help build brand awareness and establish trust between your organisation and future candidates.

Starting your attraction efforts earlier also enables you to reach a wider range of candidates that you might not receive through traditional attraction initiatives, allowing you to diversify your future intake and, as a result, boost diversity and inclusion amongst your incoming cohorts. It helps that inclusive organisations are also more attractive to candidates.

In practice: We partnered with NACME, a US-based non-profit organisation committed to empowering a diverse American workforce, to design and deliver a face-to-face experience for engineering students from underrepresented backgrounds in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The purpose of the event was to empower the students and help them realise the unique impact their strengths and knowledge can have in the workplace. The 1-day Hackathon transported participants outside of their comfort zone, helping them feel a sense of accomplishment as they applied their new workplace skills to solve real-world problems.

4. Make your assessment an experience

When it comes to the recruitment process itself, many organisations naturally focus on finding the right fit for the role. Forward-thinking organisations are innovating in this space by looking beyond the traditional CV. This might include incorporating a range of different assessments such as psychometric tests, cultural fit assessments, and immersive assessment centre experiences that benefit both the candidate and the organisation. By taking the time to get to know candidates better, your organisation’s chances of finding the right person for the job increases considerably.

In practice: The Bank of England partnered with us to design a new Candidate Assessment Centre that would excite their potential hires about joining the bank, better reflect their employer brand, and test the graduates in core graduate competencies aligned to the bank’s values. The unforgettable assessment centre not only tested and attracted candidates based on their employability skills, it also delivered accelerated training and development to them, regardless of whether or not they were successful in joining the bank.

5. Invest in post-recruitment

Getting candidates to apply is the first step, but showing them what awaits them on the other side is also key. Consider your organisation’s graduate training and development offerings – not only are these a great way to retain graduates and ensure they are performing to the best of their abilities, they can also be leveraged during the recruitment process as a powerful USP amongst your competitors.

If your organisation has a high-potential programme, ensure you are broadcasting this to potential candidates who might be interested in fast-tracking their careers. Importantly, show them the tools they’ll be provided by your organisation to be exceptional in their careers.

In practice: Seeking to strategically embed development into their early talent proposition, Johnson & Johnson partnered with us to help define, map, and activate a consistent EMEA-wide Early Talent development strategy, and better connect with early talent as a result. Outputs of the award-winning advisory included Development Masterclasses for ET to learn J&J development philosophy and how to shape their career, and a Development Blueprint (interactive PDF) to allow their EMEA Early Talent to control over their own development at the start of their time at J&J.

Need help re-thinking your graduate programme?

Our Graduate Programmes Toolkit explores dozens of modular solutions to help your new graduates, once recruited, to thrive as they cross the threshold into their new role, new organisation, and new world of work.

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