When you are looking to hire new college grads, you want to be sure that your company gets the cream of the crop. While spring and summer are prime times for newly minted graduates to hit the workforce, there are also a substantial number of students who earn their degrees in December.
How can you take advantage of this upcoming recruitment opportunity?
Know These Millennials
This year’s college graduates are part of the millennial generation – a force to be reckoned with in today’s workforce. Also known as Gen Y or the Facebook Generation, millennials have been erroneously labeled as slackers, since they were raised by helicopter parents and have had virtually all resources, product and services at their fingertips, via a mere touch on their mobile screens.
In fact, upcoming grads are energetic multitaskers who are typically serious and excited about finding work. There is ample evidence to show that they are both hard working and highly productive.
- The share of college students who worked full-time while completing their studies has grown steadily since 1985, with the exception of the Great Recession years.
- According to a Rutgers University study, 44 percent of students reported that work or personal savings helped finance their higher education. As noted by Rutgers economist Carl Van Horn, “Today’s young people are very focused on trying to work hard and get educated.”
How to Hire the Best New Grads
Here are some suggestions for finding the best, high-potential candidates among December 2016 graduates:
- Have team members sit in on interviews. This will give you a better idea of not only a candidate’s skills and qualifications, but even more importantly, their work style, personality and cultural fit.
- Contact their professors. Get an understanding of a candidate that is removed from any sort of previous employer/employee relationship. If an applicant has not provided a professor as a reference, find one on your own.
- Start an internship program. It’s too late to implement this idea for 2016, but now is the time to add it to your 2017 operating plan and budget. Internships offer benefits for both students and your company. This is an investment that will pay off big time in the long run.
The hiring experts at PrideStaff Fresno can help you to optimize your workforce growth opportunities, starting now. Our Workforce Growth Solutions will enable you to staff strategically – keeping costs under control and productivity high. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more.