10 Innovative Graduate Recruitment Strategies for 2023

Every summer, a new class of graduate talent enters the job market, enthusiastic to impress business leaders and get their careers off to a good start. Top graduates are a valuable commodity in today’s ultra-competitive job market, bringing digital skills, eagerness, and fresh insights with them to any organisation willing to invest in their professional development. Graduate recruitment strategies are of significant importance, but some businesses struggle to attract these talented individuals. 

An attractive graduate proposition can be a great way to get the brightest early-career talent through the door. However, with such strong competition in securing these candidates, you must know how to speak to graduates’ needs and aspirations to encourage them to join your workforce. 

In this guide, we’ll recommend our top 10 graduate recruitment strategies, exploring how they can help your organisation to benefit from the enhanced productivity and innovation these candidates bring to their early-career roles.

Why Graduate Talent is Crucial to Business Success

In their Graduate Market in 2022 survey, High Fliers Research notes that the country’s top employers are intensively targeting the graduate market, with organisations across all industries and business sectors they surveyed reporting that they were planning to expand their graduate recruitment strategies over the coming year. Indeed, the number of vacant, graduate-level roles now available is 11% higher than they were at their at its pre-pandemic peak in 2019.

The fresh perspectives and cutting-edge knowledge and skills that the best graduates bring to the workplace mean that the organisations they work for are typically found to be early adopters of emerging technologies, helping to drive innovation and growth within their employers’ workforces. 

At the same time, graduates are eager to learn, passionate, and motivated to positively impact the organisations they work for. This makes them highly trainable employees—a crucial consideration considering the digital skills gap that makes niche roles harder to recruit for. 

By focusing hiring efforts on graduates, business leaders can recruit for core competencies and cultural fit, safe in the knowledge that they can teach internal processes and software packages during onboarding. Similarly, graduates are keen to advance, meaning that businesses which hire these early-career professionals can benefit from a workforce which is constantly evolving and improving.

Our Top 10 Graduate Recruitment Strategies

If organisations want to develop their graduate and Gen Z recruitment processes, they must understand that these candidates expect more from their employers than prior generations of university leavers. 

These young professionals entered the job market during the pandemic, meaning that few have had a normal experience of working life. They value organisations which can provide a stable base of training and career mobility, that can empower them to gain new skills and take advantage of their abilities as digital natives, and that care about the wellbeing and diversity of their workforce. 

As a result, business leaders need to consider using innovative graduate recruitment strategies to ensure they can benefit from this fresh talent.

1. Content marketing builds your reputation

2023’s graduate talent is digitally-savvy. They’re spending more time on the web and social media, meaning employers focusing on their digital marketing and outreach strategies are set to get their vacant roles of more eyes than those competitors that don’t prioritise reaching graduates on the platforms they use daily. 

By developing a robust content marketing and social media strategy, organisations can be certain that not only will their sites appear at the top of jobseekers’ Google searches, but that they can build a reputation as a business which provides value to professionals within the field through the crafting of informative, forward-thinking blog posts, guides and videos. Thought leadership campaigns such as these are effective marketing tools which can help to enhance an organisation’s profile.

Relevant, engaging content can help employers to enhance brand awareness and market presence and provides graduates with an illustration of the values and culture of these attractive workplaces.

2. Focusing on L&D is key for graduate and Gen Z recruitment

Graduates are eager to learn and develop a range of skills that they can use throughout their careers. Putting together a graduate scheme or focusing on a learning and development programme that nurtures different talents and introduces new hires to a variety of business areas is a great way to engage candidates, especially if your digital talent recruitment strategies are ready for a re-work. 

From leadership, sales, or project management mentorship to utilising the apprenticeship levy, organisations have several options available to ensure that new hires can quickly start being productive members of their workforce. At the same time, building a robust learning and development culture helps businesses to retain their ambitious senior talent. 

Few people want to be restricted to unchallenging admin tasks, so showcase how you’ll challenge your hires by exposing them to various business roles—whether hitting the phones to hunt down new leads or trying their hand at presenting new work to clients. Not only will you be aiding in their personal development—you’ll uncover hidden talents in the process.

3. Championing your culture helps candidates believe in your vision

Graduates want authenticity from the organisations they work for. As a 2022 report by STEM Women notes, candidates don’t just want to hear about an employer’s culture—they want to see it in action. 

Graduates want to see business leaders encouraging training, volunteering or social activities that can help create a sense of belonging on a team. It’s important to have a clear ethos, whether it’s giving back to the community or prioritising employee wellbeing, so set yourself up for success by having a clear and defined message that you put into practice. 

Establishing a corporate social responsibility programme can help to demonstrate your commitment to your principles, and make your graduate recruitment strategies more robust. Deloitte’s Gen Z and Millennial survey shows that both groups—21% of Gen Zs and 26% of millennials—want to derive a sense of meaning from their work and want their employers to invest in visible, everyday actions that make a difference.

4. Understanding the competition gives you an edge

It’s important for a business to move with the times, from upgrading its IT infrastructure to evolving and innovating in its lead generation processes. The same maxim applies to attracting graduate talent. 

A fine balance between work and life is increasingly important to highlight in millennial and Gen Z recruitment strategies, so putting together a hiring offer that reflects a competitive salary and benefits can help you to attract and retain candidates. Graduates are looking for businesses that will support them. If you’re looking to attract top talent with in-demand skills and qualifications, businesses need to understand their positioning in the market. This can help them to identify areas where they can improve and differentiate themselves. Perks such as flexible working hours, volunteering days, or supportive pension schemes can be a deciding factor when graduates are mulling over multiple offers.

5. Flexibility and support for relocation widens your talent pool

Rising rental prices have been well documented in the media recently. In fact, such inflated costs may have contributed to a fall in the number of graduates willing to relocate in recent years. Though it’s likely to be a significant financial consideration for most SMEs, making relocation easier for your graduate talent can be a factor that sets you apart when trying to attract top talent.

Incentives like higher wage offerings can help, but the benefits don’t always have to be financial—a flexible start date that considers the often challenging moving process can increase the chances that a graduate accepts a job offer. By considering the perks of the onboarding process, you can open yourself up to a much wider pool of talent than may be available locally. 

Organisations looking to attract global graduates can go a step further by offering relocation allowances, providing assistance with finding housing or offering support for visa and immigration matters. As part of their wider graduate recruitment strategies, organisations with the finances to support relocation will have a stronger EVP.

6. Partnering with universities can help to build a talent pipeline

Partnering with a university can be an effective graduate recruitment strategy. By increasing visibility amongst students, while they’re still completing university, you can position yourself as a desirable employer once they graduate. Offering internships, opportunities to shadow existing employees or other kinds of hands-on experience can expose candidates to potential career paths they hadn’t considered before. 

Graduates who have had positive experiences with employers in the past will be more likely to consider roles with them in the future. Hosting on-campus events—such as hackathons or professional networking evenings—can be particularly valuable for businesses that need to fill a number of specialised or technical roles which have been hit by talent shortages. 

Building a relationship with a university’s career services office means that business leaders can tap into a pipeline of talented and motivated graduates that will be actively seeking job opportunities, useful for organisations looking to establish a presence in a new market or industry.

7. Recruitment gamification makes the hiring process more engaging

Gamifying recruitment processes can be an impactful way to attract graduates to work at your organisation. At the same time, it can help filter candidates and assess skills and abilities dynamically and effectively, providing a more accurate and comprehensive illustration of skills. 

Several companies are using gamification for recruitment, including Google—through their Code Jam event— and Deloitte. Candidates want transparency from employers on their culture and values, and the gamification of your graduate recruitment strategies can be one successful way to highlight these aspects of your workplace.

Gamifying the onboarding process can also help businesses that have shifted to remote work. Motivating new hires thoroughly investigate documentation on policies and procedures can be difficult. Still, by making it an interactive and engaging process, businesses can ensure all employees are familiar with internal best practices.

8. A personalised approach to graduate recruitment works

Differentiating your recruitment process for each candidate through a>Tailoring your application processes to fit candidates' individual needs and preferences can also increase the likelihood of them accepting a job offer. It’s important to offer feedback and guidance during the hiring assessment and interview stages, which can help demonstrate that your organisation values each candidate. 

Instead of standardised tests, allow candidates to participate in skills assessments or job simulations tailored to their specific career interests or ambitions.

9. Reverse Mentoring is Powerful for Company-Wide Innovation

Incorporating reverse mentoring into your graduate recruitment strategy can be a valuable way to not only introduce new hires to their colleagues and encourage them to begin developing their own leadership skills but can introduce senior staff to the latest trends and technologies. 

Most graduates are eager to share their skills and knowledge and are often looking for opportunities to take on responsibilities within the workplace which contribute to the overall success of their organisation. 

By pairing early-career professionals with senior staff, organisations can help to facilitate knowledge exchange and help recent hires quickly begin feeling like a valuable asset for their employer.

10. Promote cross-departmental collaboration and flexibility

Graduates value working in diverse organisations whose members can help them to gain exposure and insight into different business functions. Allowing for flexibility and collaboration between departments can help to create a dynamic and inclusive culture. 

Encouraging your workforce to celebrate everyone’s wins is a great way to build a positive atmosphere within the office and break down siloed workflows, helping to improve innovation and facilitate the free sharing of ideas, leading to novel approaches to business challenges that can improve processes over the long term. 

The future of work is hybrid and collaborative, with technology helping to empower the shift and help employees feel connected to their team. Utilising these techniques to improve collaboration is a strong way to enhance your graduate recruitment strategies.

Realise the Potential of Your Workforce with a Pareto Graduate

Pareto’s talented graduates are equipped with the skills you need to innovate with a high ROI. 93% of our delegates have reported significant improvements in their sales performance after undertaking one of our productivity-focussed training courses. If you’re interested and looking to learn more about our support for graduate recruitment strategies, contact one of our expert consultants today.