Hiring Fresh Graduates: Things Companies Must Consider College graduates (often referred to as “freshers” or “fresh graduates”) are people who just graduated from college or university, completed their graduation, and are now all set to start their professional careers. Since they are fresh out of college, these graduates are bubbling with new creative ideas, possess a high level of excitement, and are eager to apply their knowledge to the professional world. As a result, companies hire freshers to bring fresh perspectives to their organization. While these fresh graduates may possess some professional world exposure through an internship experience, this lack of experience makes it challenging for companies to evaluate them on performance at the time of hiring. Hence today in this blog, we’re listing down some criteria that can help companies assess a fresh graduate while hiring.
●
Attitude Attitude is the most important factor that needs to be evaluated in any candidate. It sets the foundation for the professional career or growth graph. While the candidate certainly must have the right skills to perform the tasks in the right manner in a company, candidates can acquire these skills with the right learning attitude. The candidate must be willing to learn, contribute and have a positive approach. During the interview, the interviewer can ask specific questions to the candidate to help assess their attitude.
●
Achievements
Fresh graduates spend a lot of their time at college or university, where they pursue a myriad of extracurricular activities and academics. These extracurriculars play an important role while evaluating a fresher candidate. Freshers may have significant achievements from these extracurriculars or academics that may give the hiring manager a glimpse into their interest-based capabilities, which helps extrapolate a candidate’s characteristics. Hence, this helps decide if they will be suitable for this job role. For example, a fresh graduate may have won awards at Model United Nations conferences, which shows that the graduate has excellent communication and presentation skills and confidence in speaking at large gatherings. ●
Interpersonal skills Interpersonal skills refer to communicating and forming strong bonds with other individuals. Since in organisations, people work in teams and discuss projects with each other, it’s always advised to evaluate these interpersonal skills of a fresh graduate. Hence, candidates’ interpersonal skills can be evaluated in the interview or the group discussion round by asking them if they have worked in any team projects in the past or been team players. A high level of interpersonal skills shows that the candidate will collaborate well with other individuals to perform well in the job role and show team spirit.
●
Passion Passion is an important factor that drives an individual. It is the motivation that may be driving a lot of fresh graduates to apply for job roles. Fresh graduates may be passionate about applying their knowledge and skills in the best possible way in the organisation, which will prove beneficial for the firm. Hence in an interview, it is advisable to ask a fresh graduate about their passions. This could be linked to how they wish to perform at the company, making them an ideal candidate for the open job role.
●
Problem-solving skills While hiring candidates, recruiters look at which candidate has the necessary problem-solving skills to perform a job well. To evaluate a candidate’s problem-solving skills well, specific scenarios may be given to the candidate, and they may be asked to give specific solutions that can help solve the problems.
●
Strong work ethics While hiring a candidate for your company, you may want to know whether they organize their work properly, have a high level of professionalism, etc. In addition, you may ask specific situation-based questions to check their ethics and see how they would respond to such a situation in real life.
Conclusion
Companies planning to hire fresh graduates can use the above pointers and refine their hiring process for fresh graduates. In addition, these tips will help better analyze candidates for open job roles. TALOP is a recruitment agency in New Delhi helping firms hire the right talent for their organization. If you wish to learn more about the services offered by TALOP, head over to this page.