What Graduates Really Think About Your Application Process
In 2021, Step surveyed UK graduates and students about how they experience recruitment. This summary covers what puts candidates off, what they look for in a role, and what that means for your hiring process.
Download the full report (pdf)
TL;DR: Step’s 2021 survey of UK graduates found that long, repetitive, or unexplained application processes actively put candidates off applying, even in a market with record vacancies. The data is now several years old, but the underlying lesson about candidate experience still holds.
How Long Do Graduates Expect an Application to Take?
A third of graduates expected to spend an hour or more on a single application, while almost half expected to spend 25 minutes or less. Most expected the overall process to involve one to three stages.
Key takeaway: Expectations vary widely, so a process that feels reasonable to you may already be testing a chunk of your candidate pool’s patience.
Were Graduates Actually Being Put Off?
Over half (56%) of graduates and students said they had been put off applying for a job by the recruitment process itself, most commonly because of its length. Some respondents also described discomfort with questions they saw as irrelevant, such as questions about parental education or income used for social mobility monitoring.
Key takeaway: A lengthy or confusing process doesn’t just slow hiring down, it actively loses candidates before they ever reach interview.
What Were Graduates Looking For in a Role?
Career progression and access to development opportunities were by far the most important factors, well ahead of salary, which ranked third behind job fulfilment. This was consistent across genders, though female respondents placed more weight on company ethics and a positive working environment.
Key takeaway: Leading with a clear progression path in your advert and interview process may do more to attract candidates than leading with salary.
Did Students Actually Engage With University Careers Services?
Fewer than a third of respondents engaged with their university careers team frequently, and over a quarter rarely or never engaged at all. Of those who did engage, most found the support effective, though some described it as generic rather than tailored to their sector.
Key takeaway: A university careers service is not a guaranteed route to a broad cross-section of talent, since a meaningful share of students never use it.
How Did Graduates Feel About Working From Home?
Perhaps surprisingly for a report written just after lockdown eased, over half of respondents said the option to work remotely was of negligible importance to them, and many said their main concern was simply finding and keeping a job at all, not where they’d be doing it from.
Key takeaway: Don’t assume remote or hybrid working is automatically a top priority for every graduate; it varies far more than headlines suggest.
FAQs
Q: Is this data still current? No, it’s from a survey run in 2021, shortly after Covid restrictions lifted. The specific percentages shouldn’t be treated as current, but the patterns (process length losing candidates, progression mattering more than salary) have proven durable in later Step research too.
Q: Should we remove all social mobility questions from our applications? Not necessarily, but the data suggests being transparent about why you’re asking and how the information will be used reduces the risk of candidates feeling alienated by it.
Q: What’s the single biggest process fix this data points to? Cutting unnecessary length and repetition. Over half of graduates had been put off applying by a recruitment process, and its length was the most common reason they gave.
Article produced by Step Recruitment Limited | www.step.org.uk
