The recruitment process for any company is a costly and time-consuming affair, especially so when the company works in a niche industry. Identifying the ideal candidates, fresh graduates with the necessary skills and potential becomes a lot more challenging when those skills are rare or highly-demanded in the job market.
The solution to this problem is to work with a recruitment agency that specialises in graduate recruitment. This immediately provides the hiring company with multiple benefits, which we explain below.
Here are the top five benefits of working with a specialist graduate recruitment agency.
Deep Knowledge of the Industry
The team of consultants working within a graduate recruitment agency have expert knowledge of the sectors they are hiring into. This valuable expertise helps them understand exactly what each client is looking for and what skills and experiences are necessary to perform a role. This deep-rooted knowledge of the sector includes understanding where to source diverse and exceptional talent and keeping a pulse on the current market trends in graduate recruitment.
These market trends encompass expectations around graduate salaries and common aspirations of new entrants within the sector, as well as the most sought-after skill sets and emerging technologies that new graduates are expected to be familiar with.
Find Specific Skill Sets
Many companies working in niche industries have roles that require a very specific skill set. This means there is a much smaller talent pool from which to find the best candidates. Such positions with specific requirements will be best filled by working with a specialist recruiter as they will be able to source the exact type of talent required from their extensive knowledge and database.
Graduate recruiters will be in a position to utilise the network of relationships they’ve cultivated over the years to pinpoint appropriate fresh graduate talent. At Step we have relationships with most UK universities developed over our long history of placingplacement graduates since 1986 where we offer prestigious placements to their students. One of the reasons why these dedicated graduate recruitment agencies can identify talent with a distinct set of skills is their adeptness at identifying suitable candidates and applications. This not only saves a significant amount of time but also reduces the exertion involved in the recruitment process.
Reducing the Risk of a Bad Hire
There’s an additional advantage to a graduate recruiter’s capacity to promptly identify the most suitable candidates, stemming from their comprehensive understanding of the industry and the specific graduate roles within it. By going the extra mile in order to become familiar with the candidates, we are able to match appropriate individuals to vacancies, saving considerable time and effort. This familiarity with candidates not only allows for successful initial hires but can also lead to future opportunities, utilising the knowledge of the candidates to potentially place them in other roles.
A specialist graduate recruiter ensures that only those candidates with the right qualifications, skill set, and personal potential are considered, thus substantially minimising the risk of an unsuitable hire. Not only that, they ascertain that all necessary conditions are met for the hired candidate to thrive. This involves not just aligning expectations but also ensuring a favourable cultural fit within the company, creating a process that is more responsive, efficient, and attuned to the needs of both candidates and employers.
Wider Talent Pool
When looking to increase your company’s pool of qualified candidates, working with a graduate recruitment agency can do wonders. Using an agency can give you access to a large pool of qualified candidates, increasing the demographic variety of your entry-level workforce. By doing so, they can improve recruitment standards by spreading your message to the broader graduate market.
Save Time
Having access to a large database of possible candidates to help speed up the hiring process is really beneficial when working with a specialist recruiter. This resource allows the recruiter to promptly pair candidates with the right companies, eliminating the need for the company to spend too much time, interviewing candidates who aren’t the right fit for the business. The average time to hire is around 42 days which is 6 weeks in total, but with help from us at Step, we can speed up that process.
We look past just what the CV offers and remove any barriers this may have for the candidate, we believe everyone deserves an equal opportunity and this doesn’t always come down to qualifications, but also their passion and enthusiasm for the role. We conduct initial candidate assessments and handle the final stages of the process. This comprehensive approach not only streamlines the recruitment process but also minimises the risk of costly hiring mistakes. Therefore, a specialist recruiter serves as a vital time-saving asset in the recruitment journey.
Save Money
By streamlining the recruitment cycle, the agency significantly reduces the amount of time spent on sourcing, vetting, and hiring, consequently lowering associated costs. More than just a time-saver, this allows in-house staff to concentrate on their primary duties, optimising productivity.
The time that would have been consumed by the recruitment process can be redirected towards more creative, rewarding tasks that enhance the value of the company. Hence, a specialist recruiter not only reduces direct recruitment costs but also indirectly contributes to cost savings by boosting overall operational efficiency.
By streamlining the recruitment cycle, Step offers both a fully-managed service for internships, undergraduate placements, and permanent graduate employment, as well as bespoke programmes for large-scale recruitment. These services include targeted university outreach, promotion, initial sifting, interviewing, optional employment services, tailored web presence, social media campaigns, on-campus representation, and targeted communication. This approach not only reduces time and costs spent on hiring but also allows in-house staff to focus on primary tasks, boosting overall efficiency.
If you are looking to hire students or recent graduates for short-term placements, internships or full-time permanent positions, then get in touch with Step today to access a database of emerging talent with up to 1,000 new registrations every month!