graduate recruitment

Table of contents

1. Title -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03

2. Citation -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03

3. Abstract -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 04

4. Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 04

5. Higher education and graduate labour market ---------------------------05

6. Summary Of Research Questions -----------------------------------------------05

7. Methods --------------------------------------------------------------------------06

a) Data gathering

b) Data analysis

8. Findings --------------------------------------------------------------------------06

9. Literature review -----------------------------------------------------------------07

10. Critical Evaluation of Methodology -------------------------------------------08

11. Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------09

12. References ------------------------------------------------------10

13. Appendices ------------------------------------------------------11

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TITLE:

A critical review of

“ Graduate recruitment and selection in the UK:

A study of the recent changes in methods and expectations”

CITATION:

Branine M. 2008“ Graduate recruitment and selection in the UK:

A study of the recent changes in methods and expectations”

Career Development InternationalVolume: 13; Issue: 6; Page: 497 - 513

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ABSTRACT:

This study is done by Mr. Branine to find out the recent changes in graduate attracting and selecting policy of UK graduate employer. He has used structured questionnaire to gather data from various sectors of UK graduate recruiter and used SPSS software to analyse those data. The motto of this research was to help those employers who are thinking to improve their existing method and also to help the higher education institutions to improve their syllabus to make sure that their graduate pupils are capable to work in real world of job.

Here I have tried to do the appraisal of how well evidence support and what could have done better in this research. In large context, what are the limitations of this research? Who can be benefited from this? How effectively data is gathered and analysed? What are further resources can be used? And areas for further research are outlined.

INTRODUCTION:

"The importance of ensuring the selection of the right people to join the workforce has become increasingly apparent as the emphasis on people as the prime source of competitive advantage has grown." (Title: Human Resource Management; Julie Beardwell & Tim Claydon; 5th Edition; P-189). At present, most of the employers have realised that the best graduate recruitment and selection means better future of the company. That’s why they are using variety of process for graduate recruitment to get the best candidate from different disciplines. As per information of Chartered Institute of Personal and Development we know that from 1980 graduate people are increased two times than earlier. In 1999, The Association of Graduate Recruiters revealed that even though averagely having sixty eight candidates for per vacancy, still it is difficult to employee quality graduates. Pollit, (2005) describe that In 2004, after a lengthy selection procedure Lioyds TSB recruited only 102 applicant from 3,800 applications.

Human Resource Department can do successful recruitment if it is done from a pool of applications. Nowadays it’s easy to attract larger number of applicants but problem to get suitable applicants. There is a many studies and research in recruitment and selection but which are not very specific on graduate recruitment and selection. In this study, Mr M.B tried to stick on 'graduate recruitment'. Here 'graduate' is straightway related with higher education and its provider. And 'recruitment' is fully depending on labour market. So a brief discussion on higher education and graduate labour market is important.

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HIGHER EDUCATION AND GRADUATE LABOUR MARKET:More than 300,000 people graduate in the UK every year From 166

Higher Education Institutions (As at august 2008). Currently, the entire higher education provider has furnished their syllabus to prepare the student with essential skills and knowledge, by which they can meet employer’s need. They always try to stay up to date with the change of graduate labour market. Normally, graduates are used to do financial; medical, managerial, legal and engineering jobs. But they have changed their tradition and going various sectors for non-graduate job as well.

Graduate labour market is normally divided in three sizes like large organisations (Recruit 500+ graduates), Medium size organisations (recruit 101-500 graduates), and Small size organisations (recruit 0-100 graduates). Large organisations lead the graduate recruitment market. "The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR, 1995) states that more graduates are entering in SME sector. Recruitment implications exist for SMEs with regard to their competing against large organisations for the "best" graduates." [Graduate recruitment and selection practices in small business.” Author: Jim Stewart and Vanessa Knowles, Journal: Career Development International]. By the time, there is a noticeable change in the number of female graduates; in 1963 there was only 1.85% female student in graduate level and 1998 its increased up to 53 percent of the total student. They are no longer fixed with their traditional subject humanities and social sciences and taking admission all the disciplines.

It’s a big issue that there is no more confirmation of job after completing graduation. Degree certificate means a nice job is finished. Lots of graduates don’t able to advance themselves from application stage. Because of huge competition and lack of proper practical knowledge and skills, they found hard to be employed which is normally used to get a school –leavers. Manily graduate employability skills are important for gradutes and recruiters as well as for UK economy on the basis of supply and demand of graduate skills( Nabi G. R. 2003).

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

On the base of the organisation size and sector, the writer tried to work out following five questions in his research:

a) What sort of methods used by employer for graduate recruitment? (Showed in Table III)

b) What kind of methods employer used for graduate selection process? (Showed in Table V)

c) How much does the recruitment cost per graduate? (Showed in Table IV)d) What are the reasons for using each selection method? (Showed in Table VI)e) What are skills and qualities employers demand from employee? (Showed in

Table VII)

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METHOD:

Data Gathering:

This Research is based on structured questionnaire which were sent to 700 UK-based employers chosen from The Graduate Employment and Training Directory (GET) and Times top 100 Graduate Recruiters. In this research, the random selection method has been used from different types and sizes of organisations which had advertised last half a year to recruit specially graduates. The questionnaire was divided into three parts like:

First: “Your Company” (To gather information based on organisation’s size and activity)Second: “Graduate Recruitment” (What methods they are using for graduate recruitment and selection and why?)Third: “Graduate Education and attributes” (What sort of education, skills and attributes were expected by employer from graduate in terms of level?)

Data Analysis:

Three hundred Twenty six usable questionnaires were responded from 700 questionnaires. Statistical Analysis Software SPSS was used to analyse data where mainly the following five variables used:

1) Organisation Size2) Recruitment methods3) Selection methods4) Cost5) Skills and reasons for the use of methods

FINDINGS:

In this survey, eighty percent respondents have own special designed recruitment method for graduates recruitment. But those employers who are small in size they don’t have recruitment methods. Here 63 percent recruited 5 to 50 graduates per annum,About 20 percent recruited 50 to 100 graduates per annum,13 percent recruited 100 to 200 graduates per annum, 7 percent recruited more than 200 graduates per annum.

More than 76 percent employers (248 employers) filled their advertised vacancies last year. And 24 percent (78 employers) didn’t able to fill their graduates post. They have mentioned some main factors which made difficulties to find out the right graduates for this 24 percent employer. Those are lack of communication skills, less business awareness, inequality between applicants’ educational performance and performance in selection process, short of transferable skills, problem in IT expertness and shortage of special skills in relevant areas.

About 40 percent organisations had employed staff to do graduate recruitment and 60 percent have line manager for this.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

After analysing this research paper we can get following two parts which are main two phase of the study. First phase, recent changes in methods of graduate recruitment and selection in the UK and Second phase, expectations of the UK employers in recruiting and selecting ideal graduates. Here, 'graduate' word indicated both section undergraduate and postgraduate from institution of higher education. A short explanation of the research results are:

Methods used by employer for graduate recruitment; According to data table III, Two hundred Ninety eight from 326 respondents take the help of Internet to do graduate recruitment. As an example Boeing Company made a website to recruit 13,000 employee and in one month its got only 200 CV and in three months its increased 19,000 and 6 months, 50,000 (Dessler, G.; 9 th edition, HRM, p-113 ). Over 80% respondents are dependent on Newspapers and Careers literature. Only a few of them use Recruitment agency. Small size organisations don’t use Careers fairs, Milk round, Brochures, Presentation as a method of recruitment.

Methods used by employer for graduate Selection; As per table V, Interview is the best way for selection process declared by the entire respondent. Also over 70% respondents like to use CV/letter, Employer application, Aptitude tests as selection method. All small organisations don’t use Assessment centres and they 100% go through CV/letter. Sometimes empolyers use varity of recruitment methods or combination of methods to fill same vacancy ( Torrington, D; 2005).

Recruitment cost per graduate; As on cost table IV, Only 47 of 326 organisations spent less than £500 for per graduate recruitment, 110 organisations cost is £501 to £1000, 109 organisations cost is £1001 to £5000 and 60 organisations spent more than £5000 for per graduate recruitment. Here 157 respondents spent less than 1000 pound to do this.

Reasons for using each selection method; Here, (Table VI) Mr Branine tried to find out three most valuable reasons (Cost, Accuracy, and Fairness) for using each selection method. Seventy four percent of the respondents believe that cost effective method are CV/letter, Employer application form and Standard application form. 276 respondents express that Aptitude tests is best for accuracy and 95% said that Assessment centres is used to make sure the fairness in selection process. About 63% of the respondents considered that Interviews were used for three of them.

Employers’ expectation from employee; Although different sector employers preferred skills and qualities from employee can be varied, but in this study we got an average figure (Table VII). Desire to achieve/motivation, IT skills and Team work capabilities are most expected qualities by every employer. Over 57% important skills are Willingness to learn, Commitment, Oral communication skills and Problem-solving ability.

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Critical Evaluation of Methodology:

It’s really appreciable that this study is specifically about graduates attraction, graduate selection, graduate employers rather than doing general personnel selection study like Sackett and Lievens, 2008; Anderson and Witvliet, 2008; Lievens et al., 2002 etc. All the presented data is very comprehensible and arranged, so that any organisation or higher institutions can understand easily to make future plan or what changes they required. This study is also helpful for those who are going to be graduated and very soon will join in UK graduate labour market.

Here the writer got the details of only 326 organisations from his targeted 700 where only 12 categories organisation respondent his questionnaires. But various graduate employment sectors like Education and Teaching, Public administration and Defence, Hotels and Tourism, Publishing and Media, Law and Legal Services, Telecommunications, Garments, etc are not joined in this study. So it is hard to get effective information for these organisations from this study.

In this research, researcher used only one data collection method (structured questionnaire) to get his five key findings. We know that there are some limitations of this method. Firstly, the key weakness of structured questionnaire is very low response rate which is the curse for statistical analysis. Secondly, sometimes these questionnaires are completed by others who are not supposed to answer this or who are totally from other department. So this kind of answered questionnaires confused the result of research. Thirdly, there is a possibility to interpret the questions differently by respondents. But he could use in parallel other methods like interviews to collect authentic data for successful research.

. We saw the recession has a titanic effect on UK graduate labour market. In

that period, lots of graduate job cut and extremely low recruitment and no recruitment condition is passing most of the organisation. As an example we can say Lehman Brothers collapsed and Woolworth closed with 27,000 employees. In this study this topic is not discussed which really hammered UK job market

UK is multicultural countries where lots of graduate migrate from EU and other countries like Canada, Australia, Middle East, India and vice versa. So there is flow of graduate in and out every year. This matter is not explained in this study.

Also Political change can effect on graduate labour market. The developments of political relation like the continuing expansion of the European Union (EU) can increase the opportunities for immigration and emigration. And development of technology can influence the study topic.

In ending, After above critical evaluation of the methodology, my point is that this research has some limitation but it can be very helpful to fulfil basic needs of the research topic.

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CONCLUSION

On basis of above critical review of the study, we can say in conclusion that this research can play an important role for the graduate recruitment and selection in UK. This research can be a milestone to meet the expectation of graduate employers and to set-up a good guideline in higher education institutions. Although there is some limitation or weakness in the method of research, but all basic things are there. So, the research gives great contribution to the modern job field of UK. So the strength of the topic is awfully high.

In this research, the writer well explained about the recruitment policy of the UK graduate employer. Any new or old organisation easily can achieve valuable information respectively to make new policy or to review their existing graduate recruitment and selection policy. And also higher education institute can decide what great efforts they need to develop (key /core /transferable) skills in their graduates to work in many types of high-level employment.

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REFERENCES

1) Branine, M. (2008), “Graduate recruitment and selection in the UK: A study of the recent changes in methods and expectations”. Career Development International, Volume: 13; Issue: 6; Page: 497 – 513, Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

2) Stewart, J. and Knowles V. (2000), “Graduate recruitment and selection practices in small business.” Career Development International 5/1[2000] 21-38, Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

3) Beardwell, J. and Claydon, T. (2007), Human Resource Management (A contemporary approach), 5th ed., Prentice Hall; Chapter-06

4) Pollitt, P. (2005), “Testing graduates at Lloyds TSB: how banks select the people who will lead itinto the future?”, Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 13 No. 1,pp. 12-14.

5) AGR (Association of Graduate Recruiters) (1999), The AGR Salaries and Vacancies Survey, Summer, Association of Graduate Recruiters, London.

6) Mason, G.; Williams, G.; and Cranmer, S.; (Sept 2006) “Employability Skills Initiatives in Higher Education: What effects do they have on graduate labour market outcumes?” From: www.niesr.ac.uk/pdf/061006_91251.pdf

7) Nabi, G. R.; (2003)"Graduate employment and underemployment: opportunity for skill use and career experiences amongst recent business graduates". Education + Training. Vol-45, No 7, pp 371-382.

8) Torrington, D.; Hall, L. and Taylor, S. (2005), Human Resource Management, 6th ed., FT Prentice Hall; Chapter-06; Page 125.

9) Dessler, G.; Human Resource Management, 9th ed., Prentice Hal, Chapter-04.

10)Sackett, P.R. and Lievens, F. (2008), “Personnel selection”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 59, pp. 419-50.

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APPENDICES

Table I.Distribution of the respondents by sector

Sector Number

Percentage

RetailFinanceTransport Automobile PetrochemicalsEngineering Information technology Pharmaceuticals Building and construction Electronics Local authority Others Total sample size

746732123

34211716122810326

23201041

10655493

100

Table II.Distribution of respondents by size

Size of organization (employees) Number

Percentage

0-5051-100101-500501-1,0001,001+Total sample size

124358103110326

313183234100

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Table III.Methods of graduate Recruitment by Organization size

Size of organizationMethod n 0-50

(12)Percentage

n 51-100(43)Percentage


n 501-1,000(103)Percentage

n 1,000+(110)Percentage

n Total(326)Percentage

NewspapersCareers fairsCareers centersMilk roundBrochuresPresentationCareers literatureRecruitment agencyInternetOther

6020007448

5001800060303568

265904533112532

602200101276255875

371744319154885658

64307653325831597100

906755627667991010367

806553607465961010065

110913083110961041711079

9783277510087951510072

28728714014820918329150298244

855543456456 89 15 91 75

Table IV.Recruitment costs per graduate by organization size

Size n <£500Percentage n £501-1,000

Percentage n £1,001-5,000Percentage n >£5,000

Percentage n TotalPercentage

0-50 3 25 2 17 3 25 4 33 12 100

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51-100101-500501-1,0001,001+

88

1315

19141314

1174634

25304531

15212842

35362738

9121619

21201517

4358

103110

100100100100

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Table V.Methods of graduate Selection by organization size

Size of organizationMethod n <50

(12)Percentage



n 501-1,000(103)Percentage

n >1,000(110)Percentage

n Total(326)Percentage

CV/letterEmployer applicationStandard applicationInterviewAptitude testsAssessment centres Work placementOther

1232123033

10025171002502525

431514432251317

100343210050123040

4253445826182915

73917610045325025

82895710382587821

80865610080567620

588689110101817214

53788110092746513

23724620632623416219570

737663100725060 21

Table VI.Reasons for using each Selection method

Method n Cost Percentage

n Accuracy Percentage

n FairnessPercentage

n All threePercentage

n OtherPercentage

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CV/letterEmployer applicationStandard applicationInterviewAptitude testsAssessment centres Work placement

2602352281301823349

80727040561015

13722120582276235170

42686325827252

183212212254290309205

56656578899563

205182183205218218180

63565663676755

82334233493939

25101310151212

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Table VII.Skills and qualities employers look for

Skill/quality Percentage

Desire to achieve/motivationIT skillsTeam workWillingness to learnCommitment Oral communication skills Problem-solving abilityDrive/energyConfidence/assertivenessDegree classificationWritten communication skillsDependability/reliabilityPresentation skillsTime management"Other" (commercial awareness, competencies,Critical thinking, influence, decisiveness, potential)

8785827666625743363526221911

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graduate recruitment

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