The 5 Stages of Graduate Recruitment

If you’re in your penultimate or final year of study, you might have started thinking about what comes next. For many industries, graduate programs are standard for students to transition into after university. Some organisations recruit students as early as January for the following year’s intake.

In this blog post, we’ll be going over the graduate recruitment process. Read on to find out what you need to do, and how we can help.

1. Online applications

Most organisations recruit using an application form on their website to screen potential candidates. This usually involves filling out information such as your name, degree, and contact details and uploading a resume and cover letter if needed. Recruitment teams then look at your eligibility, sometimes using application tracking systems (ATS) to filter candidates automatically.

2. Testing

If you successfully get through to the next stage of the process, recruiters might ask you to undertake a psychometric assessment. Psychometric testing is typically done online and usually involves multiple-choice or short-answer questions about scenarios that you might encounter in the workplace. Organisations might also ask about your values and interests to test your suitability for their workplace. 

3. Video or Phone Interviews

This stage of interviews may fall before or after the testing stage, depending on the organisation’s process. Either way, the aim of a phone interview or pre-recorded video interview is to get a top-line overview of your attributes and skills and to verify that you are a good choice to progress through to the next stage. Remember to stay calm and collected and be honest and positive about why you would be a good fit for the program.

4. Assessment centres and final interviews

After progressing through psychometric testing and the video or phone interview stage, you will typically be invited to group or individual interviews at an assessment centre. In group interviews, you’ll meet other candidates and work through challenges and tasks while the organisations assess how well you apply your skills and work with others. The final individual interviews are typically conducted by a manager or division leader you would be working with and are usually structured like a traditional job interview. 

5. Offers

After the assessment centres and final interviews, managers or hiring officers will get together to select successful candidates, who will then be given a call with an official job offer. At this point, you’ll be told what the next steps are, including any onboarding, training, or paperwork you need to submit before your graduate program commences.  

Final thoughts

If you’re feeling nervous about any stage of the graduate recruitment process, check out some of our events on UTS CareerHub. We regularly run online and in-person events for UTS Students to learn how to stand out through the process and put their best foot forward.

Want a practice run of the grad recruitment process? Check out GradConnection’s Top100 awards.  

Featured image courtesy of Unsplash