2011 SHL and TargetJobs Talent Potential in Graduates

7/27/2019 2011 SHL and TargetJobs Talent Potential in Graduates

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SHL White Paper 2011

SHL & TARGETjobsTalent Potential in Graduates

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www.shl.com SHL White Paper 2011 / Page 3

Executive SummaryGraduate recruiters are increasingly looking for innovative

ways to identify high quality talent in an ever more

competitive marketplace. This white paper presents the

findings from the second TARGETjobs Undergraduate of

the Year Awards, in association with SHL.

In it, we examine the UK graduate recruitment

marketplace, discuss the challenges faced by graduate

recruiters and present an insight into the work-relevant

skills possessed by undergraduates, including the extent to

which these skills meet the demands of employers.

Graduate Recruitment

Graduate recruiters are facing an increasingly challenging

set of market conditions. Not only do they frequently have

to select from thousands of applications in an objective,

fair and defensible way, they also have to manage this

process effectively in order to protect their employer and

consumer brand. At the same time, continuing economic

pressures mean they have to do all this while maintaining

tight control over resource and budgets.

Challenges facing graduate recruiters include:

Provide a positive business outcome - Graduate

recruiters remain under increasing pressure to keepprocesses efficient and costs down while at the same time

trying to meet the demands of corporate objectives for

the highest quality candidates. Ensuring a return on

investment is now even more essential in order to

demonstrate to the business the value of the graduate

recruitment and development programme.

Manage high volumes of applications - The UK Graduate

Careers Survey 20111, confirms that many students

graduating in the ‘class of 2011’ began their job search

much earlier than usual and that finalists have made a

third more job applications to graduate employers than

last year - taking application levels to an all time high.In addition, a recent SHL survey found that 29% of

graduate recruiters now receive more than 250

applications per role2. Ashley Hever, European Talent

Acquisition Manager at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, sponsor of

the TARGETjobs Management Undergraduate of the Year

Award, has experienced similar high levels of applications,

both for the Award itself and for the company’s graduate

scheme. He emphasised the importance in both processes

of training and involving line managers and giving

candidates proper feedback, commenting, “we aim to giveall our candidates impactful feedback throughout their

application. We feel that anyone who takes the time to

apply to Enterprise Rent-A-Car should receive feedback

and we want to provide all applicants, successful and

unsuccessful with the best possible experience.”

Hire the right graduate - With so many graduates to

choose from, graduate recruiters are challenged with

finding the right graduates for their roles. Exacerbating

the issue is the fact that the graduate talent pool is not

limited to the UK and spans international borders too. The

main issues that arise in employing the wrong graduate

include high turnover, wasted recruitment time, training

and resource costs and poor engagement and motivation.Also, an inability to provide a suitable talent pipeline

means that your organisation may not be able to meet its

corporate objectives in the long term.

Ineffective selection techniques - There are a large

number of selection techniques available to shortlist

candidates. 70% of graduate recruiters regard a 2:1 as

imperative or important to reduce a high volume of

candidates. However, educational qualifications are not the

best predictor of workplace performance3.

Graduate recruiters are faced with the task of sifting out

unsuitable candidates earlier in the recruitment process toreduce the high volumes, allowing them time to focus on

the candidates that best meet the requirements of the

role.

In addition, the graduate recruitment marketplace also

presents challenges:

Too many graduates, not enough jobs - While 60% of

employers expect to recruit more graduates in 20114, the

number of graduates on the market is on the up too - from

2008/09 to 2009/10 the number of all UK postgraduates

increased by 10%5. Despite this increase in vacancies,

these recruiters have confirmed that a third of the

vacancies that they are promoting for 2011 are expected tobe filled by undergraduates who have had work experience

with their organisations, such as internships, industrial

placements, vacation schemes or sponsorships.

Graduate unemployment is at a 15 year high with

approximately 20% of 2010 graduates still unemployed,

which is double the figure of 2008. The desire to find

graduate level work is such that 73% would consider

moving abroad to find a job6.

> Talent Potential in Graduates

1 www.highfliers.co.uk/download/Release2011.pdf2 SHL Graduate Research - Graduate Intelligence (2011)3 Mike Smith, UMIST4 www.highfliers.co.uk/download/Release2011.pdf5 http://www.hesa.ac.uk/dox/pressOffice/sfr153/SFR153_table_1.pdf6 SHL Graduate Research - Graduate Intelligence (2011)



www.shl.comSHL White Paper 2011 / Page 4


Work experience is key - Almost all of the UK’s leadinggraduate employers are offering work experience

programmes for students and recent graduates during

the 2010-2011 academic year7.

43% of graduate employers surveyed regard work

experience as the most important thing to look at on an

application8. This is echoed by Ashley Hever at

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, where a variety of work

experience and placement schemes are in operation.

“We see work experience as key. While it’s great if a

candidate has been on a formal programme, any

customer facing role can be very helpful. We have found

that those who have been on placements with us havethen acted as fantastic brand ambassadors for us back

on campus.” Nearly two-thirds of recruiters warn that

graduates who had no previous work experience at all

are unlikely to be successful during the selection process

and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for

their organisations’ graduate programmes9.

A year-round recruitment season - Attracting and

recruiting graduates is increasingly a year-round

‘business as usual’ activity. Organisations that opened up

their applications earlier than usual – in June or July,

rather than September or October - said this had

contributed to a much higher volume of early

applications from students and recent graduates10.

Implications

The factors outlined imply that recruiters:

• are looking for scarce skills in an expanding pool

• are looking for distinctive and effective ways to find

the right graduates for their organisations

• must achieve more with fewer resources

• are at risk of losing top talent due to overseas brain-

drain.

One way in which recruiters are addressing these

challenges is to adopt a more proactive approach,

engaging candidates earlier in their pre-employment

career. The research we present here provides an insight

into one such type of intervention conducted by a group

of 12 leading companies for the TARGETjobs

Undergraduate of the Year Awards, in association with

SHL. We present a vital insight into the pipeline of talent

that will hit a crowded graduate jobs market in 2012-2013.

TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the YearAwards, in association with SHL

The TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the Year Awards, in

association with SHL, an event in its second year, is

designed to raise the profile of employability skills on

campus, engage academic departments in identifying

their best undergraduates and connect employers with

the very best students who have a winning mixture of

personal and academic skills.

The Awards recognise the best in upcoming

undergraduate talent in 12 key disciplines. Each award is

sponsored by a graduate employer with a keen interestin attracting students from one of these areas.

More than 3,800 students took part in the process for

this year’s Awards, with a final shortlist of 121 attending

the Awards ceremony in London.

The Awards provide an excellent way for employers to

connect with graduate candidates an entire year earlier

than they traditionally would, managing their candidate

pipeline in a strategic way and further building their

employer brand among students.

Results

What are employers looking for?

The eight broad areas of work-related skills described by

SHL’s Universal Competency Framework™ (UCF) were

rated for importance (to support business objectives and

drive organisational success) by each sponsor

organisation.

7

www.highfliers.co.uk/download/Release2011.pdf8 SHL Graduate Research - Graduate Intelligence (2011)9 www.highfliers.co.uk/download/Release2011.pdf10 www.highfliers.co.uk/download/Release2011.pdf




Graduate employers most value behaviours and skillswhich demonstrate the ability to work effectively, both

individually and within teams.

They do not appear to value, or perhaps expect, high levels

or commercial understanding. Candidates applying for

graduate vacancies need to be aware that they need a blend

of task and people-focused skills to be successful in securing

a graduate position. Combining a degree qualification and

being commercially aware simply isn’t enough.

Work experience may provide limited commercial

exposure, but does provide the experience of how to

interact and behave with people in a businessenvironment and these are skills highly valued by

graduate recruiters.

The times, they are a-changing...

Interestingly, the skills employers’ value the most has

changed in the past 12 months. In 2010, the graduate

recruiters involved in this project, most valued task-

focused skills in ‘Organising & Executing’ and ‘Analysing

& Interpreting.’ This shift in importance may be to do

with the speed at which corporate objectives have

needed to change in order to achieve success as the

global economy recovers.

The diagram below illustrates how the skills were rated, from most important to least important, across all sponsors.


What is the UCF?The UCF sets out the key behaviours that drive performance using a standard, scientifically

proven hierarchy that provides the vital common language to enable person-job fit.

Supporting &

Cooperatingworks eectively with individuals and teams

successfully persuades and inuences

clear analytical thinking

systematic and organised

copes well with setbacks and change

understanding of business, commerce and nance

handles situations & problems with creativity

takes control, exercises leadership

Interacting &

Presenting

Analysing &

Interpreting

Organising &

Executing

Adapting &

Coping

Enterprising &

Performing

Creating &

Conceptualising

Leading &

Deciding

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

M o s t V a l u e d

L e a s t V a l u e d




What skills do students have?Using the same taxonomy of skills that describes

employers ‘wants’, we present below a rank ordered list

of the areas in which the students show natural

potential, from highest potential to weakest potential,

based on the assessments they undertook.

What is striking about the above is just how clear cut the

mismatch is between what employers want and what

students, as a whole, have to offer.

Students show key strengths in task delivery and

problem solving – yet the two most valued skills –

‘Supporting & Cooperating’ and ‘Interacting &

Presenting’ – are right at the bottom of the list of

student skills.

The key strengths of students in task delivery and

problem solving are perhaps not surprising given the

academic nature of their courses and the increasing

need to balance multiple courses, projects and part-time

work into a student timetable.

It is surprising however, that in spite of the rhetoric ofGovernment and industry, the student talent pipeline still

shows a lack of potential for key interpersonal skills.

Perhaps undergraduates have not yet developed, or have

the ability to convey their skills in the varying types of

interaction required in the workplace – from face-to-face,

telephone, online and, of course, social media

techniques.

Although undergraduates and graduates are the

generation who lead and utilise communications through

social media, it appears they have not yet recognised its

use to promote or differentiate themselves against other

candidates to prospective employers. SHL research

found, for example, that only 5% of graduates11 use

LinkedIn12 to apply for jobs.

Of course this does not mean that no students taking

part in the awards had the skills required by each

sponsor. Indeed, the experience of the sponsor

organisations was an extremely positive one, with all

sponsors able to identify highly skilled and talented

individuals.


Employers Most Wanted: Undergraduate Calibre:

Supporting &

Cooperating

Interacting &

Presenting

Analysing &

Interpreting

Organising &

Executing

Adapting &

Coping

Enterprising &

Performing

Creating &Conceptualising

Leading &

Deciding

Organising &

Executing

Analysing &

Interpreting

Creating &

Conceptualising

Enterprising &

Performing

Adapting &

Coping

Leading &

Deciding

Supporting &Cooperating

Interacting &

Presenting

11 SHL Graduate Research - Graduate Intelligence (2011)12 www.linkedin.com




Conclusions &RecommendationsThe TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the Year Awards, in

association with SHL has given us a real insight into the

2012 graduate pipeline. Here is a cohort which is

progressing its way through its studies towards an

uncertain future in the employment market.

Advice for Employers

Look for talent earlier - The overall view of the sponsororganisations was one of enthusiasm - they found the

calibre of the shortlisted applicants incredibly high. They

were able to make a substantial number of offers for

internships and future graduate roles on the basis of this

competition. Indeed this competition appears to be

dragging the graduate recruitment process into the

second year of university, even earlier than has been

seen before in the vast majority of companies. Ashley

Hever, Enterprise Rent-A-Car agrees: “There is real merit

in looking for talent earlier and developing and nurturing

relationships to attract the best. We believe that

employers will look to do this more and more in the

future.”

Develop an attraction and selection strategy -

Graduate employers continue to have strong needs for

graduates, but they need the right ‘fit’. Internships and

sandwich courses help to provide some of this fit,

however, high applicant numbers make rigorous short-

listing essential. Attraction and selection processes

should be reviewed with this in mind to ensure they

remain cost effective and fit for purpose.

Implement a process to help you manage high volume

applications - Select a HR information or applicant

tracking system and integrate this with graduaterecruitment solutions of the type used in this research to

provide a consistent, valid and fair way to measure skills

and deal with large volumes of candidates. 13

Make sure you have a talent strategy - As the needs of

an organisation change year-on-year to meet market

challenges, so does its demands on talent. “60% of

companies do not have a talent strategy but believe

talent is critical to success” 14 so it is essential to ensure

your business has the talent pipeline in place to remain

competitive. Reviewing your graduate programme everyyear should involve identifying those competencies that

will help your business succeed in a particular market.

Identifying graduates with those competencies means

that you will be better placed to meet your corporate

objectives as well as help you to develop your graduate

talent more effectively in the future.

Identify those with the right skills - Defining

competencies or key behaviours is the first step in hiring

the right people for the job and getting the most out of

graduates. By measuring candidates against the

competencies that are crucial to success in a role,

graduate recruiters can ensure they have an objectiveframework for selecting candidates and developing staff.

The graduate talent pipeline continues to have great

strengths and development needs, the latter notably in

softer skills. There is little evidence that this is improving

despite constant changes to the education system,

including trying to make it more team and project based.

This increases the value of objective assessment

processes in identifying graduates with the right skills.

Advice for Candidates

Don’t wait until you graduate - Graduate recruiters areincreasingly looking for innovative ways to identify high

quality talent in an ever more competitive marketplace –

this includes sourcing talent earlier. Second year

programmes are a way to actively engage with

recruitment processes earlier.

Develop your ‘employability’ skills - Although you may

be on target for a first-class honours degree and have a

strong commercial awareness, this is not enough when

looking to secure a graduate position. Find out what

skills prospective employers want you to have, and take

the lead in developing them as much as possible.

Get work experience - Work experience can facilitate

graduate employment but also build valuable skills that

support employability more generally. With nearly two-

thirds of recruiters warning that graduates who had no

previous work experience at all are unlikely to be

successful during the selection process , getting work

experience is essential. As noted above by Ashley Hever

at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, “any customer-facing work

experience is very desirable and shouldn’t be

underestimated.”


13 http://www.shl.com/WhatWeDo/Pages/GraduateRecruitment.aspx14 Corporate Research Forum, Talent Top Table Discussion, 2011




Develop a professional online profile - Graduaterecruiters are increasingly looking at social media as a

way to source, target and reach the best candidates.

Make sure they find you by creating a professional online

profile – e.g. on LinkedIn - that is separate to your

personal profile.

Differentiate yourself - Ensure career development is

high on your agenda – some graduate recruiters receive

250 applications per role. Differentiate yourself, so you

are more appealing to recruiters. Ashley Hever also

advises candidates to be absolute clear why they want to

work for the particular organisation to which they are

applying.

Practise makes perfect! - With more graduate recruiters

looking at objective methods to select candidates for

their graduate programmes, prepare yourself and

practise the types of assessment they will ask you to

take. There are various books available or visit

www.SHLDirect.com


For more information about this paper, please contact:

Carmel Blair - [email protected]




Appendix

TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the Year Award, in association with SHL – categories and sponsors

Accountancy, Consultancy and Economics Undergraduate of the Year.....................................................sponsored by KPMGArts and Humanities Undergraduate of the Year ............................ ............................. ................sponsored by Barclays Wealth

Business and Finance Undergraduate of the Year ............................ ............................. ...............sponsored by Morgan Stanley

Construction Engineering and Design Undergraduate of the Year............................................sponsored by Laing O’Rourke

Engineering Undergraduate of the Year ........................... ............................. ............................. .........................sponsored by e.on

First Year of the Year.............................................................................................................................sponsored by Ernst & Young

IT and Computer Science Undergraduate of the Year ............................. .............................. .......................sponsored by the BT

Law Undergraduate of the Year ............................. ............................. ............................. .....................sponsored by Mayer Brown

Low Carbon Undergraduate of the Year.................................................................................................sponsored by EDF Energy

Management Undergraduate of the Year ............................ ............................. ...................sponsored by Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Mathematics Undergraduate of the Year.............................................................................................................sponsored by RBS

Structures and Systems Undergraduate of the Year ............................. ............................. ..........................sponsored by Airbus

The candidates sat a number of leading assessments and questionnaires.

The Occupational Personality Questionnaire to measure core behavioural preferences and competencies.

http://www.shl.com/WhatWeDo/PersonalityAssessment/Pages/OPQQuestionnaire.aspx

The Graduate Scenarios Questionnaire to measure the ability to make key leadership decisions.

http://www.shl.com/WhatWeDo/AbilityScreeningAndTesting/Pages/Scenarios.aspx

The Verify Inductive Reasoning test to measure the ability to work flexibly with unfamiliar information.

http://www.shl.com/WhatWeDo/AbilityScreeningAndTesting/Pages/Verify.aspx

The results of these tools were then mapped against a generic set of managerial competencies from the Universal

Competency Framework™ (UCF).http://www.shl.com/WhatWeDo/Competency/Pages/UniversalCompetencyFramework.aspx

ReferencesCorporate Research Forum, Talent Top Table Discussion, 2011

High Fliers Research, 2011

www.highfliers.co.uk/download/Release2011.pdf

Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA), 2010

www.hesa.ac.uk/dox/pressOffice/sfr153/SFR153_table_1.pdf

LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com

Mike Smith, UMIST

SHL - www.shl.com

SHL Graduate Research - Graduate Intelligence (2011)

Acknowledgements

SHL - Carmel Blair, Tony Mays, Howard Grosvenor and Karen Reevell for their contributions.

With thanks to Ashley Hever, European Talent Acquisition Manager, Enterprise Rent-A-Car.




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2011 SHL and TargetJobs Talent Potential in Graduates