Is it worth the risk for your business to hire new graduates?
Currently there is a high number of graduates finishing university eager to find a job. These are a new group of potential employees expanding the job market. As a startup and small business owner, you need to consider whether any of the newest members of the workforce can help grow your enterprise.
There is often a risk associated with hiring graduates into any business, these are some issues for you to consider:
They’re Ambitious and Eager to Learn
Recent graduate, are ambitious and have a high desire to learn new things. As a young employee, they are likely to be more flexible with their time, and give more time to their work responsibilities. They may also be more willing to spend early mornings and late nights in the office, compared to more seasoned employees, who simply may not.
They Lack Experience
While some experience and some job responsibilities can be taught. The lack of experience could be problematic and training them to cope in a working environment, may not be time and cost effective. With recent university graduates, it isn’t so much about the workload as much it is how they handle the other obligations of being in an office environment for the first time. The questions you need to ask your self about the candidate are: Will they work well with others? Can they handle taking orders? Will they treat customers with the respect required of the position?
They can be relatively cheap
Hiring a recent graduate allows you access to a less expensive labor pool, this relates to the lack of work experience and high demand from graduates to find a employment. However they are only cheap relative to hiring an experienced member of staff.
How Will They Handle the Responsibilities of a Full-Time Job?
Just because you’re hiring someone with a degree, it does not make them right for the work force.A further question to ask about the candidate: can they handle the responsibilities that come with being a full-time employee? Will they be able to get to the office on time? Will they stay until all of the work is done? Will they work overtime if needed?
How do you find the best graduate for your startup business?
Being involved in the student community helps, sponsoring student societies and running on site talks is a great way to exposes your business. Another way is to look at recruiting events like SilliconMilkRound about or working with Graduate Recruitment Services from Gradweb.
Hiring graduates is a fantastic opportunity for your business to grow, however like with any other hire for your team you need to carefully consider each candidate.
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- Improve Your Recruitment Process (thestartupmag.com)
- Five tips for quick and efficient recruitment (thestartupmag.com)
- How Peer to Peer lending is financing top startups (thestartupmag.com)
