How to Hire Career-Ready Students

Transcription

1 How to Hire Career-Ready Students 1

2 Advertising your jobs to college students is the easy part. Hiring a college graduate that has the skills you need and is likely to be successful in their new role? Not so much. We all know the appalling statistic that nearly 58% of employers have found a lie on a resume (CareerBuilder, 2014); wouldn t it be nice to find a better way to ensure your entry-level hires are not only a good fit for the job, but likely to be prosper at it? One of the hardest things to know about a student is whether they possess the skills to successfully transition to a full-time role. Based on a recent task force aiming to tackle this very issue, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE, 2015) defines career readiness as the attainment and demonstration of requisite competencies that broadly prepare college graduates for a successful transition into the workplace. Certain competencies are crucial to ensuring that your next entry-level hire is a successful one. Being aware of which competencies a student should have coming out of college, knowing exactly how these competencies are needed for the role you re filling, and then finding the applicant that best fits it sounds like a lot, but it s easier than you d think. Here s a foolproof guide for figuring out if a student is career ready, and how to make sure you re the one that finds and hires them. Good luck! 2

3 Career Competencies are the Key A recent NACE taskforce of higher-ed and business leaders determined that when students possess 7 distinct career competencies, they re more likely to make a successful transition into the workforce (2015): NACE Competency Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Oral/Written Communications Teamwork/Collaboration Information Technology Application Leadership Professionalism/Work Ethic Career Management Description Students who possess the ability to rationally approach decisions and issues make more successful employees. Their ability to absorb and disseminate information and data helps them solve problems in inventive, new ways. Being able to communicate with one s colleagues is a vital part of nearly every job available to recent graduates; those students who demonstrate the ability to be both articulate and persuasive in both written and spoken assignments are far more likely to transition into a working situation. No man is an island, nor is any employee one. Students who demonstrate the ability to work together solving problems, accepting and constructively using feedback, and collaborating make great team members in the work force. Many students know how to use Snapchat and Instagram, but those that can use more technical tools demonstrate understanding of the proper and appropriate uses of technology. The increasing impact of tech in the workplace means these students are great assets to projects that require such knowledge. While most students won t be hired into a leadership role directly following graduation, today s job market creates opportunities for leaders to shine at nearly any level in a company. Students who display the ability to focus and motivate others toward a common goal are also likely to successfully become a part of whatever team they are working on. Lines about professionalism have become blurry as jeans, baseball caps, and flexible start times have expanded into some industries; even if your company is relatively lax about traditional codes of professionalism, it s an important asset in new graduates. The student who shows up dressed for the job they want will likely show an equal level of commitment to their work. The ability for a student to be introspective and forward thinking about their career is a strong predictor of their ability to think the same way about their tasks and the projects they are assigned. 3

4 Assessing for Competency While you may be able to assess how much leadership ability a student has or how professional a student is during an interview, many of these competencies aren t necessarily going to be obvious during the few minutes you have to discuss the student s academic and professional background. A Better Way: Ask for Work Samples Up Front as Evidence of Competencies Instead of waiting to gauge the NACE competencies during an interview, there is a way you can start learn about a student s abilities before the interview even begins: ask for work samples with your application. A work sample is the strongest predictor of competency for a role (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998), and it s also one of the best ways to assess whether a student possesses the NACE competencies. Students produce many work samples through both their academic and professional careers before graduation, and often these are neglected once their diploma is in-hand. Rather than discarding these valuable examples of a student s ability, requesting them as part of the hiring process allows you to gain valuable insight into areas you could never understand through an interview alone (even a structured one, which is the third strongest predictor of job competency). A student who has examples of collaborative team projects can demonstrate this better by showing you the project than by describing it to you; providing a copy of an assignment which required multiple forms of applied technology shows you exactly how strong the student is with Information Technology Application. Work samples are your greatest ally in determining if a student is ready to be hired. Students already have them. All you have to do is ask. 4

5 Successful Hiring Tip: Write a List of Competencies & Work Samples Knowing the competencies is one thing, but how will you know if the work samples a student provides demonstrate how they ll apply that competency in the role you re trying to fill? Think about the kinds of deliverables a new hire will be asked to provide in their first three months. Are they responsible for creating posts for the company blog? Will they need to present using Microsoft Office PowerPoint? Is successfully generating sales leads through outbound going to be an important part of their success? All of these deliverables require a student to have strong Oral and Written Communication competency (as well as a few of the other competencies, but let s try to keep things simple for this example). Knowing this, create a two-column list. On one side, list the competencies the student will need; on the other, think the deliverables they d be asked to produce. Then simplify the deliverables into work samples, and write down this list. If a student needs to write blog posts, create PowerPoint decks, or write sales copy, those are the work samples you should ask for. See worksheet on the next page to get you started. 5

6 WORKSHEET: TRANSLATING COMPETENCIES INTO WORK SAMPLES NACE Competency Work Sample to Request from Candidate Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Oral/Written Communications Teamwork/Collaboration Information Technology Application Leadership Professionalism/Work Ethic Career Management Capstone projects, challenges, hack-a-thons, labs/experiments, code samples, writing samples Writing samples, reports, research, term papers, presentations, debates and public speaking activities Group projects, club activities and events, extracurricular activities, sports and athletic competition Multi-disciplinary projects, social media activity samples, presentations (Prezi, PPT, Sway, PDF) Club leadership roles, team projects, event and activity planning, public speaking Writing samples, examples of public speaking, multiple projects, club activity and extracurricular activities Professional intro that tells story of academic/career arc 6

7 At the End of the Day Hiring can be a stressful process for everyone, and there s no need for it to be. By listing the competencies and work samples you d like to see, finding the best applicants, and asking them to demonstrate their competency through a visual portfolio, you can narrow your entry-level hiring efforts to a shorter list of more qualified candidates. This saves you time and money on the front end, and results in a more qualified, productive hire on the back end. That sounds like success to us. 7

8 References & Resources Bob Sutton, (2009). Selecting Talent: The Upshot from 85 Years of Research. CareerBuilder, (2014.) Fifty-eight Percent of Employers Have Caught a Lie on a Resume, According to a New CareerBuilder Survey. Frank Schmidt & John Hunter, (1998). The Validity and Utility of Selection Models in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings. National Association of Colleges and Employers, (2015). Career Readiness for the New College Graduate: A Definition and Competencies. 8