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Getting Graduate Hiring, Onboarding & Retention Right First Time
Getting graduate recruitment right has been a hot topic for decades and the subject of countless studies by Occupational Psychologists.
University and College Graduates pose a dilemma for recruiters. On one-hand, successful completion of their studies should suggest that they can think critically and transfer that ability, coupled with their subject knowledge into the workplace. Yet, they often arrive with little ‘track-record’ in terms of relevant work experience to an accounting or bookkeeping business.
How does an employer determine whether a graduate is likely to thrive in their workplace? Typically, the answer is through candidate testing and assessment focused on potential and latent ability, meaning that graduates are the most tested group of candidates globally, in all professions.
As an employer, the good news is that all the hard work in terms of assessment design has been done for you. All you need to do is identify which assessments most closely matches what you want from your graduates and slot it into your hiring process.
What Does a Graduate Candidate Assessment Look Like?
If you’re a Big-4 accounting firm, or like to copy the Big-4 way of doing things, a graduate assessment would be a whole-day Assessment Center of interviews, role-play exercises, team problem solving tasks, along with reviewing psychometric and application information gathered in the screening process. This might be on-line, in person or a mix of both.
If you’re not into the Big-4 way of mass graduate hiring campaigns, then an effective and more easily applied approach would include:
1. Does this graduate have the intellectual horsepower to perform as an accountant?
Critical Reasoning, also known as Critical Thinking, is among the most prized attributes associated with success in professional, management and graduate roles.
It has been consistently found to be the best single predictor of occupational and academic outcomes for decades and is commonly used in graduate hiring campaigns to identify people with potential to perform the complexities of accounting roles.
Critical Reasoning Tests have three core elements:
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Critical Numerical Reasoning - to assess effectiveness at making sense of data and turning it into useful numerical information by spotting trends, outliers & making calculations/observations that bring data to life.
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Critical Verbal Reasoning - testing effectiveness of comprehending complex or ambiguous text or spoken information, summarising long documents, picking out salient points, determining between true & false information & strong from weak arguments.
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Abstract Reasoning - to assess ability to grasp new concepts outside of previous experience, comprehend abstract sequences such as workflows and whether a graduate candidate is likely to be a worthwhile recipient of the hours, effort and money invested in their training
You are 2 clicks away from adding Critical Reasoning Testing to your graduate hiring process.
2. What else should my graduate hiring process include?
Critical Reasoning testing is going to accurately uncover whether your graduate candidate has the capacity to perform in the complexities of an accounting career, but tells you nothing about their aspirations, self-confidence, conscientiousness, communications style, how they like to be managed, what is likely to motivate or demotivate them or how they handle challenging or stressful situations.
With less work experience to draw on for examples of how they respond to differing situations, a thorough graduate hiring process would include a personality questionnaire designed to uncover how they are likely to handle accounting ethical issues, establish and maintain effective relationships with colleagues and clients, solve problems, adapt to change and tolerate stress.
You are 2 clicks away from adding an Accountant-Specific Personality Profiling Questionnaire to your graduate hiring process.
Lastly, keep in mind that whilst interviews and reference checks play a part in the hiring process for graduates, their lesser amount of relevant work experience diminishes interview and reference checking value as you’re focusing much more on future potential than past experience.
Happy hiring and get in touch with any questions on securing the best graduates out there ahead of your competitors.
Steve Evans | Steve founded Accountests alongside a career using his expertise in candidate testing and assessment to support employers to attract, recruit, and develop talent.
